A Pentecostal Hermeneutic - Spirit, Scripture, and Community
A Pentecostal Hermeneutic - Spirit, Scripture, and Community
A Pentecostal Hermeneutic - Spirit, Scripture, and Community
Hermeneutic
Spirit, Scripture and
Community
Kenneth ). Archer
A P entecostal H ermeneutic
Spirit, Scripture a n d C ommunity
A P entecostal
H ermeneutic
Spirit, Scripture and Community
Kenneth J. A rcher
CPT Press
Cleveland. Tennessee USA
Published by CPT Press
900 Walker ST N E
Cleveland, TN 37311
email: cptpress@pentecostaltheology.org
website: www.pentecostaltheology.org
ISBN-10: 0981965113
ISBN-13: 9780981965116
Co ntents
Preface ix
Preface to the Paperback Edition x
Acknowledgements xii
Abbreviations xiv
Chapter 1
Defining Pentecostalism:
A Diverse and Paradoxical Endeavor 11
Social and Theological Influences 15
Restorationist Revivalism’s Influence upon
Pentecostalism 16
Holiness Influences upon Pentecostalism 18
Modernity’s Influence upon Pentecostalism 22
The 3-D View of Pentecostalism 30
The Early Pentecostal Worldview:
A Paramodern Perspective 38
Summary 45
Chapter 2
Shifting Paradigms:
The Hermeneutical Context of the Early Pentecostals 47
Common Sense Realism: The Dominant Hermeneutical
Context of the Early 19th Century 48
The Conservative Approaches to Biblical Interpretation 55
Academic Anti-Modernist Fundamentalists 55
The Popularistic Pre-critical Bible Reading Approach 62
vi Spirit, Scripture and Community
Chapter 3
Early Pentecostal Biblical Interpretation 89
Contemporary Explanations of the Interpretation of
Scripture by Early Pentecostals 89
Russell Spittler 90
Grant Wacker 93
David Reed and Donald Dayton 98
The Bible Reading Method: An Alternative Explanation 99
With Regard to Baptism in the Holy Spirit 103
Charles Fox Parham 103
William Seymour 105
R.A. Torrey: A Holiness View of Spirit Baptism 109
With Regard to Baptism in the Name of Jesus 112
Frank Ewart 113
G.T. Haywood 118
Summary 125
Chapter 4
Pentecostal Story: The Hermeneutical Filter 128
The Community Story as the Influential
Hermeneutical Filter 129
Pentecostal Story as a Hermeneutical Narrative Tradition 131
Pentecostal Story and the Making of Meaning 134
The Pentecostal Story 136
The Latter Rain Motif 136
The Early and Latter Rain Motif According to Myland,
Taylor and Lawrence 140
Primitivistic Impulse 150
The Pentecostal Story as the Central Narrative Convictions 156
Pentecostals and Their Oral-Aural Relationship
with Scripture 161
The Topeka Kansas Outpouring 163
Contents vii
Chapter 5
Current Pentecostal Hermeneutical Concerns 172
Essential Themes of the Pentecostal Community 174
The Modernization of the Early Pentecostal Hermeneutic 177
Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Debates 180
The Hermeneutical Debate Initiated from Outside the
Pentecostal Community 184
The Hermeneutical Debate within the Pentecostal
Community 189
Critique of the Evangelical Historical Critical Method 200
Summary 209
Chapter 6
A Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 212
A Narrative Strategy that Embraces a Tridactic
N egotiation for Meaning 213
The Contribution of the Biblical Text 215
Semiotics 215
Inner Texture and the Bible Reading Method 222
The Contribution of the Pentecostal Community 223
The Pentecostal Hermeneutical Community:
The Context 224
Narrative Criticism: The Method 225
Reader Response Criticism: A Necessary Component 233
The Contribution of the Holy Spirit 247
The Spirit’s Voice Heard In and Through the
Pentecostal Community 248
The Spirit’s Voice In the Community 248
The Spirit’s Voice Coming from Outside Yet
Back Through the Community 250
The Spirit’s Voice Comes In and Through Scripture 251
Inviting the Holy Spirit Into the Hermeneutical Process 252
Validating the Meaning 253
Summary 260
viii Spirit, Scripture and Community
Chapter 7
Conclusion and Contribution 261
Contributions of this Monograph 265
Implications and New Questions Raised by the Study 266
Glossary 268
Bibliography 270
Index of Authors 289
Index of Scripture References 292
P reface
This monograph is a slightly revised version of my doctoral thesis
entided, ‘Forging A New Path: A Contemporary Pentecostal Her
meneutical Strategy for the 21st Century’ undertaken at the Univer
sity of St Andrews, Scotland and successfully defended in 2001. I
am honored to have the dissertation published in the Journal of
Pentecostal Theology Supplemental series because many of those
whose work have been published in the series have contributed to
me personally and shaped my theological understanding. I offer this
monograph to the larger Christian community as a testimony of the
rich theological tradition called Pentecostalism. I also hope this
study will be a blessing to my fellow Pentecostals worldwide as we
continue to share our story.
The purpose of this monograph is to present a critically in
formed contemporary Pentecostal hermeneutical strategy that is
rooted in Pentecostal identity, in its stories, beliefs and practices.
The contemporary hermeneutical strategy is anchored in the Pente
costal community’s identity while simultaneously being a critical
hermeneutical strategy for the interpretation of Scripture in the
production of a praxis-oriented theology. The contemporary strat
egy recognizes the combined contributions of the Spirit, Scripture
and community in a dialogical interdependent interpretive process.
The primary interpretive method is narrative, which is explored in
relation to community identity and in relation to biblical interpreta
tion.
Pentecostalism was a paramodern movement. The interpretive
method of early Pentecostals testifies to this reality. As Pentecostals
entered academic communities, their interpretive method became
both mainstream and modernistic through the adaptation of the
historical critical method(s). The proposed hermeneutic moves be
yond the impasse created by modernity and pushes Pentecostals
into the contemporary context by critically re-appropriating early
Pentecostal ethos and interpretive practices for a contemporary
Pentecostal community.
P reface to th e Paperback E dition
The appearance of this edition comes with great celebration on my
part and much tedious editorial work on the part of others. Allow
me to express my deep gratitude to John Christopher Thomas and
Lee Roy Martin for their editorial assistance. About twenty years
ago Chris Thomas had a vision for making available quality Pente
costal academic work at affordable prices. With CPT Press he,
joined by Lee Roy Martin, has recovered that vision. I am thrilled to
have my monograph published in a durable paperback binding and
readable typeset that is reasonably price. Also, I appreciate graduate
assistants, Shawn Hitt, Wes Hunter and Chris Rouse, along with
seminary graduate Robb Blackaby, who worked diligently on the
monograph.
I am especially pleased that this paperback edition will be afford
able to majority world readers, as well as students. To my delight,
Gary Flokstra, director of 4 the World Resource Distributors
(4WRD), contacted me in late February 2009, asking if my mono
graph was available in paperback at a reasonable rate. He has com
municated his intention to place copies of this work in Pentecostal
colleges in the majority world. His interest, along with other af
firmations, testifies to the importance of making the work available
in a reasonably priced edition. This CPT Press paperback edition
will help to realize my desire for an affordable publication of my
monograph.
Interestingly, unbeknownst to Gary, his father Jerry Flokstra was
my biblical hermeneutics teacher when I was student at Central Bi
ble College. 'Brother’ Flokstra, as we called him, raised serious con
cerns about Pentecostals’ adoption of Dispensationalism and won
dered if Pentecostals might need to reflect upon the broader issues
of hermeneutics. He whetted my appetite for future study of 'Pen
tecostal’ hermeneutics. It is my hope that this monograph will con
tinue to contribute to the ongoing dialogue concerning Pentecos
tal/ charismatic hermeneutics and theological method.
Preface to Paperback Edition xi
Kenneth J. Archer
March 2009
A cknowledgements
I want to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for his liberating salvation.
Hope and healing have been graciously extended to me in numer
ous ways by means of the Holy Spirit and the Pentecostal commu
nity. I am truly grateful for all the Lord has done.
There are many people who have helped me during this aca
demic journey. I am particularly grateful for the support of two of
my professors from Ashland Theological Seminary, D r JoAnn Ford
Watson and Dr O. Kenneth Walther. They believed in me and en
couraged me to pursue a PhD.
Professor Richard Bauckham, my doctoral supervisor, provided
the helpful guidance that enabled me to complete the thesis. I en
joyed and still miss the times spent in his office at St Mary’s College
discussing the early stages of my research and other theological
concerns that were on my heart. D r D. William Faupel of Asbury
Theological Seminary deserves special recognition because he spent
many hours with me going over various drafts of the thesis. His
comments on both the content and structure of the drafts enabled
me to develop further my writing style and argumentation.
D r John Christopher Thomas of the Church of God Theological
Seminary has been a special friend who has personally provided me
with prayerful counsel and encouragement. Dr Eugene Gibbs of
Ashland Theological Seminary conversed often with me about Pen-
tecostalism and Hermeneutics. His encouraging friendship often
provided much needed opportunities for laughter. He also proof
read the final draft of the thesis. Likewise, Rev Robert Rosa, Dean
of Student Life at Ashland Seminary, has walked through every
facet of this process with me and is indeed my closest Pentecostal
brother in the Lord.
Rev Andrew Hamilton, close friend and fellow postgraduate stu
dent at St Mary’s College, served along side me as Associate Pastor
of Mohicanville Community Church. He provided intellectually
stimulating conversation and Christian companionship as we la
bored together in the local church. A word of thanks must also be
Acknowledgements xiii
2 This was made possible by participating in the Society for Pentecostal Stud
ies and presenting portions of this study to the Society.
8 Spirit, Scripture and Community
tal practice and belief. I began a quest into the various interpretive
arguments that whet my appetite for further theological studies.
I enrolled at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio, af
ter being in pastoral ministry for 3 years in Wellington. In order to
enroll full-time at Ashland Seminary I had to resign from Welling
ton and find another congregation that would allow me to attend
Seminary. We (Melissa and I) began pastoring a small Assemblies of
God missions church in Twinsburg, Ohio.
At Ashland Theological Seminary I encountered an evangelical
pietistic faculty who were much more open to academic and critical
scholarship than what I had encountered at Central Bible College.
At Ashland Seminary my critical thinking skills were awakened, and
I began to assess my Pentecostal faith critically in the safety of a
conservative evangelical Seminary. I became much more aware of
the influences of modernity upon Christian belief and practice. The
evangelical perspective of the historical critical method was af
firmed with an ongoing critique of the liberal presupposition beliefs
that gave rise to the method. During my last year I had taken upper
level courses which introduced me to various theoretical concepts
influenced by modernity that pushed me to rethink my Pentecostal
and even Christian faith. I had not yet figured out how to be a criti
cal thinking practitioner and remain a faithful Pentecostal Christian.
I had entered the wilderness of criticism only wishing that I could
somehow return to my paramodern pre-critical Pentecostal beliefs,
which of course was impossible.
I graduated from Ashland Theological Seminary with a Master of
Divinity with an interdisciplinary major in theology, Church history
and philosophy. My critical thinking skills where strengthened,
which enabled me to graduate with high honors (3.9). I was encour
aged by faculty to pursue a PhD.
One of the faculty members at Ashland Seminary suggested Pro
fessor Richard Bauckham as a possible supervisor for my PhD re
search. I had become aware of Bauckham through reading his work
on Jurgen Moltmann for a course in contemporary theology. I also
knew he was a committed Christian and scholar. These were two
extremely important attributes that I was looking for in a supervi
sor. I wrote Professor Bauckham and explained to him my desire to
engage in hermeneutics and Pentecostalism. He was interested and
10 Spirit, Scripture and Community
3 Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism cf Evil (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1967),
p. 351.
4 Ricoeur, The Symbolism (f Evil, p. 351, writes, ‘But if we can no longer live the
great symbolisms of the sacred in accordance with the original belief in them, we
can, we modern men, aim at a second naivete in and through criticism. In short, it
is by interpreting that we can hear again’ (his emphasis).
5 W. Randolph Tate, Biblical Interpretation: A n Integrated Approach, (Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson, rev. edn, 1997), p. xvi. See also James K.A. Smith, The Tall cf
Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creationist Hermeneutic (Downers Grove,
IL: Inter Varsity, 2000) who argues that hermeneutics is part of God’s good crea
tion of humanity not a result of the fall of humanity.
1
D e f in in g P e n t e c o s t a l is m : A D iv e r s e a n d
P a r a d o x ic a l E n d e a v o r
1Harvey Cox, Firefrom Heauen: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping
of Religion in the Twenty-first Century, (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing
Company, 1995), p. 184.
2 For statistical information see David B. Barrett, ‘Statistics, Global’ in Stanley
M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee (eds.), DPCM (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
1988), pp. 810—30. Also C. Peter Wagner, ‘Church Growth’ in DPCM, pp. ISO-
95.
3 See Vinson Synan (ed.), Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins (Plainfield, NJ:
Logos International, 1975). This volume of essays examines the non-Wesleyan,
the Wesleyan Holiness, and black origins (to list just three) of Pentecostalism.
4 Peter W. Williams, America's Religions: Traditions and Cultures (New York:
Macmillan, 1990), p. 262. Williams makes an important observation about the
similarity between the Radical Reformation, the Great Awakening and Pentecos
talism concerning their multiple origins.
12 Spirity Scripture and Community
weger’s influence upon the understanding of Pentecostalism and its origins. In his
work, The Pentecostals (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1972), Hollenweger’s first sen
tence states, The origins of the Pentecostal movement go back to a revival
amongst the Negroes of North America at the beginning of the present century’
(p. xiv). Under his supervision three important works were written which deal
with Pentecostal origins: Douglas J. Nelson, ‘For Such A time as This: The Story
of Bishop William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival: A Search for Pente
costal Roots’ (Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, England,
1981). This is the definitive biography on Seymour. Secondly, Ian MacRoberts,
The Black Roots and White Racism f Early Pentecostalism in the U .SA. (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1988); thirdly, D. William Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel: The Signifi
cance of Eschatology in the Development f Pentecostal Thought (JPTSup, 10; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1996). Also Hollenweger’s influence can be felt upon
the Journal f Pentecostal Theology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). See the first
issue, 1992, where he has the first article.
8 David A. Reed, In Jesus' Name: The History and Beliefs of Oneness Pentecostals
(JPTSup, 31; Blandford Forum, UK: Deo Publishing, 2008). p. 174. Reed’s
monograph is an extensive revision with substantial new information of his ‘Ori
gins and Development of the Theology of ( )neness Pentecostalism in the United
States’ (Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University, 1978); J.L. Hall, ‘A Oneness Pen
tecostal Looks at Initial Evidence’ in Gary B. McGee (ed.), Initial Evidence: Histori
cal and Biblical Perspectives on the Pentecostal Doctrine f Spirit Baptism (Peabody, AL\:
Hendrickson, 1991), pp. 168—88.
9 R.A. Riss, ‘Finished Work Controversy’ in DPCM, pp. 306-309.
10 H.N. Kenyon, ‘An Analysis of Racial Separation within the Early Pentecos
tal Movement’ (MA thesis, Baylor University, TX, 1979), p. 9.
11 Edith Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies f God, Pentecostalism, and
American Culture (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993) argues that ‘re-
storationism is often the basic component of a Pentecostal movement’ (p. 4).
12This is a reference to the five or four-fold understanding of the work of Je
sus as Savior, Sanctifier, Spirit Baptizer, Healer, and soon coming King. See Don
ald Dayton, Theological Roots f Pentecostalism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987),
14 Spirit, Scripture and Community
recovery and to associate with them was sinful (Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, p.
29).
28 Williams, America's Religions, pp. 261-62. Cf. Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal
Movement in the United States. ‘It is a matter of record that the most radical elements
in the holiness movement were in the rural South and Midwest and that most
holiness denominations began in those regions from 1895—1900’ (p. 52).
29 Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, p. 42, states,
‘The holiness movement was actually a variety of movements growing out of
the teachings of John Wesley ... holiness groups usually were concerned not
only with personal purity but also with responsibilities toward the poor ...
holiness organizations ... were leaders in Protestant care for the poor and
evangelism to the outcasts’.
Cf. Donald W. Dayton, ‘The Limits of Evangelicalism: The Pentecostal Tradi
tion’ in D. W. Dayton and R.K. Johnston (eds.), The Variety of American Evangelical
ism (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity, 1991), pp. 36-56: ‘Pentecostalism is to be
understood as a radical wing of the Wesleyan/holiness movement of the late
nineteenth century’ (p. 49). See also Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the
United States, who argues persuasively for the same thesis as D. Dayton. See also
Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited, chapter two ‘The Holiness Background’, pp.
28—46. Anderson, like Synan and Dayton, emphasizes that Pentecostalism’s im
mediate origins are located in the more radical phases of the Holiness move
ments. He states, ‘The outstanding characteristics of the Holiness movement—
literal-minded Biblicism, emotional fervor, puritanical mores, enmity toward ec-
clesiasticism, and above all belief in a ‘Second Blessing’ in Christian experience—
were inherited and perpetuated by the Pentecostals’. ‘Except for speaking in
tongues, in the early days there was little to distinguish the Pentecostal believer
from his holiness brethren’ (p. 28). The only Pentecostal denominations in exis
tence prior to 1910 were those groups which were swept into the movement as
an already existing holiness body and up until 1910, most Pentecostals accepted
without question the three works of grace. Two well-known Pentecostal denomi
nations which were first Holiness denominations (embracing entire sanctification
as a second work of grace) are The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) under the
leadership of Charles Mason and the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee. Both
denominations adhere to three works of grace and understand the third work as
‘the baptism of the Holy Spirit’ which is usually accompanied by tongues. Prior to
Defining Pentecostalism 19
embracing Pentecostalism, they would have understood the second work of grace
(sanctification) as the baptism in the Holy Spirit. See the articles in DPCM for a
brief history of these denominations. The Wesleyan Holiness movement was an
attempt to recapture John Wesley's doctrine of sanctification. They emphasized
that moral perfection was an achievable reality, which was recognized as a distinct
second act of grace and they identified the second act of grace as the baptism of
the Holy Spirit. The purpose of the Holy Spirit baptism experience was to eradi
cate inbred sin, thus enabling one to live a life of moral perfection. The baptism
in the Holy Spirit was framed in puritistic concepts. See Anderson, Vision of the
Disinherited, Appendix One, pp. 289-90, for a clear, concise, chronological defini
tional scheme for the different views concerning the three ‘Acts of Grace'. See
also Paul M. Bassett, T he Theological Identity of North American Holiness
Movement: Its Understanding of the Nature and Role of The Bible' in Dayton
and Johnston (eds.), The Variety of American ’Evangelicalism, pp. 72-108.
30 For recent discussions of the Higher Life movement see Ernest R. San-
deen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1880-1930
(Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 132-87. Marsden, Fun
damentalism and American Culture, pp. 72-101. D.W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in
Modern Britain: A History1from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman Ltd.),
pp. 151-80. For the Higher Life movement's impact on Pentecostalism see W.M.
Menzies, T he Non-Wesleyan Origins of the Pentecostal Movement’ in Synan
(ed.), Aspects cf Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins, pp. 81-98. E.D. Waldvogel (Blum-
hofer), T he Overcoming Life: A Study in the Reformed Evangelical Origins of
Pentecostalism’ (PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1977). E.D. Blumhofer,
‘Purity and Perfection: A Study in The Pentecostal Perfectionist Heritage', in
Richard Hughes (ed.), The American Questfor the Primitive Church (Urbana, IL: Uni
versity of Illinois, 1988), pp. 257-82. Higher Life movements advocated a second
work of grace yet unlike the Wesleyan Holiness groups they understood this sec
ond work in terms of power and also called it The baptism of The Holy Spirit’.
The experience or ‘enduement of power’ enabled one to be an effective ‘soul
winner'. Thus they emphasized Christian service and framed the baptism experi
ence with ‘power’ concepts, and so sanctification was still understood to be a
progressive process. For a discussion pertaining to the contemporary positions of
these holiness groups, dispensational and Reformed see Dieter et al', Five Views
On Sanctification (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1987). See also Henry H. Knight
III, ‘From Aldersgate to Azusa: Wesley and the Renewal of Pentecostal Spiritual
ity', JPT 8 (April, 1996), pp. 82—98. Knight's important article discusses J.
Wesley's development of a uniquely Protestant understanding of holiness and
then the appropriation of Wesley's teaching on holiness by three prominent holi
ness strands: the Methodist theology of Phoebe Palmer, the Arminianized Calvin
ism of Charles Finney and the Reformed holiness teaching of the Keswick move
ment.
31 Grant Wacker, The Holy Spirit and the Spirit of the Age in American Pro
testantism, 1880—1910', The Journal f American History 72.1 (June 1985), p. 48.
20 Spirit, Scripture and Community
mate charge that Warfield and his friends leveled against the movement (New-
school revivalistic Calvinism of C. Finney and others) was that it was really
‘Methodist’ (p. 7).
40 Timothy P. Weber, Living in the Shadow of The Second ComingAmerican Premil-
lennialism, 1875-1982 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 86.
41 See Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited,' p. 31 and Marsden, Fundamentalism
and American Culture, pp. 25-26.
42 Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited, p. 31.
43 Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, pp. 98—99. Pentecostals took seriously the
biblical injunctions to simple dress and detachment toward material things. Their
strong ethic of separation and intense community bond through shared religious
community experiences (which were ridiculed by those who did not embrace
Pentecostalism), nurtured a strong distaste for traditional churches. Pentecostals
often described traditional denominations as ‘dead’ or ‘cold’ or ‘lukewarm’.
Defining Pentecostalism 23
53 See Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited, chapter six titled ‘Apostles and
Prophets’ for an interpretive summary of the information he gleaned from his
compilation of biographical material of 45 leaders who joined the Pentecostal
movement during its earliest years. Anderson utilized this material to support a
‘social deprivation theory’ as the primary means of understanding the beginning
and continued growth of Pentecostalism. No one disagrees about the socio
economic and culturally diverse origins of the earliest people who became Pente
costals. A critique of the social deprivation model will come later in this chapter.
For the biographical stories of seven Pentecostal pioneers who shaped the British
Pentecostal movement and whose ministries encircled the world see Colin C.
Whittaker, Seven Pentecostal Pioneers, (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House,
1985).
54 Tomlinson was elected as the first general overseer of the Church of God
(Cleveland, Tenn.) in 1907. See H.D. Hunter, ‘Tomlinson, Ambrose Jessup’ in
DPCM, pp. 846-48.
55 Lewis J. Willis (compiler), Assembly Addresses of' the General Overseers: Sermons
that Guided the Church, (Cleveland, Tennessee: Pathway Press, 1986), p. 20.
56 Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited,, p. 77. Anderson (p. 78) offers the fol
lowing story in order to illustrate the typical privations endured by many of the
Pentecostal pioneers:
26 Spirit, Scripture and Community
pioneer, "acknowledged that the very ‘"foundation for the vast Pen
tecostal Movement” had been laid by loners and free lancers, by
missionaries without board support and by pastors without degrees
or salaries or ""restful holidays”’.57
The Pentecostal evangelists moved from town to town by walk
ing, hopping delivery wagons, jumping freight trains, or bumming
rides. They traveled throughout the land often warning sinners
from courthouse steps, city parks, dance halls, gambling houses and
red light districts about the coming wrath of God. They challenged
Christians to be prepared for the second coming of Jesus, which
they believed would take place very soon.58
C. Downey articulated this eschatological fervor which moti
vated the early Pentecostal people and preachers to evangelize the
world and "pentecostalize’ Christians:
This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world
for a witness unto all nations: and then shall the end come. We
believe under God this is the great message for these days. Bap
tized Saints are confidendy assured that we are on the threshold
The story of Walter J. Higgins who, together with his wife, accepted the
pastorate of a Pentecostal assembly in Morehouse, Missouri. They were
provided with living quarters in a crawl-up attic furnished with one iron bed,
one table, and several wooden crates for chairs. They lived on sorghum
molasses and potatoes three times a day, and Higgins went about his duties
with the soles of his shoes literally worn through to his feet. Small wonder
many Pentecostal preachers worked at manual labor to support themselves.
57 Wacker, ‘Character and Modernization’, p. 17.
58 Anderson, Vision of The Disinherited, p. 78. Anderson argues that the central
theme of the early Pentecostal movement was ‘Jesus is coming soon’. D.W. Fau-
pel in his, The Everlasting Gospel builds on Anderson’s contribution of Pentecostal-
ism being a millenarian movement. Yet Faupel does not accept social deprivation
as the best explanation for Pentecostalism’s genesis. His thesis is that ‘American
Pentecostalism can be best understood as the emergence of a millenarian belief
system that resulted from a paradigm-shift which took place within nineteenth
century Perfectionism’ (p. 18). Faupel uses a biological model to organize and
present his material. His theological historiography is the most thorough presen
tation of early Pentecostalism. E. Blumhofer, building on her early work and
drawing upon the insights of G. Wacker, argues that Pentecostalism is best un
derstood by means of a restoradonist motif.
Defining Pentecostalism 27
of the greatest event in the history of the world, viz: The immi
nent appearing of Jesus Christ.59
Thus, Pentecostals moved along the fringes of the established de
nominations, appealing to the ‘independents’ and ‘come-outers’
whose theological preferences had already marginalized them from
mainline traditions and had predisposed them to accept the logic of
the Pentecostal ‘Full Gospel message’.60 They infiltrated nonde-
nominational and independent churches, Holiness associations, and,
when possible, denominational churches in order ‘to proclaim the
full and final restoration of New Testament Christianity’.61
The Pentecostal message offered wholeness and healing because
it presented a frame of reference for understanding human experi
ence and defining ultimate concerns.62 This, in turn, instilled both
hope and purpose in the hearts of the listeners because the preach
ers and teachers ‘assured all who would listen that none had fallen
too low to look up and discover dignity and status as a child of
God’. 63 D.W. Myland, an early Pentecostal pioneer and interpreter
of the movement, wrote in 1910:
God sent this latter rain to gather up all the poor and outcast,
and make us love everybody ... He poured it out upon the litde
sons and daughters, and servants and handmaidens ... God is
taking the despised things, the base things and being glorified in
them.64
65 See Frank Bartleman with forward by Vinson Synan, A^usa Street: The Roots
of Modern-day Pentecost, (South Plainfield, NJ: Bridge Publishing, 1980). This book
is a reprint of Bartleman’s 1925 history entitled, How ‘Pentecost” Came to Los Ange
les. Bartleman offers an eyewitness interpretive account of Los Angeles revivals
and also discusses the worship services of these revivals. See pp. 53—60 for his
description of services at the Azusa street mission. Pentecostal services were not
leaderless, but the leaders, like Seymour, did allow for a high degree of involve
ment by the laity in the services.
66M.W. Dempster, ‘The Search For Pentecostal Identity’, Pneuma 15.1
(Spring, 1993), p. 1.
Defining Pentecostalism 29
and synthesized into the Tull Gospel message’, which by 1919 be
came entirely identified with the Pentecostals.67
The Pentecostals’ social location was predominantly from the
lower social and economic strata of American society. Yet, as
American church historian Mark Noll has pointed out, the most
universal characteristic of early Pentecostals was their passionate
desire for an unmediated experience with the Holy Spirit.68 They
sought to establish a deep and personal relationship with Jesus
Christ through Spirit baptism. Their religious passion was shaped
and facilitated by their restorationist reading of the New Testament
narrative. Frank J. Ewart, an early leader within Pentecostalism, ex
pressed this perspective when he wrote:
Although this movement was based squarely and completely on
Scripture, its very heartbeat was an experience and not some theo
logical premise that had been developed after years of study and
re-evaluation. It had no affiliation with modern theology (em
phasis added).69
Ewart’s comment is consistent with early Pentecostal understand
ing; that is, they saw themselves as scripturally sound and at odds
with both liberal theology and Protestant orthodoxy. The Pentecos
tal movement was a protest both against modernity and against
mainline Christianity. Their emphasis on the baptism of the Holy
Spirit and healing separated them from the Fundamentalists. There
fore, the Scripture read through the marginalized Wesleyan Holi
ness eyes from a restorationist and revivalistic perspective was the
primary cause of the Pentecostal movement.
67 Timothy L. Smith writes in his Called unto Holiness: The Story of the Navarettes;
The Formative Years, (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1962), p. 320,
that ‘the spread of Pentecostalism teaching on the “baptism in the Holy Spirit”
[the third Blessing] with signs following afterwards, (speaking in tongues), caused
the Nazarene General Assembly of 1919 to drop the word ‘Pentecostal’ from the
denomination’s name, in order to avoid identification with the new movement’.
68 Noll, A History of Christianity, p. 387. See also footnote 49 above.
69 Frank J. Ewart, The Phenomenon of Pentecost (Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame
Press, 1947, Revised 1975), p. 39.
30 Spirit, Scripture and Community
from society at large.86 ‘Such a view’, writes V. Hine, ‘is based upon
the as yet unproven assumption that political, economic, or social
rewards are more satisfying than religious ones’.87 Therefore, the 3-
D view does not take seriously the religious concerns or the cultural
exegesis of Scripture as a convincing explanation as to why these
people were attracted to the Pentecostal movement. This 3-D view
fails to recognize Pentecostals as normal functioning members of
society (who are yet at odds with modernity’s worldview) who
choose to become Pentecostal due to their deep religious hunger
and understanding of Scripture.88 It also fails to account for the dis
crepancies in the research data.
Anthropologists V. Hine and L. Gerlach initially accepted Social
Deprivation and Defect theories as the way to explain the cause and
growth of Pentecostalism. However, they abandoned these as ‘the’
primary and ‘necessary’ cause because they found no evidence to
support their first proposition that ‘Pentecostalism was best ex
plained as a haven for the disorganized or confused’.89 Gerlach
states that the ‘only thing which does distinguish Pentecostals from
the general American population is their specific religious practice
and belief and so ‘this cannot then be used to prove them generally
defective’.90 Yet, it is precisely the seemingly unusual belief of
Pentecostals (as articulated through the Full Gospel message) and
their practices (tongues, trances, dancing, exorcisms, healings) that
encourage sociologists, historians (like Anderson) and psychologists
to view the Pentecostals as ‘havens’ for those who cannot cope in
the established societal order.91
attracting members from the middle and upper middle class who
are not suffering from socio-economic deprivation.
In addition, Hine shows that the characteristics typically associ
ated with the ‘sect type’ and ‘economically disinherited’ (such as the
emphasis on the religious experience, lay leadership, confessional
basis for membership, high degree of membership participation,
reliance on spontaneous leading of the Holy Spirit in organizational
concerns, home meetings, etc.) are found more often within con
temporary Pentecostal churches of middle and upper class converts
than the older established Pentecostal churches. ‘The more routi-
nized “church-like” Pentecostal groups are often those churches
whose membership is characteristically drawn from the lower socio
economic levels’.96 Thus Social Deprivation and church-sect typol
ogy cannot entirely account for or provide an accurate analysis of
Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism appears to be an anomaly.
Hine’s research challenges Anderson’s assertion that:
The poorer, more dislocated and despised, the more marginal
and highly mobile people are in the social order, the more ex
treme will be their ecstatic response ... Today ecstasy is most
pronounced in independent storefront Pentecostal missions
among blacks and recent Hispanic immigrants.97
Hine’s research indicates that religious ecstasy is also found to be
active in Anglo middle class Pentecostal communities, especially
when they are not directly affiliated with the more historic Pente
costal denominations of the first wave.98
Hine and Gerlach’s research is not attempting to say that the
Pentecostal movement is presently only drawing adherents from the
middle and upper middle class. Pentecostalism still draws adherents
from the lower socio-economic groups. However, it is not exclu
sively drawing from that category. There are many Pentecostal
communities in both America and other countries that are not eco
nomically and socially deprived. Hence, socio-economic deprivation
cannot be the necessary cause for the spread of Pentecostalism.
Hine recognizes the usefulness of these models, but deprivation
and disorganization should be considered as facilitating rather than
causal factors when analyzing the movement. Hine and Gerlach ar
gue that a more satisfying explanation for an individuars conversion
to Pentecostalism can be found in the study of the movement’s re
cruitment patterns.99 In other words, the ‘explanation for the spread
of the movement is to be sought within the dynamics of the move
ment itself.10" Hine and Gerlach define a movement as:
A group of people who are organized for, ideologically moti
vated by, and committed to a purpose which implements some
form of personal or social change; who are actively engaged in
the recruitment of others; and whose influence is spreading in
opposition to the established order within which it originated.101
Because they shifted their emphasis from seeking a purely external
cause from outside the movement to analyzing the internal infra
structure of the movement (due to the inability of Social Depriva
tion to account for all the inconsistencies of the data), Gerlach and
Hine saw Pentecostalism as both the cause and effect of individual
and social change.102 They suggest a better approach to understand
ing Pentecostalism (and other movements) would be to consider it
as a ‘cause of change’ instead of a ‘reaction to change’.103 From this
perspective Pentecostalism is not reactionary but revolutionary.
Pentecostalism does generate individual and social change, and
no doubt societal changes contributed to its persuasive polemics.
Therefore, ‘instead of assuming that “strange religious behavior” by
North Americans is a consequence of deprivation or personality
defects, examine such behavior as a commitment to religious
movement and to change’.104 Unusual behavior, then, is not neces
sarily a defense or compensation mechanism; rather, it should be
you are in the bosom of the Father. He said I was clothed upon
and in the secret place of the Most High. But I said, Father, I
want the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the heavens opened and I
was overshadowed, and such power came upon me and went
through me. He said, Praise Me, and when I did, angels came
and ministered unto me. I was passive in His hands, and by the
eye of faith I saw angel hands working on my vocal cords, and I
realized they were loosing me. I began to praise Him in an un
known tongue ... Anywhere with Jesus I will gladly go. On land
or sea, what matter where, Where Jesus is ‘tis heaven there.’106
No doubt social deprivation was an important facilitating and for
some an enabling factor, but it was not the cause of one’s conver
sion to Pentecostalism. People embraced the new Pentecostal faith
because of its ‘scripturally’ appealing message and its self
authenticating and community validating religious experience(s).
sanee/ Enlightenment and has come under serious questioning during the crisis
of the 21st Century. See Bryan S. Turner (ed.), Theories (f Modernity and Postmodernity
(London: Sage Publications Ltd., 1990). Thomas C. Oden, Agenda for Theology:
After Modernity ... What? (Grand Rapids, MI, 1990). Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on
Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996).
109 Ronald H. Nash, World- Views in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World f
Ideas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), pp. 32-33.
110 By doctrinal praxis, this writer is emphasizing the fact that the Pentecostal
community’s concern for practical doctrine affected how they lived and behaved
in society and functioned in the Pentecostal community. Thus their doctrine is
praxis driven and scripturally concerned.
111 Goff, Yields White unto Harvest, p. 12.
112 Goff, Fields White unto Harvest, p. 13.
113 For few examples of violence against Assembly of God ministers see, The
night God Stopped the Angry mob’, Assemblies of God Heritage (Spring, 1983), p.
40 Spirit, Scripture and Community
The following report from The New York Times, printed Monday,
June 8, 1908, serves both to illustrate the outsiders’ views of Pente-
costalism and to underscore the important themes of the Pentecos
tal community’s worldview.
“‘HOLY GHOSTERS” WIN WHITES AND NEGROS:’ New
sect with Quarters in Forty-first street speaks a strange tongue:
SAY WORLD WILL END SOON: ‘Chief Saint’ Sturtevant,
One Time Longshoreman, Aided in his meetings By White and
Colored Deaconesses.
For more than a year whites and negroes have been conducting
what is described on the board outside as ‘The Full Gospel of
Holiness Mission’ at 325 West Forty-first Street and holding
daily meetings. Because of their strong faith in the power of the
Holy Ghost to save sinners in the neighborhood and the fre
quent use of the name in their teaching the mission has become
known as the ‘Holy Ghosters.’
The services begin each night with an open-air address at Thirty-
seventh Street and Eighth Avenue at 7:30 o’clock. Prayers are
read by a tall surpliced negro called ‘Chief Saint Sturtevant’ and a
white woman called Sister Williams. These are followed by
hymns, sung to the accompaniment of a harmonium, in which
black and white deaconesses take part, all wearing short white
jackets and black bonnets with flowering veils. In the course of
the service a prayer is delivered by a white boy, said to be 6 years
old, but who looks older, in which he exhorts all the sinners
standing by to repent while there is yet time, as the end of all
things is at hand. After a collection has been taken up the Holy
Ghosters march to their meeting place in Forty-first Street,
which consists of two rooms on the ground floor opening on
the street.
Last night when the mission service began at 8:30 o’clock, the
room was thronged with men and women of all ages, white and
black, all sitting together. Some had come out of curiosity, while
others were members of the mission. Chief Saint G.C. Deekon
(sic), a white man, formerly a ‘longshoreman, who has renounced
that calling, opened the meeting by giving out a hymn, ‘There is
Peace In My Soul/ This was sung by the congregation, accom
panied by Sister Williams on an organ.
The most peculiar part of the service was the ‘language of un
known tongues’, which Sister Williams Saint Deekon (sic), and
others of the Holy Ghosters appeared to be able to speak and
understand. To the stranger within the gates it seemed a mixture
of Italian, Syrian, Arabic, modern Greek, and the gibberish of
the Coney Island barkers.
The belief of the missioners is that the world is at an end of its
career under the present sinful conditions, that the Messiah is
coming soon, and those who wish to understand his preaching
must learn the new religion and language.
The Full Gospel Holiness Mission attracts numbers of people of
all kinds, who come out of curiosity and listen to the service,
which strongly resembles an old-fashion camp meeting.114
This journalistic report captures important themes that are a part
of the ‘Pentecostal culture’.115 These themes are theological: revival-
istic preaching; Spirit baptism (tongues); immediacy of the second
coming of Jesus (millenarian) and are praxis related: interracial and
114 New York Times (Monday, June 8, 1908), p. 5, columns 3—4. See also the
less favorable reports in the Los Angeles Times (April 18, 1906), and (September 19,
1906), concerning the Azusa Street Mission. See the Los Angeles Times July 23,
1906), concerning the Pentecostal New Testament Church in Los Angeles. Cox
states that ‘Newspapers lampooned what they called the “fanaticism and un
seemly contortions” allegedly going on at the Pentecostal revivals and were espe
cially disturbed by the interracial character of the meetings’ in Tire From Heaven.
The quote is found among the photos sandwiched between pp. 78 and 79 at the
end of part one.
113 Culture is to be understood as similar to worldview yet in a more particular
sense. ‘Culture is “a system of patterned values, meanings, and beliefs that give
cognitive structure to the world, provide a basis for coordinating and controlling
human interactions, and constitute a link as the system is transmitted to one gen
eration to the next’”. Neil J. Smelser, ‘Culture: Coherent or Incoherent’ in R.
Munch and N. J. Smelser (eds.), Theory cf Culture (University of California Press,
1992), cited in Vernon K. Robbins, The Tapestry cf Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric,
Society and Ideology (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 4.
42 Spirit, Scripture and Community
lives, with education, science and technology becoming the primary tools. Critical
Social Science: Liberation and Its Limits (New York: Cornell University Press, 1987),
chapter one, pp. 1-26.
126 Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, p. 9.
127 Wacker, ‘The Functions of Faith’, pp. 374—75.
128Magaret Poloma, The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads (Knoxville, TN:
University of Tennessee Press, 1989), p. 19.
129 Poloma, The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads, pp. xvii-xx, first quote xvii,
and second xix.
Defining Pentecostalism 45
Sum m ary
Sh if t in g Pa r a d ig m s : T h e H e r m e n e u t ic a l
Co n te x t of t h e E arly Pen tec o sta ls
3 R.W. Funk, The Watershed of the American Biblical Tradition: The Chi
cago School, First Phase, 1892-1920\ Journal of Biblical Literature 96 (1976), pp. 4—
22, cited p. 7.
4 Funk, The Watershed of the American Biblical Tradition’, pp. 6 and 8.
5 The most famous is the Scopes ‘monkey trial’ of 1925, which most histori
ans regard as the deathblow to the Fundamentalist influence upon intellectual
communities. See Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, pp. 184—95.
6 Mark Noll, Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in
America (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2nd edn, 1991), see chapter 3,
cited p. 32.
7 Noll, Between Faith and Criticism, pp. 32—33.
Shifting Paradigms 49
8 Noll, Between Faith and Criticism, pp. 33—34. Noll argues that Hegel more then
Darwin caused the greatest concern for Evangelicals. This is due to the evangeli
cal commitment to the authority and infallibility of Scripture, which of course
was a primitive product.
9 Noll, Between Faith and Criticism, p. 34. Noll states that up to 1875, ‘virtually
every American who could be called an expert in the study of Scripture sustained
some kind of a denominational connection and devoted the results of biblical
scholarship primarily to the ongoing spirituality of the church’ (p. 33).
10 Grant Wacker, ‘The Demise of Biblical Civilization’ in N. Hatch and M.
Noll (eds.), The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural Histor}1(New York: Oxford Uni
versity Press, 1982), pp. 121—38, cited p. 123.
11 See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1970, second edition). Marsden in his Fundamentalism and Ameri
can Culture applies Kuhn’s paradigm theory to Fundamentalism in order to explain
the cohesiveness and the militant stance of this movement, see pp. 214-15. Fau-
50 Spirit, Scripture and Community
pel in his The Everlasting Gospel' argues that American Pentecostalism was a mille-
narian belief system which emerged as a result of a paradigm shift within the
nineteenth-century holiness movement.
12 Timothy Weber, The Two-Edged Sword: The Fundamentalist Use of the
Bible’ in Hatch and Noll (eds.), The Bible in America, pp. 101—20, cited p. 104. We
ber uses William Newton Clark (1840-1912) as an example of a conservative who
embraced liberalism as a result of the paradigm shift.
13 Weber, The Two-Edged Sword’, p. 103. Also see George Marsden, ‘Eve
ryone One’s Own Interpreter?: The Bible, Science, and Authority in Mid-
Nineteenth-Century America’ in Hatch and Noll (eds.), The Bible in America, pp.
79-100.
14 Marsden, ‘Everyone One’s own Interpreter?’, p. 82.
15 John C. Vander Stelt, Philosophy and Scripture: A Study in Old Princeton and
Westminster Theology (Martlon, NJ: Mack, 1978), p. 12.
Shifting Paradigms 51
16 Bertrand Russell, A History cf Western Philosophy (New York: NY: Simon and
Schuster, 1972), p. 542. See also Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary ofPhi-
losophy (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 60—61.
17 Marsden, ‘Everyone One’s own Interpreter?’, pp. 82—84.
18 ‘The Coming of the Lord: The Doctrinal Center of the Bible’ in Addresses on
the Second Coming of the Lord: Delivered at the Prophetic Conference, Allegheny, PA, Decem
ber 3—6, 1895 (Pittsburgh, 1895), p. 82 also cited in G. Marsden, Fundamentalism
And American Culture, p. 55.
19 See ‘Reid, Thomas’ and ‘Scottish common sense philosophy’ in The Cam
bridge Dictionary of Philosophy, pp. 684—88 and 719.
20 David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A Historyfrom the 1730s to
the 1980s (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1989), p. 59.
52 Spirit, Scripture and Community
the original writings, ipsissima verba, came through the penmen di
rect from God ... The Bible...is the very Word of God, and
consequendy, wholly without error ... [Because it is] God-
breathed.43
For Munhall and the rest of the Fundamentalists, verbal inspiration
means that the Scripture was the inerrant Word of God, a wholly
supernatural event. This is fundamental to the Christian faith’.44
Noll states that Munhall’s and Gray’s articles were actually ‘little
more than abridged summaries of the Warfield-Hodge paper of
1881’.45 There did not exist within North American Protestantism a
fully developed systematic theology of the infallibility of Scripture
until the creative efforts of the Princeton Calvinists, Hodge and
Warfield.46 Therefore, the Princeton theologians had a definitive
influence upon the doctrine of the (verbal) inspiration of Scripture
for conservative North American Protestant Christians.
The Princeton scholars drank deep from the well o f Enlighten
ment thinking. Common Sense Realism and Baconian scientific
method were totally embraced in order to defend Calvinistic theol
ogy and reconcile faith and reason, the supernatural and the natu
ral.47 Therefore ‘Princeton was to be the crucible in which the great
nineteenth-century evangelical theories of biblical inspiration and
authority were forged’.48
The Princeton scholars were an academically Calvinistic conser
vative group within the fundamentalist coalition. They embraced
Baconian Common Sense Realism and wed it to the traditional Re
formed doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture. This doctrine,
43 Torrey, The Fundamentals, 1917, II, p. 45. Munhall quoted the 1893 resolu
tion of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in support of his argu
ment that the original autographs were the inspired writings and not the transla
tions. Like Munhall, the Fundamentalists’ primary theological community was the
conservative Presbyterians.
44 Torrey, The Fundamentals, 1917, II, p. 44.
45 Noll, Between Faith and Criticism, p. 40.
46 James D. Hunter, American Evangelicalism: Conservative Religion and the Quan
dary of Modernity (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1983), p. 31.
47 See Mark Noll, The Princeton Theology, 1882—1921 (Grand Rapids: Baker
Book House, 1983), pp. 30—35 and S. Ahlstrom, ‘The Scottish Philosophy’,
Church History 24 (September 1995), pp. 257-72.
48 Alister E. McGrath, A Passion for the Truth: The Intellectual Coherence cf Evan
gelicalism (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity, 1996), p. 168.
58 Spirit, Scripture and Community
which empowered the laity, simply meant that the ‘common man’
with common sense, aided by the Holy Spirit, was able to under
stand the plain meaning of Scripture related to all matters of salva
tion.49
B.B. Warfield was the chief architect of verbal inspiration and
the inventor of the term inerrancy, which became the litmus test of
Fundamentalism.5'1Warfield wrote:
The Church, then, has held from the beginning that the Bible is
the Word of God in such a sense that its words, though written
by men and being indelibly impressed upon them the marks of
their human origin, were written, nevertheless, under such an in
fluence of the Holy Ghost as to be also the words of God, the
adequate expression of His mind and will. It has always recog
nized that this conception of co-authorship implies that the
Spirit’s superintendence extends to the choice of the words by
human authors [verbal inspiration], and preserves its product
from everything inconsistent with a divine authorship— thus se
curing, among other things, that entire truthfulness which is eve
rywhere presupposed in and asserted for scripture by the Biblical
writers [inerrancy].51
Warfield saw inspiration as a supernatural influence of the Holy
Spirit upon the biblical writers’ mind so that they produced a divine
product. Because the Bible is the inspired Word of God, it is factual
in everything and cannot err.
Warfield argued that his doctrine rested upon the understanding
of the biblical writers, which he retrieved through historical-
grammatical exegesis. Warfield believed that verbal inspiration was
virtually what the Church had always believed. He correcdy recog
nized that the real issue was not what the biblical authors said about
38 Torrey, The Fundamentals, 1917, I. p. 232. Orr in this article was discussing
the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Orr was a scholar who took modern biblical
criticism very seriously and attempted to adjust his understanding of Scripture
and biblical criticism without abandoning traditional Protestantism. He, like
Warfield, did not embrace a literal six-day creationist view, but neither would he
accept Darwinian evolutionary theory because this reduced the act of creation to
a mere naturalistic and atheistic cause. See J. Orr, ‘The Early Narratives Of Gene
sis’ in Torrey, The Fundamentals, 1917, I, pp. 228—42, for his explanation of the
agreement of Genesis with modern evolutionary science.
62 Spirit, Scripture and Community
natural and intended sense of Scripture,59 did not differ from other
traditions except for the presuppositions that guided their study. All
the conservative groups, who defended high views of Scripture (in
fallibility) and traditional views on the composition of the biblical
writings, employed commonsensical inductive methods in ascertain
ing the plain or literal meaning of Scripture. They rejected the no
tion that parts of the Scripture could be mythical or folkloric. They
affirmed the trustworthiness of Scripture in everything, for it could
not contain errors of any kind.
The early revivalistic conservative groups that were the most
heavily influenced by the Reformed tradition (Presbyterians, Bap
tists and dispensationalists), tended to take common sense to its
painfully logical conclusion with the only acceptable interpretation
being the one intended by the author. Hence, the Scriptures had no
dual meanings (such as one literal and another spiritual or double
meanings concerning OT prophecy), because Scripture could only
have one meaning—the one intended by the original author.
The Popularistic Pre-critical Bible Reading Approach
Prior to the Modernist/Fundamentalist debates, the most common
approach to reading the Bible among the Wesleyan Holiness and
Keswickian movements was a pre-critical Bible reading approach
that was an adaptation of the proof-text method. ‘This approach
consisted of stringing together a series of scriptural passages on a
given topic’. This method was practiced in order to understand
what God has said about that topic under investigation.60 James H.
Brookes, a noted Keswickian speaker and founder of the Niagara
Prophecy Conferences, explained how to prepare a TBible Reading’.
Have your reader select some word, as faith, repentance, love,
hope, justification, sanctification and with the aid of a good con
cordance, mark down before the time of the meeting the refer
ences to the subject under discussion. These can be read as
called for, thus presenting all the Holy Ghost has been pleased
to reveal on the topic.61
This type of Bible reading was the practiced popularistic inter
pretive method used by laity and pastors to such an extent that it
functioned in a service as a ‘fundamentalist liturgy’.62 From their
perspective anyone could purchase a concordance and determine
what God had said about the subject under investigation. In their
minds, this eliminated the need for help from biblical scholars. All
that the Christian needed, according to William Evans, a Bible
teacher at Moody Bible Institute, was
an English Bible; a devout and earnest spirit; a reverential and
teachable mind; a willingness to do the will of God as it is re
vealed in the increasing knowledge of the Scriptures; the pursu
ance of a right, though simple method of reading and study—
these are essentials for profit and pleasure in Bible study.63
Weber correcdy recognizes that the Bible teachers in their zealous
commitment argued that their beliefs were based on Scripture
alone. Moreover, by stressing the inductive common sense reason
ing, they ‘oversold the perspicuity of the Bible and the role of the
Spirit to such an extent that many [popularistic] fundamentalists
were unable to explain, let alone tolerate, other points of view’.64
Proof-texting was also the primary theological method of the
academic conservative Fundamentalists, but they practiced the
proof text method in accordance with the historical critical posi
tion.65 O f course, the academic Fundamentalists appealed to a dif
from an anti-modern perspective, which was different from the more pre-modern
approach of the Holiness groups.
66 William Newton Clarke, The Use of Scriptures in Theology (Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 1907), pp. 35—36 as cited in Weber, ‘The Two Edged-Sword’, p. 107.
Shifting Paradigms 65
folding of truth and rejects the notion that the Bible may contradict
itself on any given subject.71 One was expected to harmonise Scrip
ture because ‘everything [in Scripture] is in agreement with every
thing else, because the whole Bible was built in the thought of God
... its unity the unity of Divine plan and its harmony the harmony
of a Supreme Intelligence’.72
The Synthetic Method
Conservative teachers did not encourage a haphazard, careless ap
proach to Bible study, nor were they necessarily anti-intellectual.
They believed there was a right way and wrong way to studying the
Bible. Ordinary Christians, even when relying on common sense,
could misread the Scriptures and come to wrong interpretations. In
order to avoid faulty interpretation one must use a sound method.
The most popular method of Bible study used at the emerging
‘Bible Institutes’ was the inductive-synthetic method. James M.
Gray’s ‘synthetic method’ was a very popular method used by
dispensational Fundamentalists. He developed his method in the
1880’s while teaching at Moody Bible Institute, and in 1904 he pub
lished How To Master the English Bible.73 Other Holiness revivalistic
groups were using similar inductive-synthetic approaches, but
Gray’s will serve as an example of the synthetic method.
The synthetic approach stressed the importance of inductive
method and reasoning. This approach to interpretation stressed that
the Bible should be understood as a unified book before breaking it
down into its individual parts. It also emphasized a close interroga
tion of the English syntax, grammatical structure, repetition of
words and ideas of the text. Before studying a book or paragraph,
one needed to have an overview or panoramic view of the Bible.
Gray advised the Bible student to read the Bible through from
Genesis to Revelation, reading each book in the Bible in its entirety
in one setting. Then after the student had completed this task, he
71 See Arthur T. Peirson, The Testimony of the Organic Unity of the Bible to
Its Inspiration’, Torrey, The Fundamentals, 1917, II, pp. 97—111. Peirson wrote, ‘All
the criticism of more than three thousand years has failed to point out one im
portant or irreconcilable contradiction’ within the Bible (p. 98). The law of non
contradiction continues to play a key role in contemporary reformed evangelical
hermeneutics.
72 Torrey, The Fundamentals, 1917, pp. 97—98.
73 Weber, The Two-Edged Sword’, p. 112.
Shifting Paradigms 67
tive exegesis of the English translation of the Bible, written for stu
dents, pastors and laity of the revivalistic holiness traditions, but
primarily those of a Wesleyan lineage.
The basic premise of his method was based upon his under
standing that "the Bible was an objective body of literature ...’ and
so one must use an approach that corresponds to it— an objective
approach.77 The objective approach used by Traina was induction
because ‘induction is objective and impartial’, whereas ‘deduction
tends to be subjective and prejudicial’. Hence ‘methodical Bible
study is inductive Bible study’.78 In his methodical approach, he
covered four chapters: (1) Observation; (2) Interpretation; (3)
Evaluation and Application and (4) Correlation. His approach could
be understood as commonsensical literary analysis of Scripture in
the tradition of historical-grammatical exegesis and the inductive
method.79
Traina clearly distinguishes his method from various other ap
proaches.80 I will briefly touch upon his concerns with the literalist
approach, historical approach, rationalistic interpretation and typo
logical interpretation.81
Concerning the literalist (those in the popularistic Fundamental
ists and dispensationalists camps, like James Gray and R.A. Torrey),
Traina correctly recognked a fundamental flaw in their approach
stemming from their philosophical foundation. He wrote:
one of the main reasons for the error of the literalist is that he
tends to equate the literal with the historical and the figurative
with the unhistorical ... he inseparably relates the historical fact
methodical inductive method— see especially chapter six, ‘General rules of Her
meneutics’. For example, compare their p. 164, which discusses the logical struc
tural patterns that writers use in developing a logical line of thought, with Traina’s
discussion of literary structural relationships of Scripture on p. 28 in Methodical
Bible Study.
77 Traina, Methodical Bible Study, p. 7.
78 Traina, Methodical Bible Study, p. 7.
79 Traina, Methodical Bible Study, p. 180. Traina stated that ‘the basic approach
to the exposition of Scriptures should be the grammatico-historical ‘, which inter
prets the author’s language ‘by the laws of grammar and the facts of history’ (pp.
181—82). It is important to note that the grammatical comes before the historical,
which importantly illuminates the emphasis of his method!
80 Traina, Methodical Bible Study, see pp. 167—81 for his detailed discussion of
‘Some Erroneous Kinds of Interpretation’.
81 Traina, Methodical Bible Study, pp. 169—76.
Shifting Paradigms 69
with its literary expression. He fails to realize that the literal and
figurative approaches are not necessarily concerned respectively
with fact and fiction. For they are simply two forms of literary
expression ... the use of imagery to describe an event does not
inevitably negate its historicity. Thus one may hold, for example,
that Genesis 3 is figurative rather than literal and not necessarily
imply thereby that it is substantially unhistorical rather than his
torical, or fictional rather than factual. The former decision in
volves literary interpretation; the latter concerns historical judg
ment. These two phases of exposition must be carefully distin
guished.82
Traina’s work is concerned with the historical context, but only as a
means to understand the proper meaning of the words and the type
of literary genre found in Scripture. Hence the historical setting or
context is examined in order to understand the passage properly
and in order to grasp the authors’ intentions.83 Traina was more
concerned with the literary structure than traditional historical criti
cal issues (source and tradition) or the ‘real history’ of the He
brews.84 He advocated that one must saturate oneself within the
passage and see what is going on in the passage structurally, which
is to say, he was concerned first with the literary world of the text.
After one examined the literary features within their historical con
text, then one could move to historical questions that dealt with the
world behind the text. The best exegete, according to Traina, is one
who can develop a re-creative perception that allows the interpreter
‘to stand in the shoes of Biblical authors in order to feel as they felt
and to think as they thought’.85 A thorough analysis of the literary
structure and historical context in which the biblical passage
emerged enabled one to see and experience the author’s intended pur-
93 Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, p. 46. There exists some am
biguity around whether Darby's dispensationalism gave rise to the Bible Prophecy
Conference movement, or whether the conservative revivalistic Christian concern
over end time prophecy promoted the Bible Prophecy movement which in turn,
then became a vehicle for the spread of dispensationalism. See Noll, A History
Christianity, p. 377. But see Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today (Chicago:
Moody Press, 1965), who argues that The truth is that the calling of the pro
phetic conferences as a protest to modernity was the cause, and a gradual under
standing of dispensationalism was the effect. The conferences led to dispensa
tionalism not vice versa ... dispensationalism grew out of the independent study
which resulted from the interest in prophecy' (p. 81). Ryrie reveals two important
convictions held by dispensationalists. First, they believe the method is both bib
lical and literal method of interpretation. Secondly, they argue that dispensational
ism was the result of independent scholars coming to similar understanding as a
result of literally interpreting prophecy. Like Darby before him who argued that
he came to his system as a result of private Bible study, Ryrie disavows any con
nection between the leaders of the prophetic conferences and Darby’s influence.
See his chapter 4, The Origins of Dispensationalism', especially pp. 81-82 and
chapter 5, The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism’, especially pp. 86-90.
94 Noll, Between Faith And Criticism writes, ‘the Scofield Bible sold in breathtak
ing numbers and remains a mainstay of dispensational interpretation' (p. 58).
Marsden in his Fundamentalism points out that the same group of Bible teachers
and evangelists who promoted The Fundamentals were also promoting their own
distinct view of dispensationalism—the most important being The Scofield Reference
Bible, p. 119. No wonder Ernest Sandeen in his study on The Roots <fi Fundamental
ism argues that ‘as a result of the 1919 World’s Conference on Christian Funda
mentals, the millenarian movement had changed its name. The millenarians had
become Fundamentalists' (p. 246, cited in Weber, Lining in the Shadow, p. 162).
95 Marsden, Fundamentalism, p. 46. Marsden writes, These early gatherings ...
were clearly Calvinistic. Presbyterians and Calvinist Baptists predominated, while
the number of Methodists was extremely small.'
Shifting Paradigms 73
96 Noll, A History of Christianity, p. 378. See also the essay by Assembly of God
historian William Menzies, ‘Non Wesleyan Influences In The Pentecostal Revival
From 1901 to 1910’ in Vinson Synan (ed.), Aspects of the Pentecostal-Charismatic Ori
gins, pp. 84—98. Menzies writes, ‘It is at the point of eschatology that the funda
mentalist influence [dispensational premillennialism] is perhaps most clearly dis
cernible in the pentecostal movement’ (p. 85).
97 Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, pp. 40-41.
98 Marsden, Fundamentalism, p. 44.
99 Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, p. 137.
1()()James D. Hunter, American Evangelicalism, p. 31.
1(11 Alister McGrath, Evangelicalism and the future of Christianity (Downers Grove,
IL: Inter Varsity, 1995), pp. 29—30.
102 See B.B. Warfield’s review of R.A. Torrey’s What the Bible Teaches, in Presby
terian and Reformed Review 10 (July 1899), pp. 562-64.
103 Marsden, Fundamentalism, p. 118.
74 Spirit, Scripture and Community
104 See Marsden, Fundamentalism, pp. 55-62 for a detailed discussion of the sci
entific method and pp. 63—71 for the supernatural aspect.
105 The Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1917, first
published 1909), p. iii. For a dramatic visual presentation and explanation of dis
pensationalism see Clarence Larkin, Dispensational Truth or God's Plan and Purpose In
the Ages (Philadelphia: Rev. Clarence Larkin Est., 1920). Larkin wrote in the for
ward that his book along with the charts were 'developed under the direction and
guidance of the Holy Spirit’ and was ‘the outcome of over 30 years of careful and
patient study of the Prophetic Scriptures, and aims to give not the opinions of
men, but the teaching of the Word of God’.
106 Scofield, The Scofield Reference Bible, p. 5.
Shifting Paradigms 75
107 Scofield, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth (New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers,
no date, first edition 1896), pp. 13—14. Scofield held that there were seven dis
pensations. Not all dispensationalists agreed on the exact number of dispensa
tions, yet they were all in agreement that there were two distinct groups, the He
brews and the Gentile church.
108 Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism, p. 41.
109 Weber, Living in the Shadow, p. 17.
110 C. I. Scofield (ed.), The Scofield Bible Correspondence Course: Volume One, Old
Testament (Chicago: The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1907), p. 128.
111 Weber, Living in the Shadow, pp. 17—18. The key passage of dispensational
ism was Daniel 9, the seventy weeks. See Marsden, Fundamentalism, pp. 52—54.
Notice the chart on p. 53, which comes from Larkin’s, Dispensational Truth.
112 See Larkin, Dispensational Truth, pp. 19—21. Also Scofield, The Scofield Bible
Correspondence Course, p. 128.
76 Spirit, Scripture and Community
the Jews, his earthly people, to their land, thus literally fulfilling all
Old Testament prophecy.113
Dispensationalism is an elaborate pessimistic theological system
that appeals to a strict literalism of Old Testament prophetic ful
fillment in order to justify its existence. The dispensationalists re
garded their interpretive method as a literal or plain meaning ap
proach, which was simply that of Common Sense.114 This prefer
ence for the literal over the figurative (and typological) interpreta
tion of prophecy became increasingly popular among all the premil-
lennialists.115 For the dispensationalist, Scripture was an encyclope
dic puzzle in which no piece was too small in discerning G od’s plan
for the ages. When Scripture was Tightly divided’ anyone could un
derstand it; however, in order to rightly divide Scripture, one
needed the help of a dispensational teacher and his charts. This is
the great irony of dispensationalism: it argues for a common sense
inductive approach to Bible study yet insists that one cannot inter
pret Scripture properly without the aid of dispensationalism.116
When reading the Bible inductively, without the aid of the dispensa
tional interpretive chart, one would have a difficult time arriving at
the notion that God has two plans of redemption one for his
earthly people Israel and one for his spiritual people the Church.
Also one would have a difficult time understanding how the teach
ings of Jesus (such as the Sermon on the Mount) were not intended
for the Christian community but instead for the millennial age that
was to follow the Church age. N or would one ever come to the
conclusion that there was a great chasm of interrupted time be
tween the 69th week and 70th week of Daniel’s vision of the ‘Sev
enty Weeks’.117 Furthermore, the Church age became the great pa
renthesis to God’s dealing with Israel, for the Church came into
existence at the end of the 69th week, but it did not bring the inau
guration of the 70th week. The 70th week will begin with the ‘se
cret’ rapture of the church from the earth. The following lengthy
quotation is offered in order to illustrate this system with its empha
sis on a so called ‘literal’ interpretation of Scripture, its separation of
Israel and the Church and the key importance of the ‘70 weeks’ of
Daniel, which holds the system together.
To understand the books of Daniel and Revelation and related
scriptures such as Mt 24—25; Mk 13; Lk 21; 2 Th 2, and espe
cially understand the time of the rapture and the second advent,
one must clearly understand the 70 weeks of Daniel 9:24—27.
Without doubt, all the above scriptures will be fulfilled during
the last 7 years of this age known as ‘Daniel’s 70th week.’ It must
be understood, if we want clear truth, that Israel, and not the
church, is the one dealt with in the 70th week, for Israel only was
the one dealt with in the first 69 weeks. All the 69 weeks were
literally fulfilled with Israel before the church age began. Not
once was the N T church mentioned in their fulfillment of the
70th week of Dan 9:27; Mt 24:15-31; Lk 21:25-36 and Rev 4:1-
19:21. The New Testament was not yet made and ratified by the
Blood of Jesus Christ (Mt 26:28) until the end of the 69th week
when the Messiah was cut off and crucified (Dan 9:26). The fu
ture 70th week will not and cannot begin until the N T church is
raptured and God again begins to deal with ‘thy people (Israel),
and thy holy city (Jerusalem)’ ... All activity of the NT church
will end before the 70th week begins.118
Dispensationalists were concerned with the exact sense of the
printed word, thus they assumed an audience that could read and
carefully follow their exposition of the biblical passage. Marsden
argues that this emphasis upon the printed word ‘is one of the prin
ciple things that distinguish fundamentalism from less intellectual
forms of American revivalism’ such as the Holiness and Pentecostal
118 Finis Jennings Dake, The Rapture and the Second Coming <f Christ (Atlanta,
GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1977), p. 7. Even though Dake was not a participant in the
early dispensational conferences, his works are consistent with traditional dispen-
sational teaching. Dake’s works (especially his annotated reference Bible) have
been very influential among some Pentecostal communities.
78 Spirit, Scripture and Community
119 Marsden, Fundamentalism, p. 61. This further demonstrates that the dispen
sationalists were much more modern than the Holiness and Pentecostals.
120 Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism^ p. 40.
121 Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind,, p. 140. Also, the Y2K craze en
couraged a resurgence of dispensational thinking.
Shifting Paradigms 79
122 Tim F. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Left Behind: A Novel ft the Earth's Last
Days (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1995). LaHaye's popularistic dis
pensational approach to eschatology is critiqued by Dale M. Coulter, ‘Pentecostal
Visions of the End: Eschatology, Ecclesiology and Fascination of the Left Be
hind Series', JPT 14.1 (October 2005), pp. 81-98.
123 See Noll's, A History ft Christianity chapter 14 for a discussion leading up to
and following this controversy, specifically pp. 381-86.
124 Noll, A History cf Christianity, p. 383, notes that a Baptist named Curtis Lee
Laws, editor, first coined the term Fundamentalist in 1920. Lee defined a Funda
mentalist as one who was ready ‘to do batde royal for the fundamentals’. He
understood fundamentalism as ‘a protest against that rationalistic interpretation
of Christianity which seeks to discredit supernaturalism'. Fundamentalism is a
complex phenomenon; see Marsden, Fundamentalism and Sandeen, The Roots ft
Fundamentalism.
125 David Chidester, Fatterns ft Power: Religion and Politics in America Culture
(Plainfield, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1988), pp. 269-83.
126 Noll, Between Faith and Criticism, p. 38.
127 Marsden, Fundamentalism, p. 195. Marsden notes that this group is primarily
made up of dispensationalists.
128 Wacker, ‘The Demise of Biblical Civilization’, p. 123.
80 Spirit, Scripture and Community
129 Claude Welch, Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1985), II, p. 232. Also see J.I. Packer, Fundamentalism and the
Word of God: Some Evangelical Principles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992, first
edition 1958), pp. 24—29. Packer writes, ‘It was in protest against this radical re
fashioning of historic faith that “Fundamentalism” arose’ (p. 27).
130 Noll, A History f Christianity, pp. 373-76.
131 J. Gresham Machen, Christianity And Eiberalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd
mans, 1923), p. 7, cited in Packer, Fundamentalism and the Word (f God, p. 27.
132 Machen, Christianity And Eiberalism, p. 53. Machen is recognized as the last
of the old school Princeton Theologians, who later became Fundamentalism’s
finest intellect. For an important presentation of Machen and his understanding
Shifting Paradigms 81
of Christianity, see Harrisville and Sundberg, The Bible In Modern Culture, ch. 9, ‘J.
Gresham Machen: The Fundamentalist Defense’, pp. 180—202. They write, ‘If
fundamentalism arose essentially as a protest movement, then J. Gresham Ma
chen was its best theologian who walked the picket line’ (p. 202).
133 Editor Joel A. Carpenter writes in the preface,
These debates, which took place in 1923—1924, were the most highly publi
cized events of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy before the Scopes
Trial ... A series of fundamentalist rallies held at Straton’s church so annoyed
Potter ... that he challenged Straton to debate. Held before capacity audi
ences [three of them at Carnegie Hall], broadcast live on radio, and receiving
major coverage of the press, these contests put the issues dividing modernists
and fundamentalists squarely before the American public.
A facsimile of the publication of these debates are found in Joel A. Carpenter
(ed.), Fundamentalist Versus Modernist: The Debates Between John Roach Straton and
Charles Francis Potter (New York: Garland Publishing, 1988).
134John R. Straton and Charles F. Potter, The Battle Oner the Bible (New York:
George H. Doran Company, 1924). Inerrancy is still a real issue within the evan
gelical communities of North America; see Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, fourteenth printing 1981, 1976). In the forward
Harold J. Ockenga writes: ‘It is apparent that those who surrender the doctrine of
inerrancy inevitably move away from orthodoxy is indisputable ... [they] must
ultimately yield the right to use the name “evangelical”’. Inerrancy has become
the litmus test for Evangelical identity in North America.
135 See Straton and Potter, The Battle over the Bible, pp. 13—51 for his lengthy ar
gument.
136 Straton and Potter, The Battle over the Bible, pp. 15—18.
137 Straton and Potter, The Battle over the Bible, pp. 19—21.
138 Straton and Potter, The Battle over the Bible, pp. 21—23.
82 Spirit, Scripture and Community
able unity in all its diversity which necessitates one overseeing influ
ence— namely God;139 5) the striking fact of the Bible’s fulfilled
prophecies which is the "most conclusive proof for the divine origin
and infallibility of the Bible’;140 6) the Bible’s own claims to be the
Word of God;141 and, 7) the Bible’s self-authenticating authority.142
According to Straton, these evidential proofs demonstrate that the
Bible is ‘divine in its origin and infallible in its content’.143 Straton
represented the conservative traditions. These were the concerns
and traditional arguments of the early nineteenth-century and are
still used by contemporary Evangelicals who embrace inerrancy.
Charles Potter rejected the infallibility (inerrancy) of the Bible. In
his opening statement he asserted that he could affirm that ‘the Bi
ble is the best book’ or even that ‘we find G od’s Word in the Bible’.
He rejected infallibility because it implied that ‘every part of the Bi
ble is the Word of God and therefore infallible’ (inerrant). Thus
Potter correctly stated, ‘I do not have to prove that it is all wrong. If
any part is wrong, or untrue, the Book is not infallible, as that word
is commonly understood by English-speaking people.’144
Potter’s argument involved three accusations (and he included
scriptural citations). His accusations were the following: 1) the inac
curacies in the Bible, which are unscientific and unhistorical;145 2)
the contradictions in the Bible;146 and 3) the morally degrading ideas
of God found in Scripture.147 Potter’s main argument against the
infallibility of Scripture rested with the third issue:
My main contention, however, on which I would be willing to
base my entire argument, is not the scientific inaccuracies, nor
even the fully recognked contradictions in the text of the Bible.
If the Bible is the word of God, the scientific mistakes prove
him ignorant and the contradictions prove him inconsistent ...
But my principle contention goes much deeper than that. It is
139 Straton and Potter,The Battle over the Bible, pp. 23-26.
140 Straton and Potter,The Battle over the Bible, pp. 26—32.
141 Straton and Potter,The Battle over the Bible, pp. 32—36.
142 Straton and Potter,The Battle over the Bible, pp. 36-51.
143 Straton and Potter,The Battle over the Bible, p. 51.
144 Straton and Potter,The Battle over the Bible, p. 52.
145 Straton and Potter,The Battle over the Bible, pp. 59—60.
146 Straton and Potter,The Battle over the Bible, pp. 60—61.
147 Straton and Potter,The Battle over the Bible, pp. 61—62.
Shifting Paradigms 83
148 Straton and Potter, The Tattle over the Bible, p. 61, also p. 58.
149 Straton and Potter, The Battle over the Bible, p. 58, also p. 62.
150 Noll, A History <f Christianity, p. 374.
151 Baconian Common Sense Realism.
152Alister McGrath, Evangelicalism and the Future of' Christianity, p. 29.
1d3 Timothy Cargal, ‘Beyond Pentecostals and Hermeneutics in a Postmodern
Age', Pneuma 15.2 (1993), pp. 167—68. See also Daniel Patte, What Is Structural
Exegesis? (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), pp. 1-20.
84 Spirit, Scripture and Community
154 Thomas C. Oden, After Modernity ... What? Agendafor Theology (Grand Rap
ids, MI: Zondervan, 1990, forward by J.I. Packer), pp. 67—68. Oden wants to
disassociate contemporary Evangelicalism from its early fundamentalist roots in
order to challenge contemporary liberalism, and recapture an authentic ortho
doxy. Oden is very disillusioned with modernity and does not believe that Fun
damentalism is an adequate response to modernity because it ‘conclusively be
longs to the modern historicism, and has not become disillusioned with moder
nity, (pp. 66—69).
155 See Wacker, ‘The Demise of the Biblical Civilization’, for an important
contribution to the understanding of modernity’s impact upon the understanding
of historical process and how the conservatives dealt with this new idea (pp. 121—
38, cited p. 125).
156 Wacker, ‘The Demise of the Biblical Civilization’, pp. 125, 127.
Shifting Paradigms 85
Sum m ary
E a r l y P e n t e c o s t a l B ib l ic a l
IN T E R P R E T A T IO N
1 Umberto Eco et at, Interpretation and Overinterpretation (ed., Stefan Collini; Cam
bridge University Press, 1992), p. 110.
90 Spirit, Scripture and Community
their notion that they were not a new Christian sect but authentic
Apostolic Christianity restored.
As for the angels cohabiting with women, this too serves to dem
onstrate that the Pentecostal worldview is more holistic and inclusive
in its attempt to overcome the modernistic division of existence into
separate ‘spiritual and materialistic’ realms. Furthermore, it challenges
the traditional Protestant/Fundamentalist view that God does not
presently perform miraculous signs. Pentecostalism recognizes the
interaction between the spiritual realm (whether that is God and
good angels or the Devil and evil angels) and the physical materialis
tic realm. For those who were cessationists, the Pentecostal scheme
of reading was ridiculously abnormal. Yet, one must remember that
Pentecostal snake handlers would not have come into existence with
out the Markan Jesus’ testimony about signs following believers (Mk
16.14—20).2<> N or would the incredible affirmation that (evil?) angels
are still producing offspring if there was not a biblical story alluding
to the possibility that they had once done so (the Genesis 6 story
does not specifically say that this could not happen again).2021
The Pentecostal reading of Scripture emanated from a popularis-
tic paramodern understanding of Scripture and a paramodern under
standing of God and the Devil’s participatory interaction and felt in
fluence upon the created world. Unlike Modernists and Fundamen
talists, Pentecostals held that God and the ‘supernatural realm’ are
very active within the physical realm.22 Like Fundamentalists and Ho
liness folk, they read the passages in their Bibles as sacred Scripture.
The various biblical genres were absorbed and dissolved into one
category— ’Holy Scripture’. The Bible was a gold mine. All that was
needed to unearth the precious gold was the popularistic Bible Read
20 Mark 16.17-18, in the KJV reads, ‘And these signs shall follow them that be
lieve; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they
shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;
they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover’.
21 Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1—15 (WBC, 1; Waco, Texas: Word Books,
1987), offers three exegetical options for understanding this passage. He states that
the oldest view and that of most modern commentators is that the ‘sons of God’
were nonhuman angelic beings of some kind (good or evil), pp. 139—43.
22 The Modernists were not cessationists but held that only natural experiences
that still happened today could account for the actual explanations of ancient relig
ious experiential accounts. Stories like Genesis 6 were biblical myths, which never
happened at all.
96 Spirit, Scripture and Community
23 See n. 3 above.
24 Modern historiography has to be written from a chronological, denotative
manner that could be scientifically verifiable. It does not use the strategy of story in
explaining past history.
25 See W. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals (London: SCM Press, 1972), chapter 21,
‘Back to the Bible!’, especially pages 291-97 which exemplify this concern.
26 Wacker, ‘Functions of Faith in Primitive Pentecostalism’, pp. 374—75. Also
see his ‘Playing for Keeps: The Primitivist Impulse in Early Pentecostalism’. In this
essay he defines primitivism as ‘any effort to deny history, or to deny the contin
gencies of historical existence, by returning to the time before time, to the golden
age that preceded the corruptions of life in history’ (p. 197). Then he goes on to
argue how early Pentecostalism manifested three ‘patterns of primitivism’. These
three forms were what he calls philosophical primitivism, historical primitivism and
ethical primitivism. Philosophical primitivism does not imply that Pentecostals
were philosophical but that this belief ‘existed at a preconceptual level’ of their
worldview (p. 198). Philosophical primitivism refers to the Pentecostal notion that
they could know ‘absolute truth’ in a very personal manner which was ‘unencum
bered by the limitations of finite existence’ (pp. 198-99). Historical primitivism was
the Pentecostal notion that they replicated New Testament Christianity, which
helps to explain why they found church history irrelevant, as exemplified in the
‘Latter Rain’ narrative (pp. 199—207). Ethical primitivism ‘was a cluster of antimod
ern behavior patterns’ which were patterned after the New Testament in order to
Early Pentecostal biblical Interpretation 97
bring about the power of New Testament Christianity. In short, ‘the key to apos
tolic power was apostolic purity’ (pp. 207-15, cited page 208).
27 Cheryl Bridges Johns, ‘Partners In Scandal: Wesleyan And Pentecostal Schol
arship’, Wesleyan TheologicalJournal 34.1 (1999), p. 17.
28 I have in mind the movie entitled ‘Leap of Faith’, starring Steve Martin.
29Johns, ‘Partners In Scandal: Wesleyan And Pentecostal Scholarship’, p. 10.
30 This writer would suggest that Pentecostalism, the Charismatic movement,
the Neo Pentecostals, and Majority World Christianity all helped to contribute to
the undermining of modernity’s foundations. I do not have the space to demon
strate this idea. Conversely, one could argue that Pentecostalism, exported from
Westernized America, brought about a modernizing influence to tribal peoples who
converted to Pentecostalism.
98 Spirit, Scripture and Community
36 I am not suggesting that Reed and Dayton imply such a notion, but from a
Modernist’s perspective it would.
37 This analysis will be limited to a few representative individuals and selected
works. The following individual’s publications will serve as an influential and repre
sentative pool: Charles Fox Parham 1873—1929, William Joseph Seymour 1870—
1922, Garfield Thomas Haywood 1880-1931, and Frank J. Ewart 1876-1947. A
brief biographic account can be found on each of these individuals in the DPCM. I
will also draw upon the three earliest Pentecostal historiographies that can be found
in The Three Early Pentecostal Tracts’ in Donald W. Dayton (ed.), The Higher
Christian Life (New York: Garland Publishing, 1985). This volume contains the fac
similes of three of the earliest apologetic tracts of the Pentecostal movement: The
Latter Lain Covenant and Pentecostal Power by D. Wesley Myland (1910); The Spirit and
The Bride by G.F. Taylor (1907?); The Apostolic Faith Restored by B.F. Lawrence
(1916). This, of course, is not an exhaustive list of all the first generation Pentecos
tals or publications, nor do all Pentecostals agree on all points of theological issues
or interpretations yet they are significant and representative of contributing person
alities among the first generation of Pentecostalism.
100 Spirit, Scripture and Community
43 See Jaroslav Pelikan, From Futher To Kierkegaard (St. Louis: Concordia, 1950),
pp. 49-75, also see chapter two of this monograph.
44 See B. Ramm’s discussion on the proper use of ‘proof texts’ in his Protestant
Biblical Interpretation: A Textbook of Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book
House, 1970, 3d rev. edn, 1993), pp. 172—78. Ramm argues that the Bible is a store
house of facts and the ‘theologian is a careful collector of the facts’ (p. 173). Thus
the theologian must collect and ‘catalogue’ the biblical topic into a ‘systematic’ and
‘coherent’ system. Thus proof-texting is necessary, but only acceptable if proper
exegetical work has been done on the ‘text’. He explains, ‘the use of proof texts is
perfecdy legitimate ... [because] the conservative insists the citation of Scripture is
nothing more than a special application of “foot-noting”’. However, it has been
abused and so the proof-text must first be examined exegetically to make sure it
really deals with the subject. His exegetical method would be a historical-
grammatical approach from the Hodge-Warfield perspective, hence a modernistic
and Fundamentalist approach. He refers to both Hodge and Calvin as examples of
employing sound exegetical method, which enabled them to produce an orthodox
biblical theology. Also see Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation who states that
‘there is nothing wrong with quoting verses to prove a point provided we under
stand them according to their contextual meaning (under the correct circumstances
poof-texting can be valid)’ (p. 160). For many contemporary conservative Evan
gelicals, the correct exegetical approach is to understand the passage from both the
literary and historical context. Therefore, most academically trained Fundamentalist
(Hodge-Warfield-Machen) and conservative Evangelicals desire to produce an exe
getical theology, which then can be systematized. My point is that the early Pente-
102 Spirit, Scripture and Community
costals were concerned about both the ‘historical-cultural’ and ‘grammatical’ con
texts of a passage, but they did not use the academically tutored historical-
grammatical exegetical method. The Pentecostal proof-texting approach was syn
chronic—not diachronic—and was used primarily as a means to develop their doc
trinal positions (like most other popularistic readings). Thus, they relied upon ac
ceptable commentators like Adam Clarke for exegetical insight.
45 See footnote 304 above.
46 See Stephan J. Lennox, ‘Biblical Interpretation in The American Holiness
Movement, 1875—1920’ (PhD dissertation, Drew University, 1992), for a thorough
analysis of the Wesleyan Holiness approach to interpretation. Lennox argues that
the holiness movement used the long standing ‘Populist Hermeneutic’ (explained in
chapter two) while emphasizing certain Wesleyan ideas. For his explanation of the
‘Bible Reading’ method see pp. 214—15.
Early Pentecostal biblical Interpretation 103
48 Mrs. (Sarah) Charles F. Parham, The Life cf Charles F. Parham: Founder <f the
Apostolic Faith Movement (Joplin, MO: Hunter Printing Company, 1930), p. 51.
49 S. Parham, The Life cf Charles F. Parham, p. 52. See also R. Parham, Selected
Sermons cf the Late Charles F. Parham, Sarah E. Parham, p. 81. Parham was convinced
that HE was the specifically chosen instrument of God to proclaim the ‘restored’
Apostolic faith message to the whole world.
50 S. Parham, The Life f Charles F. Parham, p. 52. See also Selected Sermons cf the
Late Charles F. Parham, Sarah E. Parham, p. 83. Parham would always hold to the
belief that speaking in an unlearned, yet existing foreign, language was the evidence
for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. According to Parham, the purpose of the Pente
costal Spirit baptism was to enable missionaries to preach in a foreign language that
they had not learned, thus hastening the second coming of Jesus and the spread of
the Gospel. According to Sarah Parham, this was an important reason for Agnes N.
Ozman’s (LaBerge) (who was the first student and person to speak in tongues)
desire to receive the Spirit baptism. ‘She hoped to go to foreign fields’ (in The Life f
Charles F. Parham, p. 52). There are two somewhat conflicting accounts (Ozman’s
and Parham’s) of the ‘Topeka Revival’. See the ‘Topeka Revival’ in DPCM, pp.
850—52. Concerning Parham’s doctrinal understanding of Spirit baptism see his
sermon ‘The Baptism of The Holy Spirit’ in Selected Sermons cf the Late Charles F.
Parham, Sarah E. Parham, pp. 64—74, and especially pp. 71-72. He stated, ‘I believe
in tongues to be the practical means of reaching others that do not understand our
language ... I am looking for people that will come up with the languages and go to
the ends of the earth, speaking the language of the nations’ (emphasis added). Also
see J.R Goff, Jr., Fields White unto Harvest, pp. 72-78. Goff explains their experience
of tongues speech as a ‘cryptomnesia’ experience (p. 77). See also his essay ‘Initial
Tongues in the Theology of Charles Fox Parham’ in Gary B. McGee (ed.), Initial
Evidence: Historical and Biblical Perspectives on the Pentecostal Doctrine cf Spirit Baptism
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1991), pp. 57—71. For ‘historical reports’
of ‘xenoglossa’ (or ‘xenolalia’) in the Pentecostal movement see R.W. Harris, Spoken
Early Pentecostal biblical Interpretation 105
By the Spirit (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1973); W. Warner (ed.),
Touched By The Fire (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1978). However, other Pen
tecostal groups will not entirely affirm Parham’s view and will modify their under
standing of ‘tongues’ as speaking in heavenly ecstatic language (glossolalia). The
reason for the modification was due to their experiential failure to match the
tongues speaking with a foreign language. For an example of a direct refutation of
Parham’s understanding of the purpose of Spirit baptism see Lawrence, The Apos
tolic Faith Restored, p. 26. Lawrence stated, 'The gift of tongues was not givenfor the purpose
(f enabling the early ministry to evangelise the world (his italics).
51 R. Parham, Selected Sermons, p. 82. For an excellent example, see Sarah
Parham’s sermon, ‘Earnestly Contend for the Faith Once Delivered to the Saints’
in Selected Sermons.
52 Common Sense for the holiness folk simply meant that the ordinary Chris
tian, preferably unschooled, with the aid of the Holy Spirit was able to understand
the Bible. See Stephen J. Lennox, ‘Biblical Interpretation In The American Holi
ness Movement, 1875—1920’, ch. 2 and pp. 163—68.
53 Both C. Parham and W.J. Seymour were Wesleyan Holiness Pentecostals who
held that entire sanctification, subsequent to salvation, was an achievable and nec
essary prerequisite for the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
106 Spirit, Scripture and Community
54 They were tracing £the baptism of the Holy Spirit’ through Acts, and then de
duced a general principle from the ‘biblical facts’. The sentence, ‘Peter preached the
Word, and they were cleansed through the Word, as the disciples before the Day of
Pentecost’ is referring to Jn 15.3 and 13.10, where Jesus declares the disciples were
clean by his word. Thus they argued that the disciples were already ‘sanctified’
Christians before the Pentecostal outpouring recorded in Acts 2. It is important to
acknowledge that Seymour, by 1915, will no longer hold that ‘tongues’ is the only
sign for Spirit baptism. He wrote in the preface to his The Doctrines and Discipline of
the A%usa Street Apostolic Faith Mission of Dos Angeles, Cal1, ‘Wherever the doctrine of
the Baptism in the Holy Spirit will only being known (sic) as the evidence of speak
ing in tongues, that work will be an open door for witches and spiritualists, and free
loveism’. Seymour was responding to the ongoing racial rhetoric coming from
some Pentecostal groups, especially Parham’s (See Seymour’s The Apostolic Faith 1.2,
first story. Seymour disassociated himself from Parham). See Lawrence, The Apos
tolic Faith Restored, chs. 2 and 3, for a similar yet more sustained argument on the
baptism in the Holy Spirit as evidenced with tongues.
55 See the article ‘Baptism in the Holy Spirit’ in DPCM, pp. 40—48, for a brief
overview.
56 Joseph H. King, From Passover To Pentecost (Franklin Springs, GA: Advocate,
1976, 4th edn; originally published 1911), p. 183 as cited in G. McGee (ed.), Initial
108 Spirit, Scripture and Community
Having biblical support for one’s belief and practice was a very se
rious matter. T or if it is not in the Bible Ye need not believe it, but if
it is in the Word of God, Ye must receive it’.57 Therefore, Bible doc
trines are to be believed, experienced and practiced. Pentecostal in
terpretation of Scripture was always done with praxis being the goal.
How did one know if they had the right experience? The doctrine,
which embraces experience and practice, must correspond to the bib
lically described account. Thus, Parham argued:
all we claim is that if you get the baptism in the Holy Ghost it will
correspond to the experience in the second chapter of Acts...We
believe in having the Bible evidence, and the chief evidence if you
get the same experience is, that ‘they spake in tongues.’58
When someone would challenge the Pentecostal understanding that
tongues was the evidence for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, they did
so by arguing that there were biblical manifestations other than sim
ply tongues which could be of equal experiential proof for Spirit bap
tism. The Pentecostals would tenaciously respond to the challenge
with a similar response like that of George F. Taylor:
Look up all the accounts given in Scripture of any receiving the
Baptism, and you will find not any other manifestation mentioned
without the manifestation of tongues.. .Show us any other Scrip
tural manifestation and we will accept it. Show us one account of
an apostolic service of which the Book says, ‘They were filled with
the Holy Ghost, but did not speak with tongues.’59
Evidence: Historical and 'Biblical Perspectives on the Pentecostal Doctrine of Spirit Baptism, p.
109.
57 R. Parham, Selected Sermons, p. 93, her emphasis.
58 R. Parham, Selected Sermons, pp. 66, 70. For C. Parham, The Everlasting Gospel
(Baxter Springs, KS: Apostolic Faith Bible College, nd, reprint of 1911), this Pente
costal baptism did not produce ‘the chattering and jabbering, wind sucking, holy-
dancing-rollerism going on over the country, which is a result of hypnotic, spiritual
istic and fleshly controls, but a real sane reception of the Holy Spirit in baptismal
power, filling you with glory unspeakable and causing you, without any effort, to
speak freely in foreign languages’ (p. 55).
59 Taylor, The Spirit and the Bride, pp. 46—47. Taylor dedicated all of ch. 4, which
is the longest segment in this book, to answering objections to the early Pentecostal
understanding of Spirit baptism. See p. 41 for his concern ‘not to defame his breth
ren ... but to point out the error of [their] teachings’.
Early Pentecostal Biblical Interpretation 109
The Pentecostals were arguing that they had ‘rediscovered’ the ‘bibli
cal evidence’ for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.60 For the early Pente
costals, the Bible evidence was speaking in tongues. This was under
stood not only as the correct understanding of Scripture, but was also
thought to be a clear self-evident fact to those who honesdy and
humbly submitted themselves to the Spirit while reading the Scrip
ture.61 The Pentecostal plea was to ‘accept all that is Scriptural; reject
all that is erroneous’.62 They were convinced of the Scriptural cor
rectness of their doctrine and triumphantly proclaimed it as a necessary
experience for every Christian. Those Christians who rejected their
understanding of Spirit baptism were rejecting the ‘Full Gospel’ mes
sage and were in danger of experiencing the plagues of the great
tribulation,63 or even worse, losing their salvation.6465
R.A. Torrey: A Holiness View of Spirit Baptism
The Keswickian R.A. Torrey published in 1895 a very popular work
called The Baptism with the Holy Spirit!* Torrey’s interpretive approach
was the same popularistic Bible Reading Method that would later be
used by the Pentecostals, yet he did not arrive at the same conclusion
concerning the manifested evidence of Spirit baptism.66 According to
Torrey, the evidence of the baptism with the Holy Spirit was simply
power for Christian service.6768
When discussing the ‘evidence’ for Spirit baptism, Torrey wrote,
‘In my early study of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit I noticed that
in many instances those who were baptized “spoke with tongues’”.
Yet he rejected tongues as the evidence for two reasons. First, he did
not presendy see Christians speaking in tongues. It seems that the
supernatural gift had ceased with the early church, which of course
would have been a notion reinforced by his more Reformed back
ground. Second, and most importantly for Torrey’s argument, was his
understanding of the Apostle Paul’s teaching on the gift of tongues,
specifically, 1 Cor. 12.30. This verse posed the rhetorical question:
Do all speak with tongues? The answer for Torrey was obviously
no. 68
Torrey rejected tongues-speech incidents in Acts as the definitive
evidence for Spirit baptism by connecting it to the gift of tongues
mentioned in 1 Corinthians. Torrey acknowledged that many New
Testament Christians who were baptized in the Holy Spirit did speak
in tongues, but not all of them spoke in tongues. He did encourage
all Christians to seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit. He reminded
them that not all would receive the gift of tongues. However, he did
believe that one should have an experiential knowledge of Spirit bap
tism subsequent to one’s salvation experience. The evidence of Spirit
baptism was power for service, which was experientially manifested
through the individual as the Holy Spirit desires.
Torrey used the same interpretive strategy as other Holiness
groups in order to arrive at his doctrinal conclusion. The strategy was
the Bible Reading Method which his book The Baptism in the Holy
Spirit exemplified. He did not embrace tongues as the normative sign
for Spirit baptism because he did not have first-hand knowledge of
Holiness Christians presently speaking in tongues and he himself
never spoke in tongues. Yet Torrey claimed to be Spirit baptized. He
tation, I became satisfied that the Baptism with the Holy Spirit was an experience
for to-day and for me’.
67 Torrey, The Baptism with the Holy Spirit, see pp. 10—16, 19. Torrey wrote, The
Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not for the purpose of cleansing from sin, but for the
purpose for service\ He maintained that one should know whether or not one had
this second subsequent experience (p. 14).
68 Torrey, The Baptism with the Holy Spirit, p. 16.
Early Pentecostal biblical Interpretation 111
69 See Torrey’s First Course— Bible Doctrine, (New York: Garland Publishing,
1988, a facsimile of 1901 publication with same title), pp. 271—80. See also his The
Person and Work f The Hot}1Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1974, a rev. edn
of the original 1910 edn), pp. 172—76. By February 1978, this 1974 edition was in
its eleventh printing, a testimony to the popularity of Torrey’s long standing influ
ence among the popularistic Christian communities. For an explanation of an early
Wesleyan Holiness understanding see George D. Watson, A Holiness Manual
(Jamestown, NC: Newby Book Room, 1882) and for a contemporary view see J.
Kenneth Grider, Entire Sanctification: The Distinct Doctrine cf Wesleyanism (Kansa City,
MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1980).
112 Spirit, Scripture and Community
baptism.’ I told him that he was right, and that we had the normal
faith in the Pentecostal Phenomenon.70
In sum, the 'Bible Reading Method’ encouraged readers to trace out
topics in Scripture and then synthesize the biblical data into a doc
trine. The Bible Reading Method was the primary way in which Holi
ness communities developed their doctrines. It was also used by Pen-
tecostals to develop their understanding of Spirit baptism. Even
though these communities were using the same interpretive method,
they were generating different theological understandings concerning
both the purpose and evidence for the baptism in the Holy Spirit.71
With regard to Baptism in the N am e of Jesus Only
The Bible Reading Method used from a Pentecostal point of view
enabled Oneness Pentecostalism to come into existence. Oneness
Pentecostalism came out of Trinitarian Pentecostalism; thus, this be
gan as an in-house theological discussion or worse, a major crisis.
This crisis could not be resolved by appealing to the correct or incor
rect use of an interpretive method. The Bible Reading Method lent
itself to create new theological mosaics.
Oneness Pentecostalism came into existence as a result of a 'new
way of harmonizing’ the Lukan baptismal formula (Acts 2.38) with
the Matthean baptismal formula (Mt. 28.19).72 This had a direct im
pact upon the traditional Trinitarian view of God and the early Pen
tecostal understanding of salvation. Oneness Pentecostals empha
sized the singularity of God’s identity and the singularity of God’s
name. Jesus was the divine name for God and the final revelation of
G od’s identity. The new way of harmonizing resulted from their view
of Acts 2.38, which was for them the 'Gospel in miniature’.
Salvation, from the Oneness understanding, was one progressive
experience consisting of three distinct experiential phases as outlined
in Acts 2.38. One was not a complete Christian until one successfully
passed through the experiential stages. The threefold salvation expe
rience as outlined in Acts 2.38 involved repentance, water baptism in
the name of Jesus, and Holy Spirit baptism with the evidence of
tongues.73 Hence, Oneness Pentecostals were insistent that one be re
baptized out of obedience to Apostolic teaching (Acts) and be bap
tized by immersion into the singular name of God—Jesus. Salvation
was not complete until one successfully passed through these stages.
Haywood’s concluding remarks to his work called The Birth of' the
Spirit in the Days of the Apostles captures the intense concern of these
Pentecostals:
If you have never been baptized in the name JESUS CHRIST, you
have never been immersed properly. This is the only name under
heaven given among men whereby they must be saved. If you re
pent deeply enough in your heart, and be baptized in the name of
Jesus Christ, I will guarantee that you shall receive the baptism of
the Holy Ghost as you ‘come up out of the water.’74
Oneness Pentecostalism came into existence by harmonizing the
Lukan and Matthean baptismal formulas into a new coherent whole.
This harmonization was done within the already acceptable common-
sensical inductive and deductive methodological interpretive stance—
the ‘Bible Reading Method’. I shall now explain how Oneness Pente
costals justified their interpretation by drawing upon selected works
of Oneness Pentecostals, namely Ewart and Haywood.75
Frank Ewart
Frank Ewart, on April 15, 1914, set up a tent just outside of Los An
geles and preached his first public sermon on Acts 2.38. He then,
along with another evangelist, was rebaptized using the Acts formula.
Reed states, ‘this action credits Ewart as the first to chart a new direc
tion within the early Pentecostal movement. It was he who formu
lated a theology of the name of Jesus to validate the new baptismal
practice.’76 Ewart’s ‘Theology of the Name’ was rooted in the Jesus
centric Pietism of the late nineteenth century and was ‘particularly
73 Reed, ‘Origins and Development of the Theology of Oneness’, pp. 146, 167.
See also, In Jesus' N am , pp. 313-23.
74 Republished in The Life and Writings of Elder G.T. Haywood (Oregon: Apostolic
Book Publishers, 4th printing, 1984), p. 40.
75 Reed identifies these two men (Ewart and Haywood) as the most significant
leaders of early Oneness Pentecostals. See ‘Origins and Development of the The
ology of Oneness’ pp. 105—107, and In Jesus' Name, 141—46.
76 Reed, ‘Oneness Pentecostalism’ in DPCM, p. 644.
114 Spirit, Scripture and Community
concerned to defend the full deity of Jesus Christ and re-establish the
presence and power of the Apostolic church’.77
In his work, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, Ewart defended his un
derstanding of the Oneness of God. His argument was organized
around two important themes: The essential oneness of God’s nature
and the singular name of God. Jesus is God and Jesus is ‘the revealed
name’ of God. In this work he upheld both the deity and humanity of
Jesus, yet he constandy attacked the orthodox understanding of Trin
ity. He explained that the Trinity implied the existence of three eter
nally separate Spirit beings.
Ewart understood Trinity to be a ‘flagrant violation’ of the essen
tial unity of the Godhead because Trinitarians taught that God in
heaven existed from eternity as three individual Spirit beings, not as
separate corporal beings but nonetheless three individual beings.78 He
also felt that Mt. 28.19 was the proof-text for Trinitarian belief. Mat
thew 28.19 was used as a formula to baptize a person into three sepa
rate names which referred to three separate persons.79
He understood the doctrine of Trinity to teach a ‘trinity of Gods’
or to be Tritheistic.80 He rejected both the word ‘Trinity’ and the
word ‘person’ because neither were scriptural terms, and more spe
cifically, the word ‘person’ meant a totally separate identity or indi
vidual Spirit being. This was his major problem with the Trinitarian
view.81 In fact the only place in the Bible that he could find the word
‘persons’ as having ‘any relevancy to the deity’ was Job 13.10 which
reads ‘He will surely reprove you, if you do secredy accept persons5.82
Ewart suggested that Pentecostals use the word ‘Triunity instead of
Trinity5 and ‘substance5 or ‘entities5 or ‘manifestations5 in place of
‘person5.8384
The initial problem of the Trinitarian view of God arose out of
the apparent contradiction between Matthew’s baptismal formula and
the formula used in Acts. Ewart asked, ‘Why is there no mention
made of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, in any formula of baptism
known and used by the Aposdes?584 This is particularly troubling for
Ewart, who writes:
if the Aposde Peter did not obey Christ’s commandment (Mt
28:19) on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), then it never has been
obeyed. If the words of the Master were to be taken as a formula
for Christian baptism, then the Acts of the Aposdes present one
of the most colossal contradictions of history. In that case, the church
was built on a flagrant act of disobedience (emphasis and paren
thesis added).85
Ewart was convinced that the Aposdes and therefore the entire Ap
ostolic Church never baptized a person by the Matthean formula.86
N or would he accept that the Aposdes were disobedient to Christ’s
command (an argument advanced by him to heighten the apparent
contradiction). The Apostles were expounding on the meaning of the
Matthean baptismal formula, which is to say; ‘the Aposdes knew how
to interpret Matthew 28:195.87 The interpretation of Mt. 28.19 was
Acts 2.38, because ‘to say that Acts 2:38 is not the complete fulfill
82 Ewart, The Revelation cf Jesus Christ, p. 25. He meant this as a warning from
God to those who would not accept his doctrinal position on the Godhead.
83 Ewart, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, pp. 14 and 25. Ewart preferred the word
‘substance’ because he finds this to be a biblically sound word that reinforces the
solidarity and essential oneness of God. He translated both Heb. 1.3 and Col. 2.9
(‘Godhead bodily’ or ‘God’s nature’) as ‘substance’. He believed every Greek
scholar would admit that Heb. 1.3 should be translated as ‘the expression of his
substance’, p. 25. He used the Weymouth translation for Col. 2.9 and Jas 2.19 to
further strengthen his argument.
84 Ewart, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, p. 20.
85 Ewart, The Phenomenon cf Pentecost, p. I l l and also The Revelation of Jesus Christ,
p. 32.
86 Ewart, The Revelation cf Jesus Christ, p. 7. Ewart cited the work of William Phil
lips Hall and others to support this claim.
87 Ewart, The Revelation cf Jesus Christ, p. 16 and p. 7.
116 Spirit, Scripture and Community
Jesus.93 He argued that the name Jesus was now the proper ‘revealed’
name of God (even though he saw Yahweh and Jesus as synony
mous). This meant that the trilogy of names from Matthew (Father,
Son and Holy Spirit) were not proper names for God, but descrip
tions or adjectives of the one God. Thus, Jesus is not just the second
person of the Trinity; rather, he is the totality of God, and the com
plete incarnation of God. Jesus, then, was the Father and the Spirit.94
This had to be so because Jesus said to baptize into the ‘name’ (Mt.
28.19), which is a singular noun in the Greek text.95
According to Ewart, if God had three names corresponding to the
three persons of the Trinity, then Mt. 28.19 should have read, ‘Bap
tizing them into the NAMES’.96 Thus, Ewart was able to resolve the
‘colossal contradiction’ by appealing to the singular form of the word
‘name’ which along with the act of water baptism connected the two
accounts together.
In sum, Ewart, by using the commonsensical inductive and deduc
tive ‘Bible Reading Method’,97 was able to link the many Old and
New Testament passages together that reiterated the biblical theme
that ‘God was One’.98 By appealing to John’s Gospel and assumed
Pauline passages, he asserted that Jesus was both the Father and the
Spirit. The following song quoted by Ewart summarized his theologi
cal view:
If you’re looking for the Father,
You will find him in the Son.
Much concern about the Spirit,
D on’t you know the Three are One?
99 This writer agrees with Reed’s suggestion that Ewart misunderstood the tra
ditional (Latin and Greek) Trinitarian view because Ewart relied solely upon the
English translation and focused in on the concept of ‘person’ which carries a
stronger connotation of a separate and distinct identity than the Greek. For a thor
ough explanation of the Oneness Pentecostal argument see Reed, In Jesus' Nam ,
chs. 12-14.
1()() A statement made often in early Pentecostal literature and other popularistic
groups which refers to the proper way of interpreting the Bible (the Bible Reading
Method).
101 G.T. Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the A.postles (Indianapolis,
IN: Christ Temple Book Store, nd), p. 5.
Early Pentecostal biblical Interpretation 119
102 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, forward.
103 Haywood, Divine Names and Titles of Jehovah (Indianapolis, IN: Christ Temple
Book Store, nd), p. 12. Haywood used this story to introduce the problem of the
Trinitarian view and also as an introduction to the word ‘speaking’. He then used
verses from the Fourth Gospel (12.49, 50; 14.10, 24) to prove that when Jesus
spoke it was the Spirit of the Father who spoke through him. Thus, the voice of
God is the one self-same Spirit. Haywood did not give the context in which this
event took place, but it most likely took place in a worship service and was seen as
the operation of the gift of interpretation or prophecy.
104 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, p. 2.
120 Spirit, Scripture and Community
105 See Haywood, The Birth af the Spirit in the Days (f the Apostles, pp. 2, 4. It is
painstakingly clear that Haywood is harmonizing the rest of the Bible with his un
derstanding of Acts. Acts is the controlling narrative in the harmonization process.
106 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days-'of the Apostles, p. 2.
107 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, pp. 2-3. The word
‘full’ before baptism is a reference to the three-phase salvation experience; thus it
could read ‘real’ or ‘complete’.
Early Pentecostal biblical Interpretation 121
phetic promise concerning the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, which
finds fulfillment in Acts 2.4.1(18 However, the ‘new’ twist to this com
mon understanding was that salvation now involved three experien
tial phases, which he explained later in The Birth of' the Spirit in the Days
of the Apostles.
Next, Haywood examined Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus that in
order to enter the kingdom of God one had to be born again.
Haywood argued that for Nicodemus to be born again, he indeed
must be ‘born of water and Spirit’.11)9 Once again, Haywood was
troubled because he could not find the exact phrase recorded in Acts.
‘N ot one place in the book of Acts can we find the words “born of
water and the Spirit,” or “born again,” but we can find the words re
lating to “baptism” twenty seven times’.
Haywood resolved his concern by arguing that the phrase ‘to be
born of water and the Spirit’ refers to the same event as being bap
tized with water and with the Holy Spirit in Acts 2.38. The words
‘born’ and ‘baptized’ were understood to be synonymous terms refer
ring to the same experience. Haywood stated that if this was not true,
then where is there any record in Acts of anyone being born again?* 10910
Therefore, ‘to enter into the Kingdom of God one must be born of
water and the Spirit, or, to enter into Christ, the Church, one must be
baptized in water and the Holy Spirit’, all of which referred to the full
salvation experience. Hence, these two phrases simply meant the
same thing— salvation.111
For Oneness Pentecostals there is no difference between being
born of the Spirit and the baptism of the Spirit. This was a new chal
lenge to the theological position of both Holiness groups (Wesleyan
and Keswickian) and Trinitarian Pentecostals. For Oneness Pentecos-
1(18 Many Pentecostals would view Isa. 28.11, 12 as a prophetic passage concern
ing Spirit baptism, which finds its first fulfillment in Acts 2.4. See Lawrence, The
Apostolic Faith Restored, pp. 25, 29.
109 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, p. 4.
110 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of' the Apostles, pp. 4—5. Later in this
work, Haywood quoted a lengthy passage form Adam Clarke that supported his
understanding of John 3 (p. 15). Under the heading ‘What the Bible Teaches’ (p. 8),
he argued that Mk 16.1, Jn 10.9; Acts 2.38, Gal. 3.27 and Tit. 3.5 were all similar
expressions meaning the same thing. For other examples of synonymous terminol
ogy, see pp. 5, 7 (the body of Christ and the Kingdom of God), pp. 8, 11 (circumci
sion of the heart is synonymous to new birth), pp. 28 and 29.
111 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, p. 8.
122 Spirit, Scripture and Community
112 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles. Haywood offered
Cornelius’ household as a test case, p. 6. See also p. 10 where he refuted a Wesleyan
understanding and p. 16 where he clearly delineates the three phases of salvation.
113 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, p. 21, ‘because the
same Greek word, gennao is used in the original for both words, it does not neces
sarily imply that the words are the same meaning’.
114 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, p. 23. Haywood dif
ferentiated between the meanings of ‘born’ and ‘begotten’, first by appealing to the
English dictionary and then secondly by appealing to the original Greek word’s
definition which showed a wider range of meaning. (However, he did not cite his
source, but I would say he is using an English concordance). He, like most early
Pentecostals, relied first on the English translafion and definition and then when
the ‘traditional’ understanding was challenged, used the original language to prove
his point. Haywood was both apologetic and humble about his use of the Greek.
‘We do not do this to make a display of knowledge ... We do not profess to be a
Early Pentecostal Biblical Interpretation 123
Greek student, but we desire to use a little Greek at this point, as we believe it will
help some. ... We trust none of the children of God will stumble over these Greek
words’ (pp. 18-19).
115 Trinitarian Pentecostal Lawrence wrote in his The Apostolic Faith Restored that
The exercise of speaking in other tongues was intended primarily to edify or bless
the speaker; in its secondary purpose it was when combined with interpretation,
used to edify the church’ (p. 26), and that There were many among us who do not
have the gift of tongues as described in ICor. 12 and 14 who did speak in tongues
as the people in Acts did’ (p. 28). For a contemporary and classical re-presentation
see R.H. Gause, living in the Spirit: The Way of Salvation (Cleveland, TN: CPT Press,
2009), p. 164, n. 65.
116 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, pp. 16-21.
117 For the Oneness Pentecostals, Spirit baptism with tongues was the evidence
of one’s full salvation and for Trinitarian Pentecostals, it was the evidence of the
Holy Spirit baptism. However both saw this as important to being a complete
Christian. Yet, Trinitarian Pentecostals would have generally affirmed the salvation
of holiness Christians, but these Christians would go through the great tribulation.
As for the gifts in 1 Corinthians, these were given for the corporate church and
124 Spirit, Scripture and Community
thus one may have the prayer language tongues (Spirit baptism) and not have the
gift of speaking in tongues. See Lawrence, The Apostolic Faith Restored, p. 28.
118 Haywood, The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles, p 17. Haywood ex
plained that The speaking with other tongues as the Spirit gave utterance accom
panied the “gift” of the Holy Ghost [Acts 2]; but the “divers kind of tongues” [1
Corinthians] is one of the “gifts” of the Holy Spirit, which He divides severally has
(sic) he wills’. See also p. 19.
119 Ewart and Haywood used typology and allegory, but not as the primary
means to create a Biblical doctrine. Typology and allegory usually functioned to
reinforce an already established doctrinal position. For examples, see Ewart’s typo-
Early Pentecostal biblical Interpretation 125
Sum m ary
logical (allegorical) interpretation of Mt. 13.33 (the parable of the leaven) in The
Revelation Of Jesus Christ. The woman is the Roman Catholic Church, the leaven is
the false doctrine of the Nicene Creed and three measures symbolized the Trinity
(pp. 26-27). See also Haywood’s allegorical reading of Job in The Finest of Wheat
(Indianapolis, IN: Christ Temple Book Store, nd, pp. 8-11).
12() Taylor in his exposition on the parable of the Ten Virgins found in The Spirit
and the Bride, said, ‘The best way to understand the parables spoken by our Lord, is
to first note the facts from which he drew them’. Taylor then argued that Jesus
drew this parable from the common Jewish custom of weddings, which was ac
cording to the customs of the East (pp. 112-13).
126 Spirit, Scripture and Community
121 For two typical and more vehement attacks upon early Pentecostals see
Alma White [Wesleyan Holiness], Demons and Tongues (Zarephath, NJ: Pillar of Fire
Publishers, 1936) and Jonathan E. Perkins, Pentecostalism on the Washboard (Fort
Worth, Texas: Jonathan Elsworth Perkins, Publisher, no date but most likely pub
lished in the 1930’s?). Alma White presented the typical Wesleyan holiness response
that Pentecostals were simply deceived by Satan and tongues speech was a manifes
tation of demon possession. See also W.B. Godbey (who was a very influential per
son among the Wesleyan Holiness groups), Tongue Movement, Satanic (Zarephath, NJ:
Pillar of Fire Publishers, 1918). Perkins, a Fundamentalist Baptist, had embraced
Pentecostalism and worked for the Assemblies of God headquarters but later re
signed. His work was an attack on Pentecostalism in general but particularly di
rected toward the Assemblies of God. He rejected Pentecostalism for a number of
specific hermeneutical reasons all of which he believed violate the plain teaching of
the Word of God, specifically for allowing women to be pastors and theologically
for accepting an Arminian-Wesleyanism that jeopardized the Gospel. The concern
of the Gospel being jeopardizing by Pentecostalism will be raised again when aca
demic critiques of the movement by Reformed evangelicals appear in the 1960’s.
122 Lawrence, The apostolic Faith Festored, p. 29.
123 Lawrence, The Victim Of The Flaming Sword (Indianapolis, IN: Christ’s Temple
Book Store, nd), p. 17.
Early Pentecostal biblical Interpretation 127
Pentecostal Story:
The H ermeneutical Filter
Devoted saints comefrom the HOLINESS church, bringing the message of
Heart-Purity and the Coming of the Lord, and wondefully blessed of God,
asfruitage needing but one thing— the latter rain.1
Aimee Semple McPherson
1Aimee Semple McPherson, This Is That (Los Angeles, CA: Echo Park Evan
gelistic Association, 1923), p. 787.
2 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, p. 35. Land cites Walter J. Hollenweger, ‘After
Twenty Years’ Research on Pentecostalism’, Theology 87 (Nov. 1984), p. 404.
Pentecostal Story \ 29
3Jeff McQuillian, The Literary Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions (Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann, 1998), p. 16.
4 Bernard C. Lategan, ‘Hermeneutics’ in ABD (Doubleday, 1992), III, pp. 153—
54. See also George Aichele et al., The Postmodern Bible: The Bible and Culture Collective
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) who challenges both the notion of the
Enlightenment’s control of objectivity and stability of meaning (pp. 1-8). See also
Anthony C. Thiselton’s, New Horizons in Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zonder-
van, 1992) who argues for a contextualized hermeneutical approach that respects
both the biblical horizon and the horizon of the reader (pp. 9-15). For a sustained
response to Postmodernism see, Anthony Thiselton, Interpreting God and the Postmod
ern Self: On Meaning, Manipulation and Promise (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).
In this monograph, Thiselton responds to the postmodern claim that all truth is
manipulative interpretation. While recognizing that this claim has some validity, he
presents a non-manipulative Christian response.
5 Harry S. Stout, ‘Theological Commitment and American Religious History’,
Theological Education 25 (Spring 1989), pp. 44—59.
130 Spirit, Scripture and Community
11 See for example, Nancy Murphy, Brad Kallenberg and Mark Nation (eds.),
Virtues and Practices in the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics after MacIntyre (Harris
burg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997).
12 See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theoty (Notre Dame,
IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, 2d edn). Also see MacIntyre's sequel,
Whose Justice? Which Nationality (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
1988).
13 L. Gregory Jones, ‘Alasdair MacIntyre on Narrative, Community, and the
Moral Life’, Modern Theology 4.1 (1987), p. 53.
14 Brad J. Kallenberg, ‘The Master Argument of MacIntyre’s After Virtue’ in
Murphy, Kallenberg and Nation (eds.), Virtues and Practices in the Christian Tradition,
p. 20.
132 Spirity Scripture and Community
23 Trevor Hart, Faith Thinking. The Dynamics of Christian Theology (London: SPCK,
1995), p. 68. See also MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality. ‘Post-Enlight
enment relativism and perspectivism are thus the negative counterpart of Enlight
enment, its inverted mirror image’ (p. 353).
24 By meta-narrative, this writer is referring to a grand story by which human
societies and their individual members live and organize their lives in meaningful
ways. The Christian meta-narrative refers to the general Christian story about the
meaning of the world and the God who created it and humanity’s place in it. A
story that begins with a good creation includes a fall into sin, redemption through
the Messiah, Christian Community and final restoration of all creation. The Chris
tian meta-narrative is primarily dependent on the Bible for this general narrative.
See Gabriel Fackre, The Christian Story: A Narrative of Basic Christian Doctrine (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 3rd edn, 1996, I), for a basic outline of the ‘Storyline’ con
cerning the Christian meta-narrative. Fackre writes that ‘Creation, Fall, Covenant,
Jesus Christ, Church, Salvation, Consummation ... are acts in the Christian drama’
with the understanding ‘That there is a God who creates, reconciles, and redeems
the word’ as ‘the “Storyline”’ (pp. 8-9).
134 Spirit, Scripture and Community
poles, the biblical text and the community. This encounter is possible
because within the biblical story and the Pentecostal community
there is a working plot.
Dan Hawk speaks of plot as existing on a number of levels. He
argues that plot functions on the surface level of the story and in this
sense, it ‘may refer to the framework of the story’.28 Plot can also re
fer to the more detailed ‘arrangement of incidents and patterns as
they relate to each other’ in a story.29 These two functions of plot
recognize that plot operates within the self-contained world of the
text. Yet, Hawk also argues that there exist real yet abstract notions
of plot operating within the mind of the reader. The reader, then also,
‘exercises a tendency to organize and make connections between
events’. Hawk argues that this function of plot in the mind of the
reader is a ‘dynamic phenomenon’ which ‘moves beyond the formal
aspects of the text and addresses the interpretive processes that takes
place between text and reader’.30 This happens because a ‘narrative ...
elicits a dynamic interpretative relationship between text and read
er’.31
When the Pentecostal in community reads Scripture for the pur
pose of developing a praxis theology, s/he will place the biblical sto
ries into the cohesive Pentecostal narrative tradition. This does not
mean this employment is simply a linear process because Pentecostals
will allow for the biblical stories to challenge and reshape their tradi
tion. Therefore, there is a dialogical and dialectical encounter between
the Bible and the community. However, this does imply that the
making of meaning and the validation of that meaning will take place
primarily within the community, thus meaning rests in the pragmatic
decision of the community.32 The community must discern what the
text means and how that meaning is to be lived out in the commu
T h e P entecostal Story
Jas 5.7: cBe patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold,
the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long pa
tience for it, until he receive the early and Latter Rain ’(KJV) (emphasis added to
all above).
35 Taylor, The Spirit and The Bride, p. 90. He dedicated ch. 9 of this work to the
explanation of the early and Latter Rain (pp. 90-99).
36 See A.H. Joy, 'Rain’ in J. Orr (ed.), The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
(Chicago: Howard Severance Company, 1915), pp. 2525-26. Faupel, The Everlasting
Gospel^ points out that the Pentecostals misunderstood the Palestinian weather cy
cle. They thought that the early and latter Rain pattern took place between the hot
dry summer, thus a spring and then fall rain, when in actuality it takes place during
the winter rainy season between October (early rain) and April (the latter Rain) (p.
30).
37 See Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel pp- 32—36, citing 35—36, for an important
discussion on the significance of the ‘Latter Rain’ motif contribution to the struc
ture of the Pentecostal message. See also Blumhofer’s discussion of the importance
138 Spirit, Scripture and Community
of the Latter Rain concept upon the lifestyle of the early Pentecostals (Restoring The
Faith, pp. 93-97).
38 Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, p. 96, argues that ‘proto-fundamentalists’ [her
term] like A.T. Pierson, prayed for the Latter Rain outpouring and ‘diligently’
charted the rainfall patterns of Palestine, yet unlike the Pentecostals, ‘they [proto
fundamentalists] did not expect the full recurrence of apostolic “signs’”. I disagree
with Blumhofer’s statement because there existed within the ‘proto-fundamentalist’
coalition those traditions and people who were cessationist like Keswickian dispen-
sationalist A.T. Pierson; but there were also Keswickian folk like A.B. Simpson
who were not cessationist. Thus, it depends upon whether or not one was a cessa
tionist as to whether or not one expected miracles to be restored to the Church.
Also, the Wesleyan Holiness, Pentecostal and proto-fundamentalists (cessationist
and Keswickian) will predominately embrace the Scofieldian dispensational herme
neutic (all Baptistic fundamentalists had already done so), yet those non-
cessationists like the Pentecostals will modify it in light of the ‘Latter Rain’ narra
tive. Therefore, not all proto-fundamentalists were cessationist, and some like A.B.
Simpson were praying for the restoration of the supernatural gifts to the Church.
Thus the application of the term proto-fundamentalist to these early revivalistic
groups creates more confusion than clarity.
39 Cited in Blumhofer, The Assemblies of God, p. 151. For a very important pres
entation of A.B. Simpson’s relationship with Pentecostalism, see Charles W.
Nienkrichen, A.B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement: A Study In Continuity, Crisis,
and Change (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1992). Nienkrichen argues that
the contemporary attitude of the current Christian Missionary Alliance denomina
tion was primarily shaped more by the later revisionist interpretation of Simpson’s
writings by A. W. Tozer than by Simpson himself.
Pentecostal Story 139
believed was beginning to take place because they had already experi
enced a sprinkling of the ‘Latter Rain’ showers (sanctification, divine
healing and premillennialism). Because the ‘early rain’ (Acts 2) em
powered the early Church with supernatural gifts, Simpson and those
who did not embrace a cessationist view, expected a full and greater
restoration of all the gifts during the ‘Latter Rain’ just prior to the
second coming of Christ.40
Pentecostals, however, seized the ‘Latter Rain’ motif and utilized
it as an apologetic explanation for the importance of their movement.
The early rain was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the first-
century Christians at Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2. The latter rain
was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon saved and sanctified
Christians at the turn of the twentieth century. The time between the
early and latter rain was a time of drought caused by the ‘great apos
tasy’ of the Roman Catholic Church.
The biblical ‘Latter Rain’ motif became an important contribution
to the Pentecostal story. The ‘Latter Rain’ motif enabled the Pente
costals to hold together the ‘Full Gospel message’ because it pro
vided a coherent explanation for the restoration of the gifts, while
also providing the primary organizational structure for their story.
The Pentecostals became the people of the prophetically promised
‘Latter Rain’, which meant that they had fully recovered not only the
Apostolic faith, but also the Apostolic power, authority and prac
tice.41 Pentecostals often appealed to the manifestation of miracles as
validation of their message. Thus, ‘signs and wonders’ became an im
portant ‘pro o f for validating the Pentecostal story, and with this
came the development of a ‘Signs Theology’. For example, in The A p
ostolic Faith under the banner ‘Signs Follow’, one reads:
The signs are following in Los Angeles. The eyes of the blind have
been opened, the lame have been made to walk, and those who
40 For Simpson’s understanding of the ‘Latter Rain’ motif see Nienkrichen, A.B.
Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement, pp. 65—68. Nienkrichen correctly points out that
there is a logical corollary of Simpson’s doctrine of ‘Latter Rain’ and his emphasis
upon the restoration of New Testament miracles, which ‘was his categorical rejec
tion of cessadonism’ (p. 66). Simpson would not embrace the normative argument
of the Pentecostals concerning Spirit baptism as being evidenced by speaking in
tongues, even though he was sympathetic to the movement and supportive of the
manifestation of supernatural gifts (p. 129).
41 Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel,\ p. 39.
140 Spirit, Scripture and Community
have accidentally drunk poison have been healed. One came suf
fering from poison and was healed instandy. Devils are cast out,
and many speak in new tongues. All the signs in Mark 16:16-18
have followed except the raising of the dead, and we believe God
will have someone to receive that power. We want all the signs
that it may prove that God is true. It will result in the salvation of
many souls.42
The Early and Latter Rain Motif According to Myland, Taylor
and Lawrence
D. Wesley Myland (1858-1943) was the featured speaker at a Pente
costal convention held at the Stone Church in Chicago in May
through June of 1909. At this convention, Myland presented a series
of lectures on the "Latter Rain’ and the Pentecostal outpouring. This
series of homiletical lectures, which was a sweeping and lengthy ex
position of the Old and New Testaments, was first published in The
Tatter Rain Evangel' which was edited by William Hammer Piper, the
pastor of the influential Stone Church. These lectures were then pub
lished in book form in 1910 with the tide The Tatter Rain Covenant and
Pentecostal Power: With Testimony of Healings and Baptism. This book be
came the classical definitive apologetic for the validation of the Pen
tecostal outpouring as the fulfillment of the expected "Latter Rain’.43
Myland spent four years training to be a Methodist minister and
maintained his credentials with the Methodist Church throughout his
ministry career. He was also affiliated with the CMA from 1890 to
1912. After leaving the CMA, he became a prominent independent
leader among the Pentecostals.44 Myland was a talented songwriter,
evangelist and Bible school teacher and was respected in various
Christian circles.
45 D. Wesley Myland, The Tatter Rain Covenant; Boddy’s citation is found after
Piper's prefatory remarks (no page numbers).
46 Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, p. 95. She states that much of Myland’s lan
guage was duplicated in other publications, some of which were not 'classical’ Pen
tecostal but yet open to the supernatural manifestations such as the CMA.
47 Also ch. 9, The Early and Latter Rain’ in Taylor’s The Spirit and The Bride.
Taylor also makes this connection.
142 Spirit, Scripture and Community
50 Myland, The Tatter Rain Covenant, p. 33, and see pp. 6—7 were he first intro
duces the Latter Rain Covenant and states his reliance on the concordance. The
first place the word ‘Latter Rain’ was used was Deut. 11.14, but Myland argued that
this was the establishment of the Latter Rain Covenant with Israel which was found
in Deut. 11.10-26 (p. 2). Thus the word appears seven times besides the covenant
establishment. Myland stated the word appears ‘Seven; no more or no less’ (p. 6).
Numerology played an important role in shaping his theological interpretation of
the Latter Rain and shaped the very structure in which he presented his lectures
and book. The two important biblical numbers were seven and three. Seven means
perfection while three refers to Trinity. He stated ‘You cannot find perfection
without trinity, and where you find trinity you find perfection’, and ‘trinity runs
through this sevenfold or complete “Latter Rain covenant’” (p. 16). His book con
tained seven chapters, with chs. 1, 2, 6 and 7 containing seven subsections and
some subsections have three more subsections. Ch. 1 is the explanation of the ‘Lat
ter Rain Covenant’ which was an exposition of Deut. 11.10-21, a total of twelve
verses. Myland was quick to point out that twelve was ‘typical [or typological] ... of
the twelve tribes of Israel, to whom it was first given, and also of the twelve patri
archs and the twelve apostles of the Lamb that form the great foundations of the
city of God’ (p. 2). In ch. 2 he dealt with ‘restoring’ the covenant, while ch. 5 was
an exposition on the 29th Psalm—the Seven voices of God. Ch. 7 was a testimonial
of seven of his miraculous healings. Chs. 3 and 5 both have 5 subsections and ch. 5
contains 10 subsections. Myland, like other Pentecostals, will mimic biblical themes
(persecution of the righteous), numbers (3, 7, 12, 40) and episodes in explaining the
important of a doctrine and life experience. This attests to their emersion into bib
lical narrative.
51 Myland, The Tatter Rain Covenant, p. 6. Myland defined the Hebrew and Greek
word for ‘Latter Rain’, but did not cite his source.
52 His understanding of the significance of the number three, even though he
did not explicitly say it, probably reinforces his triple-barreled method.
144 Spirit, Scripture and Community
56 Myland, The Tatter Rain Covenant, pp. 15-16, 107. However, the study of
Scripture should not be equated with formal academic study of Scripture, see pp.
70-71.
57 Myland, The Tatter Rain Covenant, p. 32.
58 Myland, The Tatter Rmw Covenant, p. 1.
59 Myland, The Tatter Rain Covenant, p. 48. Myland utilized this typological inter
pretive approach throughout the whole book.
146 Spirit, Scripture and Community
60 Myland finds types in almost every Old Testament passage related to the
Tatter Rain’. For one example, see pp. 16-17, 22-23 where the promise of the
Latter Rain is threefold and typologically understood according to the roles of the
Trinity. See also Taylor, who wrote ‘Doctor Seiss says, “There is a sacred signifi
cance in numbers” ... Three represents the Trinity ... Four represents humanity.
Seven is the union of three and four, hence it represents salvation ... [and] it also
signifies dispensational fulness, (sic), p. 17.
61 Myland, The Latter Rain Covenants pp. 78—79. Myland included at the end of
his book a copy of the rainfall charts issued by The American Colony, Jerusalem
which offered verifiable proof for his claim (pp. 178-79).
Pentecostal Story 147
62 Myland, The Tatter Tain Covenant, pp. 84—85. Myland like many early Pente
costals was a pretribulational premillennialist, see pp. 109,115-16.
63 The Apostolic Faith, 1.3 (October 1906), p. 4.
64 See chapter two of this study for an explanation of Fundamentalist Dispensa
tionalism.
148 Spirit, Scripture and Community
lack of spiritual gifts that occurred between the early Church and the
present manifestations of the gifts. It was a result of the Church’s
disobedience and corruption.65
Myland argued that when the literal aspects of the ‘Latter Rain
covenant’ (literal ‘Latter Rains’ were beginning to fall again on the
Land of Israel, along with the returning of the literal Jews back to the
land) and the spiritual aspect (God was pouring his Spirit out again
upon the spiritual people) come together at the same time, you have
the inauguration of the dispensational phase, which meant that the
coming of Jesus was imminent.66 Myland, like other Pentecostals, saw
God working in history in a particular way. God works in circles, that
is, he begins and ends the Gospel dispensation in a similar fashion.67
They also expected that the Tatter Rain’ outpouring would be even
greater than the ‘Early Rain’.
Joel’s prophecy played a key role in extending this literal promise
of the early and ‘Latter Rains’ to the Christians, both first century and
then at the turn of the century, while also emphasmng the immediate
coming of Jesus.68 According to Myland, Peter’s quotation of Joel’s
prophecy ‘particularly refers to the beginning and end of this Gospel
65 Lawrence, The Apostolic Faith Restored, p. 15, wrote 4Professed believers may not al
low God to do these things. And here you have the real reason. “These signs shall fol
low them that believe.” When men will not believe, signs have no one to follow’.
The Pentecostals emphasized the condition of the covenant. This view was differ
ent from the Fundamentalist dispensationalist, who argued that the gifts had ceased
with the apostles according to God’s sovereign plan. The Pentecostals placed the
blame upon the corruption of the Church, thus God removed his gifts, yet there
always existed a remnant who had the gifts. Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel\ p. 37,
states that the early Pentecostals searched the earliest Church writings in order to
discover evidence that New Testament Christianity was taught and experienced
by a faithful remnant in every century. This ‘evidence’ was compiled into lita
nies which have been included in virtually every historical account of the move
ment ... The intent of these litanies was to demonstrate that a faithful remnant
bore testimony to the fact that God had intended the Pentecostal emphasis to
be normative in the Church.
66 Myland, The Fatter Rain Covenant, p. 107.
67 The Pentecostal understanding of the gospel dispensation was significantly
different from the cessationist dispensationalism of C.I. Scofield. The Scofieldian
understanding of a dispensation was that God introduced a new law at the begin
ning of the dispensation and then ended the dispensation with divine judgment
because humanity failed to keep the law.
68 Myland, The Fatter Ruin Covenant, p. 80.
Pentecostal Story 149
69 Myland, The letter Rain Covenant, p. 80. Myland also saw a literal and spiritual
type in how Joel’s prophecy was worked out in the beginning of the Church age—
thus Acts traces four outpourings upon literal Jews and upon a Gentile group. My-
land’s modification of dispensationalism created irreconcilable tension, which he
did not resolve.
70 Myland, The Latter Rain Covenant, p. 87.
71 Myland, The Latter Rain Covenant, p. 23.
72 Myland, The Latter Ruin Covenant, see pp. 29, 52, 88, 96, and 99.
73 Myland, The Latter Rain Covenant, p. 61.
74 Myland, The Latter Ruin Covenant, p. 54.
150 Spirit, Scripture and Community
all the outcasts of India and China; these are what God sent the
Latter Rain people to pick up.75
The Pentecostals were marginalized people who heeded the call to
empty themselves of ‘self-love’ and ‘self-will’ and embraced the ‘Lat
ter Rain’ story, which was the restoration of the Gospel of Christ for
the preparation and participation of the end time harvest.76
In sum, the ‘Latter Rain’ motif provided the Pentecostals with a
persuasive apologetic account for the existence of their community.
The ‘Latter Rain’ motif provided the basic structure for the Pentecos
tal story. The Pentecostal story brought together the Full Gospel
message and extended the past biblical ‘Latter Rain’ covenant of
promise into the present Pentecostal movement. The Pentecostals,
then, understood themselves as the prophetically promised eschato
logical movement that would bring about the unity of Christianity
and usher in the second coming of Christ.
Primitivistic Impulse
In this section, I will explain the influences that motivated Pentecos
tals to read Scripture in a restorationist manner. This is also directly
related to the importance and priority of the biblical book of Acts
when Scripture was harmonized. Their community concerns were
important in causing the Pentecostals to ask specific questions whose
answers had to be found in Scripture.
Mark Noll has stated that the typical attitude of nineteenth-
century conservatives toward Scripture was that ‘the Bible was a book
to be studied with the history of the Church, not against it’.77 Pentecos
tals knew that past Church history lacked a consistent attestation of
the supernatural gifts operating throughout Christianity. Yet this did
73 Myland, The Tatter Rain Covenant, p. 53. See p. 84 where he argued that all who
wanted to be used by God must become servants and handmaidens. See pp. 113—
14 where he condemns the wealthy non-Christian and on p. 87 where he rebukes
the Christian who has money. Myland proclaimed ‘If the Lord should burst
through the air with the sound of the trump and voice of the archangel, many who
profess to believe these truths could not go up to meet him because they are bound
down by bank stocks, bonds, and real estate—these are weights upon them.’
76 Myland, The Tatter Rain Covenant, p. 52. The Azusa Street revival was often
compared to the humble surroundings of Christ’s birth.
77 Mark Noll, ‘Primitivism in Fundamentalism and American Biblical Scholar
ship: A Response’ in Richard T. Hughes (ed.), The American Quest for the Primitive
Church (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 1988), p. 125.
Pentecostal Story 151
being restored, the five or four—fold Gospel, all have to do with one’s
relational understanding of the work of Jesus.
In sum, the Pentecostals, who had been shaped by the Christian
culture of £Come-outism’, read Scripture without the need to appeal
to the development of tradition. The unadulterated Christian history
was recorded in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, so there was
little need to trace a historical account of the supernatural gifts being
active throughout Church history. They, however, needed to present
a plausible reason for the lack of the supernatural manifestations.
They simply adopted and re-presented an already acceptable solution.
The gifts had generally ceased due to the great apostasy; however,
they would return to those holiness Christian communities that
sought the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.89 This understanding
was woven into the ‘Latter Rain’ motif and helped to create the Pen
tecostal story.
Mark Noll writes, ‘when studying biblical primitivism, it does
seem important to ask which part of the Bible functions as the stan
dard, for it is rarely the entire text’.90 For Pentecostals, the standard
was the book of Acts. The Pentecostals read the Bible as though they
were the Roman god Janus, seeing frontward and backward simulta
neously. They read the Old Testament through Acts and read the
New Testament through Acts. Therefore, Acts served as their begin
ning and ending point. Donald Dayton’s comment correctly captures
this reality concerning Pentecostals. He notes that they read Scripture
‘through Lukan eyes especially with the lens of Acts’.91
Acts was the authentically inspired historical record of the ‘primi
tive church’. The Pentecostals compared their contemporary Christi
anity with the original ‘Apostolic’ pattern in Acts, and found contem
porary Christianity lacking in both power and purity. They sought to
continue the restoration of doctrine and practice started by the Pro
account for the evil and brokenness? (4) What’s the remedy? or How
do we find a path through our brokenness to wholeness?97
The CNCs of the Pentecostals perform a similar function. The CNCs
also serve as the Pentecostal version of Christianity. Hence, by identi
fying the CNCs, I expose the Pentecostal cultural worldview and si
multaneously recognize the important contribution of the social loca
tion of the reader and her community in the hermeneutical process.98
Hermeneutics is concerned with the historical horizon of the Scrip
ture, but it is also concerned with the equally challenging horizon of
the contemporary reader.
As I have already demonstrated, the first generation of Pentecos
tals interpreted Scripture with similar methods used by both the non-
cessationist Holiness community and to some extent the cessationist
dispensational fundamentalist community. Pentecostals used typol
ogy, inductive reasoning and even dispensational schemes. Yet, what
distinguished the early Pentecostal hermeneutic from their Holiness
sisters was the distinct narrative that held these similar methods to
gether. This distinct story encouraged them to interpret Scripture
from a new angle: they were the marginalized people of the Tatter
Rain’.
The Tatter Rain’ motif provided the early Pentecostals with an
experiential conceptual framework. It also enabled them to offer a
persuasive explanation for their movement. It provided the herme
neutical lens for the interpretation of Scripture and their present ex
perience of reality.
The early rain came at Pentecost, and immediately the seed which
Jesus and His disciples had sown sprang up. This early rain con
tinued for more than a hundred years, during which time the
Church was kept inundated with mighty floods of salvation. But
97 J. Richard Middleton and Brian Walsh, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be:
Biblical Faith In A Postmodern Age (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 1995), p.
11.
98 I am purposefully using ‘her’ in order to remind the reader that it was a
woman who first spoke in tongues at Parham’s Bible school in Topeka Kansas and
that women played a significant role in carrying the Pentecostal message through
out the world. Also, it was black sanctified'women who made significant contribu
tions to the Azusa Street revival and Pentecostalism in general, see Cheryl J. Sand
ers, Saints In Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and
Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Pentecostal Story 159
when the Church became popular and was formed into a great hi
erarchy, the long drought began, interspersed with a local shower
of gracious revival now and then through the middle ages. Under
the reformations, the Latter Rain began to be foreshadowed. The
holiness revivals which have been going on in our land for the last
few years are the preliminary showers of this rain. They have been
glorious and wonderful: so much so that many have taken them
for the Latter Rain itself. But we know that these revivals, though
gracious, have fallen short of the apostolic revivals— the early rain.
The Scriptures seem to teach that the Latter Rain is to be far
greater than the former ... The early rain began on the Day of
Pentecost, and the first manifestation was speaking with other
tongues as the Spirit gave utterance, and then followed the healing
of the sick, casting out devils, etc. So it would only be natural that
the Latter Rain Pentecost should be repeated and followed by the
same manifestation. It seems [the Latter Rain] to have its starting
point in the year 1906 in Los Angeles, Cal."
The Pentecostal story was transmitted orally and by publications.
Taylor’s explanation of the ‘Latter Rain’ is typical and can represent
the traditional Pentecostal understanding of the ‘Latter Rain’, which
serves also as the CNCs of the Pentecostal community.
The Pentecostal CNCs have three key transitional points. In the
beginning, God poured his Spirit out on a saved and sanctified Chris
tian community with the biblical sign of speaking in tongues (Acts 2).
The Church started out pure and unified. However, after the death of
the Apostles, the early Church would become the apostate Church.
This was a result of wandering from the truth and practice of Jesus
and the Aposdes. The second transitional point was the complete
apostasy that came when the Church embraced the Roman Empire
with the conversion of Constantine. The result was that God with
drew his Spirit from the apostate hierarchical Roman Church. This was
viewed as the beginning of the Dark Ages. During the long drought
of the Middle Ages, however, God always had a faithful 4persecuted
remnant. The Reformers, through John Wesley, brought the middle
section of the story to a close and prepared the Church for the Latter
Rain. The ‘Latter Rain’ outpouring or Pentecostal outpouring was the9
1,)() See Faupel, The ’Everlasting Gospel ch. 2, for a thorough overview of the early
Pentecostal message.
Pentecostal Story 161
tionship with Jesus was the controlling theological center, not the
doctrine of Trinity. Thus, the ‘Latter Rain5 motif was concerned
about the restoration of the Full Gospel message and reinforced the
significance of the signs and wonders within the Pentecostal commu
nity. Hence, the Pentecostals were concerned to be like the past ‘ap
ostolic Christians’ and behave as the present ‘eschatological bride of
Christ’.
This narrated hermeneutical approach had a cohesive theological
structure and centered upon the restorative dramatic Pentecostal
story of God. The Pentecostal story contributed to and placed con
straints upon their interpretive creativity. Hence, some Pentecostals
were Oneness but most remained Trinitarian; some were finished
work while others held to a third blessing. Importandy, all embraced
the Pentecostal story. Their various theological differences, no doubt,
added a distinct accent to the general Pentecostal story, but it did not
substantially change the structure of their story. They were the mar
ginalized people of the Latter Rain.
101 Hollenweger argues that the narrativity and orality of early Pentecostalism
comes from the African-American contribution to Pentecostalism. See his ‘After
Twenty Years' Research on Pentecostalism', International Review of Mission 75 (Janu
ary 1986), pp. 3—12. This writer would also suggest that it also has to do with Pen-
tecostalism's connection to the cultural conditions of living in the southern moun
tainous regions.
162 Spirit, Scripture and Community
102 W. Hollenweger, ‘The Pentecostal Elites and the Pentecostal Poor: A Missed
Dialogue?’ in Karla Poewe (ed.), Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture (Colum
bia, SC: University of South Carolina, 1994), p. 201.
103 Hollenweger, ‘The Pentecostal Elites and the Pentecostal Poor: A Missed
Dialogue?’, p. 213. The first generation would be included in his understanding of
the ‘poor’ which he contrasts with the contemporary elite Pentecostals. The Elites
are those who are ‘literary conceptual peoples who pride themselves on speaking
the language of science and technology’ (p. 213).
104 Deborah McCauley, Appalachian Mountain Religion: A History (Urbana and
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995).
105 McCauley, Appalachian Mountain Religion, p. 195.
106 McCauley, Appalachian Mountain Religion, see pp. 481—82 n. 38. For an expla
nation of the interaction of Holiness Pentecostal intermixing with mountain Chris
tian religious culture, see p. 273.
Pentecostal Story 163
107 McCauley, Appalachian Mountain Religion, pp. 61-62, 76. McCauley finds that
the Christian folk who desire to learn to read do so in order to read the Bible (see
p. 167). As a result of being primarily illiterate, they have ‘highly developed listening
skills ... compensating extremely well for whatever lapses in literacy .. 7 (p. 382).
108 McCauley, Appalachian Mountain Religion, pp. 76—77. She contrasts this with
‘clergy’ of Evangelical Fundamentalism who prefer the legal portions and the epis
tles as they present a tighdy structured blueprint for living. Mountainous preachers
live with ambiguity and contradiction.
109 Robert L. Parham, compiler, Selected Sermons cf the Late Charles F. Parham,
Sarah E. Parham: Co-Founders of the Original Apostolic Faith Movement (Baxter Springs,
KS: np, 1941).
110 For a critical historical presentation of this phase of Parham’s ministry see
James R. Goff, Jr., Fields White Unto Harvest: Charles F. Parham and the Missionary Ori
164 Spirit, Scripture and Community
119 ‘From Azusa Mission’, The Apostolic Faith 1.12 (January, 1908), p. 1, col. 3.
120 Frank Bardeman, forward by Vinson Synan, Ayusa Street (S. Plainfield, NJ:
Bridge Publishing, 1980). This is a complete and unabridged reprint of Frank
Bartleman’s 1925 history entitled, How “Pentecost” Came to Los Angeles— How it was in
the Beginning.
121 Bardeman, A^usa Street, p. 43.
122 Bardeman, A^usa Street, p. 43.
123 ‘Bible Pentecost’, The Apostolic Faith\ 1.3 (November, 1906), p. 1, col. 1. The
Azusa street mission was located at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles and the build
ing was formerly an African Methodist Episcopal Church building. Prior to it be
coming the Azusa Mission it was used as a stable.
Pentecostal Story 167
tween how God worked in biblical times and how God worked in the
present. In addition, they did not recognize any difference in per
ceived reality due to the changing of time or culture. People have al
ways had similar experiences. Thus, they saw their experiences as
similar to those of Bible times. This oudook reiterated the easy acces
sibility and immediacy of the meaning of Scripture for their Pentecos
tal community.
Early Pentecostals did not place the emphasis on explaining the
historical context of Scripture, nor were they concerned with the
author’s original intention. They used Scripture in such a way as to
allow for slippage between what it meant and what it means. They
read the Bible as the Word of God and attempted to understand it
presendy. The horizons of past and present were fused, or from a
critical perspective, confused.
The interpretation of Scripture without any concern for the his
torical distance allowed Pentecostal preachers to emphasize the im
mediate meaning of Scripture for their communities. Joseph Byrd,
after researching the first decade of Pentecostal preaching, draws the
following four descriptive conclusions about Pentecostal sermons:
1. Preaching was spontaneous and not relegated to professional clergy.
2. Preaching participated in the overall trajectory of worship services,
and it was not necessarily the climax of the service.
3. The congregation participated in the sermon in terms of responding, but
the sermon also allowed for participation of the congregation more fully
in the ‘altar calT.
4. The sermon reached for an immediate experience for the listeners and
was not characterized by a hermeneutic that spent its time exegeting a
text in a historical-critical manner. Put simply, the preacher focused on
the immediate meaning of a text and not upon what a text meant [em
phasis added].124
The Holy Scripture, for early Pentecostals, was not viewed as a
past "static deposit of truth’ but as the present and "primary source
book for living the Pentecostal life’. The Pentecostal expected all the
supernatural manifestations of the Scriptures to be realized during the
124 Joseph Byrd, ‘Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutical Theory and Pentecostal Procla
mation’, Pneuma 15.2 (Fall 1993), pp. 204—205.
168 Spirit, Scripture and Community
Sum m ary
132 They were canonical only in the sense that they stayed within the Protestant
canon and interpreted the Old Testament in light of the New Testament as they
developed their doctrine. They were text centered in the sense that they favored
‘world of the text’ over ‘the world behind the text’.
170 Spirit, Scripture and Community
133 George Stiener, ‘Critic/ Reader’, New Literary History 10 (1979), pp. 423-52.
134 Donald Dayton, ‘The Use of Scripture in the Wesleyan Tradition’ in Robert
Johnston (ed.), The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options (Adanta: John Knox
Press, 1985), p. 128.
Pentecostal Story 171
133 Dayton, The Use of Scripture in the Wesleyan Tradition’, p. 127. Dayton
explains the result of this shift. ‘It may be overstating a significant truth to notice
that, in part because of the emphasis on faith, the generations after the Reforma
tion were devoted to the clarification of the faith and they left us the legacy of great
creeds and doctrinal systems. The Wesleyan tradition, on the other hand, has left us
a legacy of works of love—the crusades against slavery, concern for the poor, cam
paigns for the reform of society, and so on—in its efforts to “spread scriptural
holiness across the land and to reform a nation’” (p. 128).
136 Luke T. Johnson, Religious Experience in the Earliest Christianity: A Missing Di
mension in New Testament Studies (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1998),
p. 116, suggests that tongues speech or glossolalia ‘is a verbal expression of a pow
erful emotional state. It is not a real language but a kind of structured or ordered
babbling.’
137 For an insightful look at the Apostle Paul’s hermeneutic, which supports my
observation, see Richard B. Hays, Echoes Of Scripture In The letters Of Paul (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
5
vacuum but instead always takes place from within the contextual
horizon of the reading community.
People from outside and inside the Pentecostal community have
argued that early Pentecostal theological doctrine was based upon an
uncritical, nineteenth-century holiness exegetical method, thus both
their theological position (especially Spirit baptism) and interpretive
practice was incorrect. In short, they argue that Pentecostals need to
perform exegesis correcdy.3
Today, one must take seriously the significant contemporary chal
lenge that the use of any method is not objectively free from the so
cial cultural location of the person utilizing it. Both the method and
the person in community have been historically conditioned.4 Also
one must appreciate the contemporary challenge that for interpreta
tion to take place, the reader must participate. ‘Reading involves us
ing both the information that is present on the written page, as well
as the information we already have in our minds’. A reader cannot
come to the written text as a blank slate.5 Comprehension is both a
discovery and the creation of meaningful understanding.6 Meaning is
the result of a dialectic transaction between the readers’ contributions
and a text’s contribution.7
How Pentecostals or any community goes about doing ‘exegesis’
has as much to do with their social location and theological forma
tion as it does with simply employing a so-called neutral-scientific
exegetical method. The role of the hermeneut in the interpretive
process must also be considered. This touches upon the issue of
community and identity.
3 See the conversational exchange between Max Turner and John Christopher
Thomas in JP T 12 (April 1998), pp. 3—38.
4 John Goldingay, Models For Interpretation Of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd-
mans, 1995), p. 45.
5 Jeff McQuillian, The LTterary Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions (Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann, 1998), p. 16.
6 Bernard C. Lategan, ‘Hermeneutics’ in ABD, III, pp. 153—54. See also George
Aichele et at, The Postmodern Bible: The Bible and Culture Collective (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1995), pp. 1-8, which challenges both the notion of the Enlight
enment's control of objectivity and stability of meaning. See also Anthony C.
Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), p. 9, who
argues for a contextualized hermeneutical approach that respects both the biblical
horizon and the horizon of the reader.
7 Hart, Faith Thinking, p. 121.
174 Spirit, Scripture and Community
life, and the ‘Latter Rain’ narrative was the means to explain and or
der their way of life.
Pentecostalism’s dramatic narrative constandy emphasizes the su
pernatural manifestations within the worshiping community. Grant
Wacker, in his penetrating article ‘The Functions of Faith in Primitive
PentecostalisnT, argues that the framework in which speaking in
tongues should be analyzed is the thoroughly experiential supernatu-
ralistic conceptual horizon.10 In fact, Pentecostalism came into exis
tence as a result of this ‘thoroughly experiential supernaturalistic’
worldview. This worldview arose as a result of attempting to mimic
the biblical stories, especially those found in Acts and the Gospels.
Pentecostal identity was shaped from the beginning by an ‘eschato
logical intensity and an existential identification with “the Full Gos
pel” of the New Testament Apostolic Christianity’.11
The Pentecostals lived under the eschatological outpouring of the
‘Latter Rain’, which permeated every aspect of their lives and trans
formed them into ‘the sealed bride of Christ’. They viewed this out
pouring of the Holy Spirit as the sign that the final act in the dramatic
story of human salvation had indeed begun. They were convinced
that the second coming of Jesus was going to happen very soon—
within their lifetime. Thus, this experiential and supernaturalistic ho
rizon of Pentecostalism was ‘marked by living in and from the
eschatological presence of God’.12
Pentecostalism with its manifestation of the charismatic gifts
(tongues, prophecy and healing) and interracial worship services ‘of
fered invincible certitude that the supernatural claims of the gospel
were really true’.13 Pentecostalism perceived itself as a revival move
ment that called the Church to re-live the Apostolic experiences that
are related in the New Testament.14 Pentecostals, like other restora-
tionist groups, were certain they had rediscovered the essential fea
19 Gerald Bray, Biblical Interpretation: Bast And Present (Downers Grove, IL: In-
terVarsity Press, 1996), states that ‘by 1945, virtually all professional biblical schol
ars had accepted its [historical criticism’s] principles, though some still continued to
draw conservative conclusions from them’ (p. 223).
178 Spirit, Scripture and Community
20 See Bray, Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present, pp. 354—55. Bray refers to this
as the most conservative form of biblical study, and observes that it relied heavily
on exegetical principles.
21 Gordon L. Anderson, ‘Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part 2’, Paraclete 28.2
(Spring 1994), states that ‘at the level of exegetical method, Pentecostals follow the
same basic historical-grammatical method as do other conservative evangelical in
terpreters ... I contend that at this basic level of exegetical method (discovering
what the text meant), all interpreters take the same approach when they do their
work correctly’ (p. 13).
22 Anderson, ‘Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part 2’ and also see (Pentecostal
scholar) Gordon Fee, New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors
(Louisville, KY: Westminster/ John Knox Press, rev. edn, 1993), p. 27. Fee writes,
‘exegesis is primarily concerned with intentionally: What did the author intend his
original readers to understand?’ For an Evangelical perspective see William Klein’s
‘Evangelical Hermeneutics’ in Simon Maimela and Adrio Konig’s (eds.) Initiation
into Theology: The Rich Variety cf Theology and Hermeneutics (Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik
Publishers, 1988).
23 There are many academically trained Pentecostals who do not fit this gener
alization, but they are in the minority.
24 Anderson, ‘Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part 2’, p. 13.
25 Anderson, ‘Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part 2’, p. 22.
26 Anderson, ‘Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part 2’, p. 14.
Current Pentecostal Hermeneutical Concerns 179
ter Stendahl’s distinction between ‘what a text meant’ and ‘what the
texts means’. Anderson, like most Evangelicals, relies heavily upon
the literary theory of E.D. Hirsch who makes a distinction between
the single objective meaning of a text as identified with authorial in
tention and then its significance/application for the present reader.27
As can be seen, Pentecostals have firmly embraced conservative yet
modernistic concerns about texts.
At the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Anderson addressed the
contemporary moral crisis in Pentecostalism. Anderson argued that,
‘the moral crisis for pentecostals lies, in part, in the tendency to use
poor exegetical methods and taking an existential approach to the
interpretation of Scripture and the construction of doctrine’.28 He
identifies the ‘poor’ and ‘inappropriate exegetical methods’ as ‘allego
rizing the text and creating typologies which the Bible never in
tended’. According to Anderson this ‘constitutes a fundamental dis
avowal of the commitment to ground doctrine in the plain meaning
of scripture’.29 Although this author is sympathetic to Anderson’s
concerns about moral integrity and the misuse of Scripture, this
writer emphatically disagrees with Anderson’s implicit assertion that a
uniformly applied correct standard of principles of exegesis (the his
torical-grammatical method) would resolve all the theological prob
30 I agree with Richard Bauckham, ‘the Bible's meaning for today cannot result
automatically from the correct use of a set of hermeneutical principles' in his The
Bible in Politics: How to Bead the Bible Politically (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John
Knox Press, 1989), p. 19. See Anderson, ‘Pentecostal Hermeneutics', pp. 13-22, for
his explanation and understanding of a Pentecostal hermeneutic. For an argument
supporting the superiority of allegorical interpretation see David C. Steinmetz, ‘The
Superiority of the Pre-Critical Exegesis’, E x Auditu 1 (1985), pp. 75—82. This is a
reprint from Theology Today 37 (1980), pp. 27-38.
31 See Luke Timothy Johnson's Scripture and Discernment: Decision Making In the
Churchy especially chapter 6.
32 Douglas Jacobsen’s ‘Pentecostal Hermeneutics in Comparative Perspective’,
p. 4, and pp. 2, 5, 7. For contra arguments see Robert P. Menzies, Empoweredfor
Witness: The Spirit in Luke—Acts (JPTSup, 6; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1994), pp. 239—43. Menzies’ monograph uses redaction criticism in his analysis and
is an interesting contribution from a Pentecostal perspective to Lukan pneumatol-
°gy-
33 A helpful introduction to some of the more current and important herme
neutical positions can be found in Maimela and Konig (eds.), Initiation Into Theology:
The Rich Variety of Theology and Hermeneutics.
34 See Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics, (pp. 33-36, 44—46).
Current Pentecostal Hermeneutical Concerns 181
44 James D.G. Dunn, Baptism In The Holy Spirit: A Re-examination of the New Tes
tament Teaching on the Gift (f the Spirit In Relation to Pentecostalism Today (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1970). Dunn argues that early Pentecostals (like Catholics and
Wesleyan Holiness) read Acts 2 as an experience that is subsequent to salvation
only by asserting that the Acts 2 account assumes that people were already regener
ated. He points out that this notion was based on the Gospel of John which he
then argues is an exegetical methodological mistake because one cannot start the
exegetical process of Acts 2 by relating it to Jn 20.22, see pp. 38-40.
45 See 1 Tim. 2.11-12, also 1 Cor. 14.34, ‘Let your women keep silence in the
churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak’ (KJV).
46 For a contemporary Pentecostal statement on the role of Women in ministry
that is consistent with but moves beyond early Pentecostalism by affirming full
gender equality, see ‘The Role of Women in Ministry as Described in Holy Scrip
ture’. This is an official position paper of the General Council of the Assemblies of
God adopted by the General Presbytery, August 1990. See also, Kimberly Ervin
Alexander and R. Hollis Gause, Women in Leadership: A Pentecostal Perspective (Cleve
land, TN: Church of God Theological Seminary’s Center for Pentecostal Leader
ship and Care, 2006). The issue of a woman pastoring a Pentecostal Church was a
reoccurring question that appeared frequently in the question and answer section of
the Assembly of God publication, The Weekly Evangel edited by E.N. Bell. Women
were affirmed in the ministry gifts of preaching, teaching and pastoring, but they
also were required to be submissive to men. Most, but not all, Pentecostal churches
allowed for Rill involvement in the preaching ministry but did not grant women an
equal and authoritative standing with men. For examples, see The Weekly Evangel
184 Spirit, Scripture and Community
January 29 and February 5, 1916, p. 8 question 20; July 22, 1916, p. 8 question 79;
September 2, 1916, p. 8 question 91, March 10, 1917, p. 9, question 151; May 26,
1917, p. 9 question 203; January 25, 1919, p. 5 question 603; May 17, 1919, p. 5
question 677 (Bell’s response makes women subject to male leadership and here he
states that a woman may pastor a church, but if there is a qualified man then he
should be the pastor because men are to be the leaders); June 14, 1919, p. 5 ques
tion 687; November 29, 1919, p. 5 question 780; March 6, 1920, p. 5 question 806
(here Bell explains the difference between ordained men and women in the Assem
blies of God which subjects women to male leadership and does not allow women
to perform ministry acts of an official nature nor perform marriage services); June
11, 1921, p. 10 question 1031.
47James D.G. Dunn, ‘Baptism in the Spirit: A Response to Pentecostal Scholar
ship on Luke-Acts\J P T 3 (1993), p. 5. See also his Baptism in the Holy Spirit F.D.
Bruner, A Theology f the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament
Witness (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1970), p. 78, ‘Is the Pentecostal teaching
on the experience of the Spirit in conformity with New Testament teaching ...
should Christians seek a second ... experience subsequent to their Christian initia
tion ... should I have the Pentecostal experience?’
48 Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, pp. 39—40. Dunn makes clear that the
author’s thought and intent is limited to the written text. Cf. Bruner, A Theology <f
the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience, p. 153: ‘The final question at stake in our
confrontation with Pentecostalism is not: was Luke right or wrong ... but: does
Pentecostalism rightly or wrongly understand Luke ... ?’
49 H. Lederle, ‘Pre-Charismatic Interpretations of Spirit-Baptism’ in A Reader on
the Holy Spirit: Anointing, Equipping and Empoweringfor Service (Los Angeles, CA: In
ternational Church of the Foursquare Gospel, 1993), p. 33.
Current Pentecostal Hermeneutical Concerns 185
for the continuing of the Christian life, for bringing the Holy
Spirit initially but not fully ... Christians not only once-and-for-all
receive the Spirit through the message of faith apart from the ful
filling of conditions (Gal. 3:2) but they continue to be supplied
fully with the Spirit and ministered miracles through the very same
message without additional techniques or deeper messages or se
cret means (3:5) ... The consequence for the Pentecostal doctrine
of fullness must be the abandonment of any condition for the
fullness of the Holy Spirit other than the one, initiating, sustaining,
and powerful message of faith in Jesus Christ. There is for Chris
tians no fuller, no more fulfilling gospel than the gospel that
makes a man a Christian; to assert that there is, is to fall under
Paul’s severest censure (Gal. 1:6-9; 5:2-12);50
Two observations can be drawn from Bruner’s work. First, he be
lieves he has correctly interpreted Luke—Acts by utilizing the histori
cal-grammatical method. Second, he reflects the general attitude of
the Reformed tradition that Pentecostalism jeopardizes the Gospel.51
This second observation touches upon the issue of Pentecostal iden
tity and the larger issue of how Pentecostals understand ‘gospel’.
Mainline Reformed Protestantism has generally viewed Pentecos
talism and the Holiness movement as an Evangelical subculture—
those scandalous cousins.52 But, one must remember that Pentecos
talism and the Holiness movements did not come out of old-school
Presbyterianism. They are products of Wesleyan thought. The struc
tures of Wesleyan thought are not characteristically those of the tradi
tion of ‘Protestant orthodoxy’ and so ‘these movements are not clas
sical Protestantism but protests against it’.53 Thus, there is more in
volved in Pentecostal theology and identity than the exegesis of Acts.
Pentecostal experiential participatory spirituality along with how Pen-
54 This comment made by the editors appears in Dunn’s article, ‘Baptism in the
Spirit’, JPT 3, (1993), p. 3, editorial note.
55 R. Menzies, ‘Luke and the Spirit: A Reply to James Dunn’, JPT 4, (1994), p.
115.
56 Dunn cites the following in his article ‘Baptism in the Spirit: A Response to
Pentecostal Scholarship on Luke—Acts’, JPT 3, p. 4. H.D. Hunter, Spirit-Baptism: A
Pentecostal Alternative (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983); H. Ervin,
Conversion-Initiation and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A n Engaging Critique of fames D.G.
Dunn’s Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1984); R. Stronstad,
The Charismatic Theology f St. Luke (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1984); F.L. Arring
ton, The Acts of the Apostles (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988); J.B. Shelton, Mighty
in Word and Deed: The Role f the Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts (Peabody, MA: Hendrick
son, 1991); R.P Menzies, The Development of Early Christian Pneumatology with Special
Reference to Luke-Acts (JSNTSup, 54; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991).
Other scholars who have also recognized a distinctive character to Luke’s pneuma
tology include H. Gunkel, The Influence (f the Holy Spirit (trans. Roy A. Harrisville and
Philip A. Quanbeck II; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979; original German ed.,
1888); E. Schweizer, ‘TTveu|ia’, in TDNT, VI, pp. 389—455; D. Hill, Greek Words
and Hebrew Meanings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), and M.M.B.
Turner, Luke and the Spirit: Studies in the Significance of Receiving the Spirit in Luke-Acts
(PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1980).
57 R. Menzies, ‘Luke and the Spirit: A Reply to James Dunn’, pp. 115-16. Men
zies’ believes that Dunn’s work ‘demonstrated that Pentecostals could no longer
continue to rely on the interpretive methods of the nineteenth-century holiness
movement and speak to the contemporary church world’, p. 115.
Current Pentecostal Hermeneutical Concerns 187
tradictory to Paul and/or the rest of the New Testament.63 The im
portance of homogenous application of the diversity of biblical un
derstanding concerning a subject will be worked out. Moreover, this
harmonization will be worked out from a Pentecostal perspective.
Menzies works out a harmonious understanding of Spirit baptism by
granting Luke-Acts equality to the Pauline corpus. When it comes to
Spirit baptism, most Pentecostals will grant Luke-Acts an equal if not
superior position (even though it is narrative) to the Letters in the
harmonization process. First generation Pentecostal exegesis did not
distinguish between a Lukan and Pauline pneumatology, but read
Paul in light of Acts. Menzies, while affirming different pneuma-
tological views in the New Testament, is able to harmonize the Lu
kan and Pauline perspectives into a workable ‘two-stage’ classical
Pentecostal understanding—conversion then Spirit baptism. Menzies
writes:
I would suggest that a high view of Scripture demands, not that
Luke and Paul have the same pneumatological perspective, but
rather that Luke’s distinctive pneumatology is ultimately reconcil
able with that of Paul, and that both perspectives can be seen as
contributing to a process of harmonious development.64
Hollenweger was correct when he wrote, "When we look for the bib
lical roots of the Baptism of the Spirit, we discover that the Pentecos-
tals and their predecessors based their views almost exclusively on
the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Aposdes’.65
What these particular scholars hold in common is the notion that
‘meaning’ is embedded into a text by an author. These scholars un
derstand a text a stable entity with determinate meaning. The task,
then, of the biblical scholar is to extrapolate or discover the text’s
objective single meaning (which is generally synonymous with dis
covering the author’s intended meaning) and explain it to the con
temporary person. The determinate meaning can be discovered by
the proper usage of the historical critical methods. Stephen Fowl
writes that the notion of determinate meaning attempts to make the
meaning of the biblical text clear and coherent to all reasonable peo
ple. The aim of determinate interpretation is to end all interpretation
because it ‘views the biblical text as a problem to be mastered’.66
The Hermeneutical Debate within the Pentecostal Community
The Dunn—Menzies debate touches upon and raises an important
question: Have Pentecostals created a unique method? Do Pentecos-
tals need a unique hermeneutic in order to establish their beliefs and
practice in Scripture? Robert Menzies declared, ‘The hermeneutic of
evangelicalism has become our hermeneutic’.67 Robert’s father, Wil
liam Menzies, also made a similar argument. W. Menzies regarded
redaction criticism’s emphasis upon the author/editor’s original in
tention as a positive development within the historical critical herme
neutical method. He believed that redaction criticism is the important
exegetical key for ‘the kind of hermeneutic required for a Pentecostal
theology of Spirit-baptism initiation accompanied by tongues’.68
69 Menzies, Empoweredfor Witness: The Spirit in Luke—Acts, ‘I have argued that un
like Paul, who frequendy speaks of the soteriological dimension of the Spirit’s
work, Luke never attributes soteriological functions to the Spirit. Furthermore, his
narrative presupposes a pneumatology which excludes this dimension’ (p. 237).
Menzies believes that Luke was not aware of Paul’s soteriological perspective. He
suggests that ‘Luke was not acquainted with any of Paul’s epistles’ and Luke knew
Paul’s theology only through limited conversation or secondary oral sources (pp.
241-42).
70 See his Empoweredfor Witness, chs. 12-14, especially, pp. 254-55.
71 Specifically, James Dunn and Max Turner.
72 See Fee’s reprint of lectures and essays, which span about 20 years, in his
Gospel and Spirit: Issues In New Testament Hermeneutics (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
1991). Fee does not adhere to the classical two-stage understanding, yet he believes
that there is a ‘basic rightness of Pentecostalism’s emphasis on the experienced,
empowered work of the Spirit, including the ongoing manifestations of the various
spiritual gifts’ (p. x). For Pentecostal responses to Fee’s book see: Roger Stronstad,
‘Pentecostal Hermeneutics: A Review of Gordon D. Fee’, Pneuma 15.2 (Fall 1993),
pp. 215—22; William Menzies’ review of ‘Gospel and Spirit’, Paraclete (Winter 1993),
pp. 29—32; and Robert Menzies, Empoweredfor Witness: The Spirit in Luke—Acts, pp.
233^10.
73 R. Johnston, ‘Pentecostalism and Theological Hermeneutics: Evangelical Op
tions’, Pneuma 6.1 (Spring 1984), p. 55. He recommends that the Pentecostal com
munity should look to Evangelicals for help in developing an Evangelical herme
neutic with some Pentecostal aspects.
74 Timothy Cargal, ‘Beyond the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy: Pente-
costals and Hermeneutics in a Postmodern Age’, Pneuma 15.2 (1993), p. 163. Over
against Menzies, Cargal argues: ‘Any hermeneutic which cannot account for its loci
Current Pentecostal Hermeneutical Concerns 191
the prophetic element in Pentecostal hermeneutics. See also Lee Roy Martin, The
Unheard Voice of God: A Pentecostal Hearing cf the Book (f fudges (JPTSup, 32; Blandford
Forum, UK: Deo Publishing, 2008), pp. 52-79, who uses the terminology of ‘hear
ing’ the text as a way of describing the goal of Pentecostal hermeneutics.
83Joseph Byrd, ‘Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutical Theory and Pentecostal
Proclamation’, Pneuma 15.2 (Fall 1993), p. 205.
84 E.g., J.C. Thomas, ‘Women, Pentecostals and the Bible’, JPT 5 (1994), p. 41;
Robby Waddell, The Spirit (f the Book of Revelation (JPTSup, 30; Blandford Forum,
UK: Deo Publishing, 2006), pp. 39-96; Martin, The Unheard Voice (f God, pp. 52-79.
85 Arrington, The Use of The Bible by Pentecostals’, p. 101.
86 Gordon Fee, ‘Hermeneutics and the Historical Precedent: A Major Problem
in Pentecostal Hermeneutics’ in R. P. Spittler (ed.), Perspectives on the New Pentecostal
ism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1976), p. 122.
87 William McDonald, ‘A Classical Viewpoint’ in Spittler (ed.), Perspectives on the
New Pentecostalism, p. 6. He describes Pentecostal theology as a ‘Christ centered ex
perience certified theology’.
88 W. Menzies, ‘The Methodology of Pentecostal Theology: An Essay on Her
meneutics’, pp. 12—13: ‘Personal experience should not be given priority in estab
lishing theology’ yet ‘testimony and exposition are equally handmaidens to truth’
thus ‘if a biblical truth is to be promulgated, then it ought to be demonstrable in
life’. For Menzies, personal experience should verify the theological truth or dem
194 Spirit, Scripture and Community
onstrate the continuity between the biblical concept and experiential reality, thus it
comes at the end of his hermeneutical procedure.
89 Stronstad, ‘Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics,, p. 16.
90 Stronstad, ‘Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics’, p. 17.
91 Stronstad, ‘Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics’, p. 25.
92 Stronstad, ‘Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics’, pp. 25—26.
93John McKay, ‘When the Veil is Taken Away’, JPT 5 (1994), p. 26.
Current Pentecostal Hermeneutical Concerns 195
94 See McKay, ‘When the Veil is Taken Away’, pp. 17—40. McKay reveals his
identity with the Pentecostal story and restorationist motif. Notice the strong em
phasis upon this present era as God’s final act in the drama of salvation.
95 McLean, ‘Pentecostal Hermeneutic’, p. 38.
96 Arrington, ‘The Use of The Bible by Pentecostals’, p. 104.
97 Arrington, ‘The Use of The Bible by Pentecostals’, p. 104. Arrington appears
to be drawing upon an earlier article by Rick D. Moore, ‘A Pentecostal Approach
to Scripture’, Seminary Viewpoint 8 (November 1987), pp. 4—5, 11. See also H. Ervin
who said, ‘There is no hermeneutic unless and until the divine hermeneutes (the
Holy Spirit) mediates an understanding’ in his ‘Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Op
tion’ in Essays on Apostolic Themes, p. 27.
196 Spirit, Scripture and Community
ordinary person, and puts it in the laboratory of the expert who alone
has the proper tools and training to interpret Scripture.
First, Thomas argues that the interpretive methodological ap
proach of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) is one in which the inter
pretive process moves from their present context to the past biblical
text. This particular biblical move is in reverse order of the historical
critical method that starts with the historical context of the biblical
text and then moves to the present context of the reader. Secondly,
the Holy Spirit in the community is seen to enable or illuminate the
Christian community to overcome the difficulty of receiving Gentiles
as Christians. Plenty of Old Testament passages existed that pro
claimed the impossibility of Gentiles becoming full-fledged members
of God’s covenant community. Thirdly, Scripture was used in this
process, yet, as applied to the matter of rules for table fellowship, it
generated only a temporary resolution.102 This reveals that the text’s
authority is not unrelated to its relevance to the community or its
own diversity of teaching on a given topic.103
Thomas’ hermeneutic contains three primary components: the
community, the activity of the Holy Spirit and the Scripture. These
components are not static but in dialogue with each other. The
community testifies to the experiences attributed to the Holy Spirit
and then engages Scripture (from a formalistic literary perspective) to
validate or repudiate the experience or issue.104
Thomas applies this paradigm to the contemporary issue of
women in ministry, and in so doing, he demonstrates how the para
digm can both work and help to resolve an issue which Scripture in
and of itself cannot resolve. Scripture, with the aid of personal testi
mony through the inspirational guidance of the Holy Spirit, can re
solve this issue. His hermeneutical strategy regards Scripture as
authoritative and central for the rule and conduct of the Church, be
cause
ultimately the experience of the church must be measured against
the biblical text and in that light, practices or views for which
there is no biblical support would be illegitimate ... this includes
respect for the text’s literary genre and diversity as well as the
unity of Scripture.105
Thomas has thus far presented a hermeneutical approach that at
tempts to be consistent with early Pentecostal ethos and resists the
complete adoption of an Evangelical and modernistic historical criti
cal method. The traditional Evangelical historical critical methods
could be utilized in the hermeneutical dialogical process but must not
monopolize the process. Contemporary Christian experience must
also be included in the hermeneutical process. Moreover, Thomas’
concern for literary analysis would take precedent over the historical
critical approaches.106 Hence, the world of the text and not the world
behind the text would be the central concern. However, the meaning
of the passage will be negotiated in the present interaction of the
community of Pentecostal readers (both laity and scholarly), the
working of the Holy Spirit and the testimony of Scripture.107 There
fore, in his Pentecostal hermeneutical process, Thomas recognizes
the important role of spiritual discernment in negotiating the mean
ing of a passage. The present meaning of the text becomes the de
terminate meaning, which of course may be renegotiated at a later
time.
In sum, Pentecostalism began among the poor and racially mar
ginalized people in society. Even today Pentecostalism’s greatest
growth is in the majority world. Pentecostalism in its early beginning
should not be viewed as premodern or modern but as paramodern.
Pentecostals were never invited to be equal partners in the modernist
debate, but they still ate from the crumbs that fell from the table of
modernity. They demonstrated modernist influences by arguing that
they had scriptural empirical verification of their spiritual experience
(Spirit baptism resulting in speaking in tongues).
Today, some Pentecostals attempt to express themselves with an
Evangelical and modernistic hermeneutic (the historical critical
methods). Yet if Pentecostalism desires to continue in its missionary
objective while keeping in tune with its early ethos, it must move be
yond modernity. Pentecostalism is both a protest against modernity
as well as a proclamation to move beyond modernity.108 This does
not imply that Pentecostals should embrace postmodernity uncriti
cally but it does imply that the concerns of modernity are less helpful
than some post-critical concerns.109 For Pentecostal scholars a satisfy
ing hermeneutic cannot be uncritical or even remain paramodern. But
I would argue that our hermeneutic must move beyond the historical
critical methodology, which has gradually transformed biblical writ
ings into museum pieces without contemporary relevance.110 In mov
ing beyond modernity the Pentecostal community should attempt
always to remain faithful to Pentecostal Christianity first and fore
most as a counter culture movement, which in turn encourages them
to live on the margins in opposition to the world.
Pentecostals believe that the Holy Spirit still speaks today, and
when the Spirit speaks, the Holy Spirit has more to say than just
Scripture,111 even though the Spirit will echo and cite Scripture. This
results from the Holy Spirit being present in creation and among the
community. Thus the Spirit will speak horizontally with a human
voice or through human dreams. This is possible because humanity is
created in G od’s image, and God took upon God’s self humanity.
There exists, then, an essential relatedness that makes communication
possible.112 In other words, a Pentecostal hermeneutical strategy is
needed which rejects the quest for a past determinate meaning of the
author and embraces the reality that interpretation involves both the
discovery of meaning and the creation of meaning. Thus, texts are by
their very nature, indeterminate.
108 Bryan Turner (ed.), Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity (London: Sage Pub
lications, 1990), pp. 1-12.
109James P. Martine, Toward a Post-Critical Paradigm’, New Testament Studies^
(1987), pp. 370-85.
110 Edgar V. Me Knight, Postmodern Use cf the Bible: The Emergence cf the Pleader-
Oriented Criticism (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988), p. 14.
111 Clark Pinnock, The Work of the Holy Spirit in Hermeneutics’, JPT 2 (1993)
pp. 3—23. Pinnock is not a Pentecostal, but he argues for the same idea in this arti
cle. The Spirit helps us understand what was meant by the biblical authors with a
view to our understanding what God wants to say to us today’ (p. 9).
112 Francis Watson, Text, Church and World, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994),
pp. 107-23.
200 Spirit, Scripture and Community
127 See Green (ed.), Hearing The New Testament, pp. 1—10. I agree with Green’s
comment that Today, no one interpretive method can claim to provide the one
authentic understanding of any given NT text’ (p. 9).
128 Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, chapter 10; cf. Milliard J. Erickson,
Evangelical Interpretation: Perspectives on Hermeneutical Issues (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Books, 1993), ch. 3.
129 Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, p. 401.
130 Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, p. 407.
131 Erickson, Evangelical Interpretation, pp. 62—72. He is attempting to avoid slip
ping into the ahistorical realm and at the same time avoid the relativistic nature of
principlizing.
204 Spirit, Scripture and Community
132 Bauckham, The Bible in Politics: How to Read the Bible Politically, p. 12.
133 I suggest this dualistic concept that Scripture contains both inner principle
and outer practice demonstrates the reliance of Evangelicalism upon a certain epis
temological philosophical tradition which favors cognitive or theory over practice.
For a helpful critique and explanation of overcoming this Western dualistic practice
see Cheryl Bridges Johns, Pentecostal Formation: A Pedagogy among the Oppressed
(JPTSup, 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993).
134 See for example Stanley Grenz, Theologyfor The Community (f God. Grenz cites
Pauline passages frequently and at one place states ‘historical narrative (Gospels
and Acts) alone is not necessarily a sure foundation for doctrine’. For Grenz, Paul
is more important for the construction of his theology (p. 421). Thus ‘Narrative’ in
and of itself is an insufficient form of theological discourse as compared to ‘Epis
tle’.
135 Alister McGrath, A Passion for Truth: The Intellectual Coherence of Evangelicalism
(Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 1996), p. 106.
Current Pentecostal Hermeneutical Concerns 205
145 See Hart, Faith Thinking, which is an attempt to steer a course between ob
jectivism and relativistic pluralism. This author agrees with Hart’s creative approach
to this current dilemma.
146 See Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nine
teenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974).
147 Stephan E. Fowl and L. Gregory Jones, Reading in Communion: Scripture And
Ethics in The Christian d fe (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 30-34, give
four reasons why this is so. Two important ones are that the very nature of all
interpretation in general is indeterminate, and influences of sin have affected
people’s practical reasoning abilities. Their concern is to show that Christian
interpretation of Scripture requires wise and virtuous readers, which is an exercise
in practical reasoning with the goal of embodying the interpretation.
148 See Clark Pinnock, ‘Biblical Texts: Past And Future Meanings’, Wesleyan
TheologicalJournal 34/2 (Fall 1999), pp. 136-51.
149 Pinnock, ‘Biblical Texts’, p. 141. Pinnock lists four factors which give evi
dence for the future ‘potentiality of meaning that is waiting in the biblical text to be
realized’ (p. 140). The Bible as a grand meta-narrative is his second factor.
150 Cargal, ‘Beyond the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy: Pentecostals
and Hermeneutics in a Postmodern Age’, pp. 163—87.
208 Spirit, Scripture and Community
131 See Menzies, ‘Jumping off The Postmodern Bandwagon’, pp. 115-20. I
would suggest that his sentiments reflect that of those Pentecostal scholars who
have seen themselves as academic ‘Fundamentalist with a difference’ and who be
lief that redaction criticism is the method for discovering the author’s intention.
132 See Turner (ed.), Theories tf Modernity and Postmodernity.
153 See Millard J. Erickson, The Evangelical Heart and Mind: Perspectives on Theologi
cal Issues (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1993) especially ch. 8 where he
clearly reveals his more modernistic worldview.
154 Gordon Fee exemplifies this. Although he no longer affirms a distinct and
subsequent Spirit baptism, he is still a Pentecostal and biblical scholar who gener
ates Pentecostal readings even though he relies upon a modified (due to his Pente
costal perspective) historical critical method. See his magnus opus, God’s Empowering
Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Pea'body, MA: Hendrickson, 1994). This
work reiterates an important point. Fee, because he is Pentecostal, writes a work
like this and in doing so demonstrates that a Pentecostal community concerns af
fect his exegetical method.
Current Pentecostal Hermeneutical Concerns 209
Sum m ary
This chapter set out to bring the reader(s) into the contemporary de
bate concerning Pentecostals and hermeneutical concerns. The first
section introduced Pentecostalism as a movement in the margins,
which set itself apart from the larger Christian community with the
distinct doctrine of ‘Spirit baptism’ and ‘speaking in tongues’. This
doctrine stands at the core of Pentecostal identity, thus acting as the
foundation of the contemporary challenges facing this movement.
Additionally, this first section discussed essential themes of the Pen
tecostal community that arise in this hermeneutical debate. These
themes include demonstrating the basis of Pentecostalism’s move
ment from the primitive ‘Bible Reading Method’ to the modernist
‘historical critical method’. This author established that academic
Pentecostals were drawn to the acceptable Protestant hermeneutical
methodologies in order to avoid the so-called ‘inappropriate exegeti-
cal methods’. They sought to solve the hermeneutical problems by
solely replacing the primitive ‘Bible Reading Method’ with that of the
Reformed Protestant methodology. This, however, created another
sizable dilemma, namely one of identity. The supporters of this failed
to realize the importance of the Pentecostal community’s role in the
hermeneutical process. This first section explains how these themes
moved Pentecostalism to begin relying upon the modernistic herme
neutic to solve the exegetical discrepancies arising in exegesis.
The second section of chapter five is primarily concerned with the
modernization of the Pentecostal hermeneutic. Here this author
shows that as Pentecostals entered the academic arena they began
abandoning the ‘Bible Reading Method’ and embracing the ‘historical
critical method’ of modernity. Yet while embracing modernity, the
Pentecostals simultaneously retained and maintained their traditional
Pentecostal and conservative conclusions. The primary conclusion of
this section was that through the modernization of the Pentecostal
hermeneutical concerns the role of the community had been forgot
ten. The hermeneut must be concerned with more than only the ho
rizon of the text. This author asserts that any hermeneutical strategy
must negotiate the tension between the two horizons (the horizon of
the text and the horizon of the reader in community).
The third section deals specifically with the ongoing current her
meneutical debate taking place within Pentecostalism. At the outset
210 Spirit, Scripture and Community
of this chapter, this author stated that two voices within Pentecostal-
ism would be heard. In this section the two voices are defined and
explained. The first voice is heard from those Pentecostals who em
brace the modernistic hermeneutical methods. The second voice is
heard from those who see this modernization as a threat to Pentecos
tal identity, and thus seek to recover the initial impulses that gave rise
to the Pentecostal movement.
Following this explanation, another voice is added to the debate.
This fourth section introduces a voice from outside the Pentecostal
community, namely that of F.D. Bruner and James D.G. Dunn. Their
emergence into the debate raises important issues that face the Pen
tecostal tradition. The specific conclusion drawn from their involve
ment is the source or location of ‘meaning’. This author demonstrates
that both Bruner and Dunn commonly hold to the idea that meaning
in endued in the text by the author. Consequently, the task of the
biblical scholar is to extrapolate the text’s objective single meaning,
which is synonymous with discovering the author’s intended mean
ing. This in turn makes the interpretation process the end all of her
meneutics.
Next, the focus moves from the debate with outside sources to
the hermeneutical debate within Pentecostalism. The primary ques
tions this section wrestles with are, ‘Have Pentecostals created a
unique method?’ And do they need a unique method firmly to estab
lish their beliefs and practice in Scripture? As demonstrated in this
section of chapter five, the initial movement of Pentecostalism was a
response against both liberalism and Fundamentalism. This author
has shown how Pentecostalism has attempted to forge a third path.
Along the way it has used some of the modernistic methods while
attempting to retain the Pentecostal worldview. In retrospect, Pente
costalism has survived the onslaught of modernity. The conclusions
drawn here are that though the movement has utilized the modern
istic methodologies, the result has not ended with a modernistic Pen
tecostal. On the contrary, I have shown that the Pentecostal move
ment has more in common with certain post-critical concerns even
though the Pentecostal movement is not ‘postmodern’.
Finally, the central purpose of this chapter is achieved by setting
up the key thesis of this study. I draw the conclusion from the her
meneutical debate that a Pentecostal hermeneutical strategy should
attempt to continue to forge an alternative or third path that neither
Current Pentecostal Hermeneutical Concerns 211
A Contemporary Pentecostal
H ermeneutical Strategy
Pentecostals ... would want to approach interpretation as a matter of the
text, the community, and also the ongoing voice of the Holy Spirit}
Rickie Moore
3 The reader will recall that the hermeneutical model narrated in Acts 15 as un
derstood by the Pentecostal scholar J.C. Thomas was discussed in ch. 5 of this
work, therefore there is no need to restate the information. Thomas’ hermeneutical
model based upon Acts 15 comprises three primary components: the believing
community, the activity of the Holy Spirit and Scripture.
4 J. Severino Croatto, Biblical Hermeneutics: Toward a Theory of Reading as the Produc
tion of Meaning (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987), p. 10.
214 Spirit, Scripture and Community
tant contributions of both the text and reader in the making of mean
ing. The following information will not provide an extensive explana
tion of semiotic theory; rather, it will attempt to glean helpful guid
ance from one practitioner of semiotics, Umberto Eco.
Eco presents a critical interpretive semiotic strategy that takes se
riously the ‘dialectical link’ between the written text and the reader.19
He, in a series of published lectures, attempts to limit the possible
interpretations a text can generate for the reader.20 He recognizes that
a reader can ‘overinterpret’ a text.21 Eco does not reduce a text to one
correct interpretation but allows for valid multiple interpretations.22
In order for the interpretation to be valid, it must be latent within the
text. The reader then is challenged to actualize the underdeterminate
meaning.23 Eco explains:
I tried to show that the notion of unlimited semiosis does not lead
to the conclusion that interpretation has no criteria. To say that in
terpretation (as the basic feature of semiosis) is potentially unlim
ited does not mean that interpretation has no object and that it
‘riverruns’ merely for its own sake.24
Eco argues that there are criteria for limiting interpretation.25 In order
to avoid overinterpretation (an improper interpretation of the text),
he argues that the reader must be sensitive to the intention of the text
(intentio opens).26 The work, then, contains the basic criteria for limit
ing the possible meanings. However, the work itself cannot prove
that there is only one correct interpretation nor ‘that there must be
one right reading’.27 The intention of the text does, however, limit the
possible interpretations and helps to suggest which interpretations are
unacceptable.28 The intention of the text 'operates as a constraint
upon the free play of the intentio lectorif (intention of the reader).29
Eco does not collapse the intention of the text back into the in
tention of the author (intentio auctoris). He argues that the intention of
the author is Very difficult to find out and frequendy irrelevant for
the interpretation of a text’.30 His emphasis upon textual interpreta
tion 'makes the notion of an empirical author’s intention radically
useless’.31 His understanding of the function of the intention of the
text makes the text, rather than the author of the text, the source for
meaning.32 This is an important contribution to the Pentecostal her
meneutical strategy because Pentecostals would not want simply to
produce meaning in a manner that places the community over and
against the text but instead allow the text to be a full fledged partici
pant in the making of meaning. Hence the biblical text is respected as
an interdependent dialogical participant in the making of meaning.
Eco argues that the intention of the text is part of (his) semiotic
strategy which always keeps 'a dialectic link between intentio opens and
intentio lectorii.33 The empirical reader is necessary because the reader
'has to decide to see it’ (the intention of the text). The intention of
the text is a transparent reality that requires the reader to see it.34 Eco
explains:
The text’s intention is not displayed by the textual surface. Or, if it
is displayed, it is so in the sense of the purloined letter. One has to
38 Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 69. See also Umberto Eco, The Role
of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univer
sity Press, 1979), pp. 7—11.
39 Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 68.
4(1Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 65.
41 Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 78. Eco embraces some notions of
the school of thought called ‘New Criticism’ specifically the emphasis upon the text
as the source for meaning.
A Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 221
42 See J. Barton, Reading the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), pp.
140-57, who argues that Brevard Childs' ‘Canonical Criticism' resembles the prin
ciples of New Criticism. For a helpful explanation and critique of Brevard Childs'
canonical approach see Charles J. Scalise, Hermeneutics A s Theological Prolegomena: A
Canonical Approach (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1994). Scalise modifies
Childs' approach by addressing Childs' inadequate account of tradition and canoni
cal intentionality, and the need to include within the canonical approach newer
sociological and literary approaches.
222 Spirit, Scripture and Community
the mind of the community. In other words, they did attempt to al
low the text to speak to the community as another voice, which frotn
the Pentecostal perspective was perceived as the voice of God. Fur
thermore, Pentecostals affirm that the biblical text can challenge
them, as well as offer resistance against forcing an understanding
upon the text which could not be substantiated by the text.
From a semiotic viewpoint the text contains latent but nonetheless
potent cues as to how it desires to be understood. The way to ‘see5
and ‘hear’ these cues is through a close (formalistic) analysis of the
text illuminated by social cultural context in which it was written. The
Pentecostal contemporary strategy would affirm the importance of
the text’s genre along with the grammatical rules of the language to
which the specific speech-act belongs. The text would be analyzed,
however, from a formalistic perspective while affirming the impor
tance of the social cultural context in which the text came into exis
tence. Meaning is negotiated through the conversation between the
text, community and Spirit, with the world behind the text informing
not controlling the conversation.43
Inner Texture and the Bible Reading Method
The early Pentecostals utilized the Bible Reading Method as they in
terpreted the Bible. This popularistic method paid close attention to
the repetition of phrases and words within a passage and even within
the whole canon of Scripture. This contemporary Pentecostal strategy
would affirm the importance of the Bible Reading Method (without
affirming its paramodern philosophical context) but would also desire
to move beyond it. The Bible Reading Method’s concern to capture
the inner texture of the text and interpret Scripture with Scripture is
valuable contributions to this contemporary strategy.
A primary way of analyzing a text would be to pay close attention
to the inner texture of the text. Inner textual analysis pays close atten
tion to the verbal signs and their relationship to each other in the
passage. T h e purpose of this analysis is to gain an intimate knowl
edge of words, word patterns, voices, structures, devices, and modes
in the text, which are the context for meanings and meaning-effects
that an interpreter analyzes’.44 Inner textual analysis then would be an
important way to get to the intention of the text and at how the text
cues the interpreter in the making of meaning.
In short, semiotics affirms that a dialectical interdependent link
exists between the text and the reader. Semiotics also views the text
aS an underdeterminate yet stable entity that affirms the reader as a
necessary component in the communicative event and the making of
meaning. The text is to be respected as a dialogical partner in the
communicative event. This Pentecostal hermeneutical strategy af
firms the semiotic concern that a text can be misunderstood and
finds semiotic theory to be a helpful critical aspect of the hermeneu
tical strategy.
specific concerns and needs and looks to the Scripture to speak to its
present situations.
The Pentecostal Hermeneutical Community: The Context
The Pentecostal hermeneut must be entrenched within a Pentecostal
community and in tune with the concrete needs and aspirations of
the Pentecostal community.46 This strategy affirms the necessity of
the hermeneut living among the Pentecostal community. Therefore,
the hermeneutical emphasis will fall upon a semiotic and narrative
approach with the context of the reader in community providing the
hermeneutical filter and the matrix for understanding and completing
the communicative event.
The Pentecostal hermeneut who is educated by the academy must
also be a participant within the Pentecostal community; that is, she
should understand her Christian identity to be Pentecostal.47 In order
to be included as part of the Pentecostal community, she must em
brace the Central Narrative Convictions of Pentecostalism. The
Pentecostal story must be interwoven into her personal story. This
does not imply that one cannot be concerned about the larger Chris
tian community or attempt to understand the Scripture from a differ
ent perspective or interpretive strategy, but it does mean that one’s
identity is shaped and formed by participating in a Pentecostal
community.
In order for one to be a Pentecostal hermeneut (whether lay,
clergy, educated or non-educated), one needs to be recognized as a
Pentecostal. The hermeneut must share her story (testimony) and
receive the important ‘amen’ of affirmation from the community.
Thus, one will need to have a clear and convincing testimony con
cerning his/her experiential relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Tull Gospel’ must be embraced and experienced, including es
pecially Spirit baptism. This does not mean a Pentecostal hermeneut
must have experienced every dimension of the Full Gospel, but she
must be willing to participate in the Pentecostal story.48 In this way,
46 See Thomas, ‘Reading the Bible from within our Traditions: A Pentecostal
Hermeneutic as Test Case’, pp. 120—22.
47 This may include those who are neo-pentecostal.
48 This writer is not saying that the community requires the hermeneut to have
experienced divine healing or entire sanctification but to be Pentecostal is to em
brace the ‘Full Gospel’ perspective which encourages one to be saved, sanctified,
healed, Spirit baptized and eagerly awaiting the soon return of Jesus. The point is
y l Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 225
that one has a particular participatory relationship with Jesus that is experiential,
which is defined by the ‘Full Gospel’ message and rooted in a Pentecostal commu
nity. The hermeneut is never alone in the interpretive process.
226 Spirit, Scripture and Community
isolated from the person but becomes a tool that the hermeneut uses
in the creative negotiation of meaning. The most helpful contempo
rary literary method that could be woven into a strategy for Pentecos-
tals is a narrative critical approach. A narrative method allows for the
dialectic interaction of the text and reader in the negotiation of mean
ing. Pentecostals by their very nature are inherendy storytellers. They
primarily transmit their theology through oral means.49 They have
been conditioned to engage Scripture as story. Thus a narrative criti
cal approach with a bent towards reader response would enable the
Pentecostal community not only to interpret Scripture critically but
also to let Scripture critically interpret them.
Why choose narrative criticism when there are a plethora of inter
pretive methods available to biblical exegetes? There are a number of
important reasons for this choice.
First and foremost is that the traditional historical critical methods
have not paid enough attention to the primary literary genre of Scrip
ture which is narrative. Hans Frei demonstrated how the traditional
historical critical methodologies eclipsed the primary genre of Scrip
ture, which is narrative.50 Instead of focusing attention upon the bib
lical text as a piece of coherent literature with specific genres, histori
cal criticism has turned its attention to the world behind the text.
Powell summarizes the goals of the various methods associated with
the historical critical analysis quite succinctly as it pertains to the
Gospels:
this method seeks to reconstruct the life and thought of biblical
times through an objective, scientific analysis of biblical material.
Source criticism, for example attempts to delineate the sources
that the evangelists used in the composition of their Gospels.
Form criticism concentrates on defining the Sit% im l^eben (setting
in life) that individual units of tradition may have had before they
came to be incorporated into the Gospels. Redaction criticism
seeks to discern the theologies and intentions of the evangelists
themselves by observing the manner in which they edited their
nizing that narratives can shape the perception of the reader. In this
way, a story may shape ‘the way readers understand themselves and
their own present circumstances’.56
This first reason to interpret the biblical text from a literary per
spective that embraces its poetic function leads direcdy into the sec
ond reason for using a narrative approach. Narrative criticism is a
text centered approach that attempts to understand the biblical text
on its own terms. Therefore, the emphasis does not fall upon the
world behind the biblical text even though an understanding of the
social and cultural setting that the narrative assumes is beneficial to
the contemporary reader’s understanding of the text. The emphasis
of narrative criticism is on the story world of the text itself.57
The Pentecostal community desires to understand the biblical text
in its final form. The final canonical form of the biblical narrative is
what shapes the reader and enables the reader to develop a praxis-
oriented understanding of life. By embracing the final form of the
narrative and analyzing the formal features of a narrative text, narra
tive criticism marks an important shift away from the fragmentation
of the biblical text to restoring the coherent wholeness of the narra
tive.58 Narrative criticism, unlike the historical critical methods that
fragment the text, will bracket historical referential concerns and ex
amine the text as a closed universe of the story world.59 The reader
following a narrative approach is deeply ‘absorbed in the world of the
text’.60 The story world serves as its own context in which people,
places, and events are understood.61 Hence, the reader spends most
of her time reading and re-reading the passage in light of the larger
narrative in which it is found. Therefore, the Pentecostal community
could critically enhance its understanding of the story world of bibli
cal narrative by embracing narrative criticism. The Biblical narrative
could challenge and shape them as a community as they locate their
story within the biblical narrative, specifically the Gospels and Acts.
In this way, the contemporary Pentecostal hermeneut could move
away from the fragmented process of the historical critical method
and critically retrieve from early Pentecostals an interpretive ap
proach that embraces the text as a coherent world with the necessary
potential for providing meaning.
A third reason to employ a narrative critical approach is the bene
fit it brings to the Christian communities’ understanding and use of
the Bible as Holy Scripture. The Bible functions as a meta-narrative
and is the foundational story for belief and practice. Christians have
read Scripture or heard Scripture read as coherent stories; therefore,
narrative criticism is a means by which scholars and nonprofessional
Christian readers can be brought together.62
Narrative criticism, which is concerned with story telling, provides
a natural bridge for the Pentecostal community. The Bible is not re
duced to propositions but instead functions as it was intended to— as
stories that grip and shape the readers while challenging them to infer
from the narrative, a praxis oriented theology. To read Scripture as a
set of propositional premises is to misunderstand the primary literary
genre of Scripture-narrative. Narrative critical theory, then, can also
become the means to produce a Pentecostal narrative praxis theol
ogy.63 Thus, narrative theory is not an end in itself but spills over and
intersects other Christian disciplines such as theology, ethics and
practical theology (preaching, teaching and counseling) as well as nar
rative critical exegesis.64
A fourth reason for using a narrative approach is that narrative in
sists on the role of the reader in the creative transaction of meaning.65
Narrative theory like ‘all theories of literature’ will ‘understand the
to stand over and against the text.80 Once again, meaning is produced
through the on-going interdependent dialectical interaction of the
text and reader, both of which are necessary for there to be a creative
transaction of meaning. Hence, neither the reader nor the text is to
dominate the negotiation of meaning. The reader and text must work
together in actualizing the potential meaning(s) of the text through
the process of reading.8182The reader in community and the text make
different kinds of contributions to the production of meaning, which
allows the communicative event to succeed. This interdependent dia
lectical and dialogical interactive process is reinforced by narrative
criticism’s concern to follow the unfolding plot and its interaction
with characters, settings and events in the story world of the narra
tive. This also allows for narrative criticism to spill over into reader
response criticism. 82
• * ’
80 Powell, What is Narrative Criticism?’, pp. 16-21. Powell places reader response
criticism into three categories: the reader over the text, the reader with the text and,
the reader in the text. He argues that narrative criticism falls into the third category,
hence a more <objective, interpretive theory. This present author is arguing that
there is much more overlap between reader response and narrative criticism than
Powell would want to acknowledge.
81 Iser, The Act of Reading, pp. 34-35.
82 Moore, Titerary Criticism and the Gospels, p. 73. Moore correctly points out that
reader response criticism is not ‘a conceptually unified criticism; rather it is a spec
trum of contrasting and conflicting positions’ (p. 72). Cf. Powell, What is Narrative
Criticism?, p. 21, who writes, ‘narrative criticism and dialectic modes (“with the
text”) of reader response are most similar and they may eventually become indistin
guishable’.
83 Narrative critics like Powell, Kingsbury, and Rhoads.
84 Iser and Chatman.
A Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 233
The constraints of the text, however, are given primacy over the
imagination of the reader. That is, the reader is to fill in the gaps in
ways that are consistent to the worldview of the implied reader of the
text. In this way, the text allows for more than one correct interpreta
tion but limits the range of possible interpretations.1,14Thus, the con
servative reader shares Umberto Eco’s concern that the real or em
pirical reader can overinterpret texts. The act of reading requires the
reader to cooperate with the text in the actualization of potential
meaning.
Vanhoozer’s radical reader, which he labels as ‘Reader-Resistance’,
understands a text’s indeterminacy as an opportunity which invites
‘the reader to determine what to make of the text’ and its meaning.104105
Meaning resides entirely within the world of the actual flesh and
blood reader. Similar to the conservative reader’s understanding,
meaning is not fixed in the text, but unlike the conservative reader’s
approach, the text has unlimited potential for meaning. The reader
comes to the text and positions herself over the text creating a mean
ingful text that is consistent with her ideological viewpoint. Texts,
then, are to be used. Some texts are to be resisted if the text is at
tempting to convey an ideological viewpoint that is not acceptable to
the reader.106 ‘Meaning is rather a function of a reading strategy
brought to the text’ by the community to which the reader belongs.
Therefore, the community provides the constraints for the reader,
not the text itself or a literary canon.107
Vanhoozer’s analysis of reader response criticism is really an at
tempt at locating who or what should play the most significant role in
the production of meaning. In other words, Vanhoozer is trying to
identify who or what dominates the reading experience— the text or
the reader. The conservative reader attempts to hear the text on its
113 See Aichele, The Postmodern Bible. These authors argue that reader response
criticism is a sibling of redaction criticism’s union with narrative criticism. Accord
ing to the authors, biblical reader response critics embrace Iser’s phenomenological
reception theory which 'has left unaltered the fundamental concepts of historical
criticism, especially the notion of a stable text with determinate meanings’ (p. 39).
The authors present a helpful overview of 'Reader Response’ (ch. 1, pp. 20-69).
However, see Powell who clearly presents important differences between the his
torical critical method and literary approaches; also see Morgan, Biblical Interpretation,
pp. 172-77.
114 Tate, Biblical Interpretation, p. 160.
115 Tate, Biblical Interpretation, p. 160.
116 Aichele, The Postmodern Bible, p. 67.
A Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 239
ceptive faculties of the reader, in order to make him adjust and even differenti
ate his own focus (p. x).
119 Iser, The Act of Reading, pp. x, 20—21.
120 Iser, The Act of Reading p. 21.
121 Iser, The Act of Reading p. 21.
122 Iser, The Act cf Reading p. 107.
123 Iser, The Act of Reading p. 107.
124 Iser, The Act of Reading pp. 35-36.
12° Iser, The Act f Reading p. 21. He writes ‘we can safely say that the relative
indeterminacy of a text allows for a spectrum of actualizations’ (p. 24 and pp. 37—
39).
126 Iser, The Act f Reading pp. 168-70. ‘Whenever a reader bridges the gaps,
communication begins. The gaps function as a kind of pivot on which the whole
text-reader relationship revolves’ (p. 169).
A Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 241
necessity, fills in these gaps. Iser writes, £It is the elements of inde
terminacy that enable the text to “communicate” with the reader, in
the sense that they induce him to participate both in the production
and comprehension of the work’s intention’.127 The text contains
clues and offers guidance on how these gaps are to be filled. In this
way, the text offers limitations as to what may be appropriate for fill
ing in the gaps. The text cannot determine the filling of gaps. This is
left to the reader.128 As Fowler notes,
Reading is not only a matter of making sense of what is there in
the narrative but also what is not there ... The gaps that appear in
the path we walk through the reading experience must be negoti
ated somehow, but readers often have considerable freedom to
handle them as they see fit. Many arguments between readers are
over how best to deal with the gaps in texts we read. As long as
there are gaps (which is forever), readers will argue about how to
handle them.129
An important aspect of Iser’s theory is the filling in of the gaps by
the implied reader. Iser’s implied reader is one of the structures of the
text which offers guidance to the empirical reader in how the gaps
should be filled. He writes,
If, then, we are to try and understand the effects caused and the
responses elicited by a literary work, we must allow for the
reader’s presence without in any way predetermining his character
or his historical situation. We may call him, for lack of a better
term, the implied reader. He embodies all those predispositions
necessary for a literary work to exercise its effect—predispositions
necessarily laid down, not by an empirical outside reality, but by
the text itself. Consequently, the implied reader as a concept has
his roots firmly planted in the structure of the text; he is a con
struct and in no way to be identified with any real reader ... The
concept of the implied reader is therefore a textual structure an
130 Iser, The Act of Reading, p. 34, see also pp. 107—13.
131 Aichele, The Postmodern Bible, p. 31. See also Iser, The Act of Reading p. 38.
132Aichele, The Postmodern Bible, p. 31.
133 Iser, The Act (f Reading p. 38.
134 Narrative critics have latched on to Iser’s concept of the implied reader in
order to control the possible meanings generated by the text during the reading
experience.
135 Iser, The Act of Reading p. 108.
136 Iser, The Act of Reading p. 109. Iser views this as an advantage, see p. 112.
A Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 243
this way, the reader completes the communicative event because she
is able to grasp the work that is more than the written text. £The text
only takes on life when it is realized ... The convergence of text and
reader bring the literary work into existence’.143
Iser’s theory of the reader’s response emphasizes the necessary
participation of the reader’s imagination in the reading process. Nei
ther the reader nor the text is to dominate the process, but they are to
cooperate in coming to grips with the meaning of the text. Iser’s the
ory views the text more from a formalist perspective, thus allowing
the text to have an important role in the communicative process of
eliciting a response from the reader. Iser’s reader response approach
has made him ‘by far the most influential figure in the appropriation
of reader-response criticism by biblical scholars’.144
In sum, a Pentecostal hermeneutical strategy would embrace the
narrative theory of Chatman while appropriating the phenomenologi
cal theory of Iser in such a way that an interdependent interactive
dialectic link between the reader and the text is maintained. Narrative
criticism, which was really a term coined by gospel critics, provides a
helpful methodology for the interpretation of narrative texts.145
Narrative critics like Powell will place more constraints on the real
reader by redefining Iser’s concept of the implied reader. From Pow
ell’s perspective, the implied reader is in the text. This is different
from Iser’s notion of the implied reader being the product of the
reader that is created through a dialectic encounter of the reader with
the text.146 Powell, like most narrative critics, argues that ‘the goal of
Narrative Criticism is to read the text as the implied reader’.147 There
fore, the hermeneutical methodology of narrative criticism provides
an important means to interpreting the biblical narrative.
Pentecostals could easily embrace the narrative method, yet resist
to some extent, the narrative critic’s notion of implied reader. This
would allow the text to give formative guidance without determining
the actual response. The imagination of the real reader that both
Chatman and Iser discuss is vital to the reader’s ability to compre
hend the text. In this way, a Pentecostal would read the Bible as she
would any other text or experience, through the utilization of her
imagination,148 which is shaped and formed in the Pentecostal com
munity by means of its narrative tradition.
One must ask if the notion of the implied or model reader is as
helpful as it is claimed to be. In considering biblical texts of the New
Testament, would not a community of readers and hearers be the
targeted audience of the writers? As Richard Bauckham points out,
‘in historical terms to talk about the implied reader of Romans is mis
leading. It [Romans] would be read aloud by one [person], heard by a
group, and discussed and understood in a participatory hearing’.149 In
other words, the individualism of an ‘implied (singular) reader’ needs
to be discarded for the concept of an ‘implied community of readers
and hearers’. This especially pertains to the Bible. Scripture was read
in community and discussed by the community. The community,
along with its potential multiple understandings, becomes the neces
sary participant in the ongoing interpretive process. The notion of an
implied or model reader is discarded for the reality that the readers of
this strategy are the Pentecostal community. The community engages
the biblical text and so produces meaningful readings in ways that
attempt to maintain the interdependent interactive dialogical relation
ship between the text and the community. The community, not an
isolated real reader, will negotiate the meaning through discussion. In
doing so, it will remain more faithful to the interpretive process of
the first century Christian community (from a narrative perspective,
as a direct address to the present Christian community and primarily
in the service of preaching).150 As Richard Hays demonstrates
through examining the Aposde Paul’s writings,
148 This writer recognizes that the Bible contains many forms of genre with nar
rative being the most prevalent. However, a few Bible critics recognize the value of
narrative as it is a necessary backdrop to the non-narrative portions of Scripture.
See for example Norman R. Petersen, Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of
Paul's Narrative World (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985) and Ben Witherington III,
Paul's Narrative Thought World: The Tapestry <f Tragedy and Triumph (Louisville, KY:
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994).
149 This concern was brought to my attention in email correspondence with my
Professor Richard Bauckham.
150 See Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Tetters of Paul (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 161, 183-85. Hays argues that we learnedfrom
Paul how to read Scripture, we would read it primarily as a narrative ofpromise and election ...
246 Spirit, Scripture and Community
ecclesiocentrically ... in the service of proclamation ...as participants in the eschatological drama
cf redemption ’. As this writer has demonstrated the Pentecostal community has al
ways read the Scripture 'as the people of the endtime’, from a narrative prospective
of promise and from within the community as a word for the present which re
quires the interaction of the Holy Spirit.
151 Hayes, Echoes of Scripture, pp. 160, 166. See also McGrath, The Genesis cf Doc
trine, p. 56.
152 Croatto, Biblical Hermeneutics, pp. 50—53.
153 For Croatto the new context of praxis is the fight against oppression.
A Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 247
the past and present allowing for creative freedom in the commu
nity’s acts of interpretation.
The primary constraint that contemporary Pentecostals employ in
order to limit their interpretive freedom is their narrative tradition.
This constraint is a theological rather than a methodological con
straint. Pentecostals would shout a hearty ‘amen’ to Hays’ argument
that all of Scripture must be interpreted in light of and as a witness to
the Gospel of Jesus. ‘Scripture must be read as a witness to the gos
pel of Jesus Christ. No reading of Scripture can be legitimate if it fails
to acknowledge the death and resurrection of Jesus as the climatic
manifestation of God’s righteousness.’154
The contemporary Pentecostal community needs to recapture the
promise of God and what it means to live on the margins in relation
ship to Jesus as expressed through the Full Gospel. This is a praxis-
oriented approach that encourages a pragmatic constraint on the in
terpretation. If the interpretation does not encourage or motivate the
listeners to experience transformation through participating in God’s
eschatological community then it should be rejected. The reading will
desire to echo an Acts-Gospels praxis context within the contempo
rary situation. This is not to suggest that the past and present are
static, nor is truth static, but it is to suggest that the contemporary
community maintains an intertextual dialectic with Acts-Gospels and
the rest of canonical Scripture.
The Spirit’s voice is not reduced to or simply equated with the Bibli
cal text or the community, but is connected to and dependent upon
these as a necessary means for expressing the concern(s) of the God
head (Trinity).
The role of the Holy Spirit in the hermeneutical process is to lead
and guide the community in understanding the present meaningful
ness of Scripture. This ministry of the Holy Spirit is an extension of
the ministry of the incarnate, crucified, ascended, and glorified
Christ.155 Therefore human society, in general, and the Christian
community, in particular, have not been abandoned by the living
presence of God as a result of the ascension of Christ Jesus. The
Holy Spirit, believed to be a real participant in the life of the Chris
tian, enables the Christian in community to live faithfully with the
living God as the community continues the mission of Jesus.156
Hence the Spirit does speak and has more to say than just Scripture.
This requires the community to discern the Spirit in the process of
negotiating the meaning of the biblical texts as the community faith
fully carries on the mission of Jesus into new, different and future
contexts. T he Spirit’s intervention and interpretive work is crucial if
the followers of Jesus are faithfully to carry on the mission Jesus
gives them’.157 For this reason, the voice of the Spirit cannot be re
duced to simple recitation of Scripture, nonetheless it will be con
nected to and concerned with Scripture.
The Spirit’s Voice Heard in and through the Pentecostal
Community
Pentecostals desire the Holy Spirit to lead and empower them in ful
filling the missionary task Jesus mandated to his followers. Pentecos
tals seek the Spirit’s guidance in understanding Scripture and reality in
order to live obediendy with God.
The Spirit’s Voice in the Community
The community provides the context in which the Spirit’s manifesta
tion takes place. Personal testimonies, charismatic gifts, preaching,
teaching, witnessing, serving the poor, praying, (all acts of ministry)
133 See John 13—17, in Jesus’ farewell discourse, where he speaks of the impor
tance of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to the Christian community and human society.
136 Fowl, Engaging Scripture^ p. 99.
137 Fowl, Engaging Scripture, p. 98.
A Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 249
158 Thomas, ‘Reading the Bible from within our Traditions’, p. 119.
159 Fowl, 'Engaging Scripture, correctly points out that ‘it is important to recognize
that the presence of miraculous signs is not a straightforward event’ (p. 104). The
community must discern if the miraculous sign is of the Holy Spirit and what the
sign is signifying to the community.
160 Fowl, Engaging Scripture, p. 114. This writer agrees with Fowl who argues that
it is impossible in practice ‘to separate and determine clearly whether a commu
nity’s scriptural interpretation is prior to or dependent upon a community’s experi
ence of the Spirit’ (p. 114).
250 Spirit, Scripture and Community
The Spirit’s Voice Coming From Outside Yet Back through the
Community.
The Pentecostal narrative tradition has placed missionary outreach at
the heart of the Pentecostal community. Pentecostals have and con
tinue to embrace with great vigor the missionary task of reaching all
people with the Gospel. They proclaim the Tull Gospel’ to all who
will listen in prayerful hope that non-Christians will respond to God’s
gracious salvific invitation to embrace Jesus and join the Pentecostal
community. This passion for expanding God’s Kingdom has encour
aged Pentecostals to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth and
thereby spreading the Tull Gospel’ into regions outside of their cul
tural context and geographical locations. Pentecostals (especially
those discerned to have the ‘missionary call’ but also, in a limited
sense the local layperson) evangelistically engage and confront other
individuals in community. Pentecostals do not stand from a distance
(as was seen in the early chapters) but get involved in the life of other
people while retaining their allegiance to their Pentecostal commu
nity. The engagement with other communal stories allows for open
ness to the voice of the Spirit to come to them from outside the
community.
Pentecostals will not limit the work of the Spirit to their commu
nity but recognize that G od’s prevenient grace has been bestowed
upon all of humanity. Furthermore, they fully expect the Holy Spirit
to be actively working upon the lives of non-Christians and in the
lives of all Christians. This activity does not imply that people who
have not had an opportunity to respond to the Gospel are Christian.
But it does underscore the importance and necessity of the Holy
Spirit’s involvement and the importance of the Holy Spirit being ac
tive upon the lives of those before the Pentecostal missionaries ar
rive. Pentecostals, through their hospitable missionary outreach, have
developed relationships with people outside their community and
have ‘discerned’ the presence of the Spirit.161 As a result, the Pente
costals will discern what the Spirit is saying to them from outside
their community, which may be both typical and yet surprising for
the Pentecostal community. In this way the Spirit may speak from
161 This would include not only officially recognized missionaries but also local
Christian communities made up of both laity and clergy. Every Pentecostal is to be
a witness for Jesus Christ.
s i Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 251
162 Thomas, ‘Reading the Bible from within our Traditions', p. 110.
163 Thomas, ‘Reading the Bible from within our Traditions’, p. 118.
252 Spirit, Scripture and Community
In this final section, I will address the testing process for the valida
tion of the negotiated constructive meaning of the biblical text(s),
164 See Kenyon, ‘An Analysis of Ethical Issues in the History of The Assemblies
of God’, p. 408.
165 Arrington, ‘The Use of the Bible by Pentecostals’, p. 105.
A Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 253
166 It is interesting to note that Richard Hays argues that Paul’s interpretive con
straints are ‘primarily from material (i.e., theological) concerns rather than from
formal methodological considerations’ (Echoes of Scripture, p. 161).
254 Spirit, Scripture and Community
167 Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women, pp. 222—24. Swartley lists five that
will be retained but presented slightly differently.
168 Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women, p. 222.
169 The methods argument has been a two edged sword because some Pente
costals would no longer embrace Spirit baptism because they believed modern exe-
gedcal practice could not support it while others argued it could.
170 Walter Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and the Postmodern
Imagination (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), see preface and ch. 1. This
writer agrees with Brueggemann that historical criticism is the particular practice of
modernity with objectivity being its elusive foundation.
A Contemporary Pentecostal Hermeneutical Strategy 255
171 Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women, p. 222. This is Swardey’s second
step but it seems as though it should be part of the first. This writer has collapsed
them into one stage.
172 Swardey, Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women, p. 223.
173 Luke Timothy Johnson, Scripture and Discernment: Decision Making In The
Church (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, revised 1996), p. 135. Johnson employs the
word ‘narrative’ as the ordered expression of personal religious experiential mem
ory, which is offered to the church community as one’s personal faith story or as an
extension as the community story (p. 137).
256 Spirit, Scripture and Community
Sum m ary
relied upon the older yet modern scientific thinking that was based
upon common sense realism and the Baconian model. Conversely,
the liberals were embracing the newer but still modern scientific
model. The question arises as to where Pentecostalism is in relation
ship to this debate. The conclusion of this chapter shows that Pente-
costals attempted to forge an alternative path that lies outside the
modernistic controversy, thus concluding that Pentecostalism is a
"paramodern’ movement with a hermeneutical strategy that is distinct
from both the liberal and Fundamentalists methodologies.
The argument of chapter three set out to demonstrate that there
existed an early Pentecostal method that was used by the first genera
tion of Pentecostals. The early interpretive method was the "Bible
Reading Method’. This was a precritical common sense interpretive
approach. It relied upon inductive and deductive reasoning and re
quired that all the biblical data available on a particular topic be har
monized into a cohesive synthesis from a restorationist revivalistic
perspective. In other words, the "Bible Reading Method’ encouraged
a synchronic interpretive strategy that would extrapolate a verse from
its larger context (in its concern to string all the verses that relate to
that word or topic together) and lump it into one paragraph. How
ever, what distinguished this method from the other Holiness groups
was that it was used from a Pentecostal perspective.
Having identified the Pentecostal interpretive method, it then was
necessary to distinguish its method from that of other Holiness tradi
tions. Chapter four argued that all moral reasoning takes place from
within a particular community. The community shares a common
narrative tradition (story). The primary distinguishing factor for the
Pentecostal hermeneutical strategy was not the method itself but the
Central Narrative Convictions (CNCs) of the Pentecostal community.
Hence, it was the dramatic story that provided the Pentecostals with
an experiential conceptual interpretive framework. The Pentecostal
story was a teleological reading—bringing the beginning and end of
the church age together. This enabled Pentecostals to eclipse mod
ernity and return to a premodern era where the supernatural was
normal rather than abnormal. The Pentecostal story synthesized the
restoration of charismatic gifts with the imminence of the second
coming of Jesus. This narrative was central to Pentecostal identity
and spirituality and not only served as the primary filter through
which Scripture was sifted for meaning, but it also was used to inter
Conclusions and Contributions 263
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Abrams, M.H. 215 Cargal, T. 83, 189, Fay, B. 43
Ahlstrom, S. 57 206, 271 Fee, G.D. 177, 189,
Aichele,G. 128, 172, Carpenter, J. A. 80,81 192, 207
227, 233, 236, 237, Cerillo, Jr, A. 14 Fish, S. 134,235
241,243 Chatman, S. 228, 229, Fowl, S.E. 188,201,
Alexander, K.E. 183 230, 231,232, 233, 206, 213, 247, 248,
Anderson, G.L. 177, 243 255
178 Chidester, D. 79 Fowler, R. 236, 240
Anderson, R.M. 14, Christenson, L. 70 Frei, H. 206, 225
15, 18, 19, 21,22, 24, Clarke, W.N. 64 Funk, R.W. 48, 49
25, 26, 30,31,32, 33, Clouse, R.G. 71
35 Conn, C.W. 12
Archer, K.J. 155 Cox, H. 11, 14,21,27, Gause, R.H. 123,183
Arrington, F.L. 97, 41,42 Gerlach, L.P. 30, 32,
166,167,174,187, Croatto, J.S. 212. 215, 33, 34, 35, 36
191,192,194,195, 245 Goen, C.C. 16
251 Culler, J. 88,125 Goff, Jr, J.R. 12, 14,
Autry, A.C. 171 39, 103, 162,164
Dake, F. J. 77 Goldingay, J. 172,205,
Bartleman, F. J. 28, Dayton, D.W. 13, 17, 214
164 18, 19,21,97,98, 139, Gray, J.M. 56,57,66,
Barton, J. 175,178, 154, 169, 181,184 68, 70, 72
220 Dieter, M.E. 19,21,23 Green, J.B. 90,92,
Bassett, P.M. 19 Dempster, M.W. 28, 197, 201,202, 222,
Bauckham, R. 175, 174 226, 233
178, 202, 203,204, D ’Epinay, C.L. 32 Grenz, S.J. 38, 43, 203
244 Dorries, D.W. 26 Grider, J.K. 110
Bebbington, D.W. 19, Dunn, J.D.G. 90, 182, Gunkel, H. 185
51,76 183, 184, 185,186,
Bell, E.N. 182, 183 187, 188, 189, 209 Hague, C D . 59,64
Bloesch, D.G. 184 Hall, J.L. 114
Blumhofer, E. 13, 17, Eco, U. 88, 125,201, Harris, R.W. 103
19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 216, 217,218,219, I Iarrisville, R.A. 52,
27, 42, 43, 47,136, 220, 230, 235, 238 53,55, 58, 80,185,
137, 140 Erickson, M.J. 179, 199
Bowman, R.G. 232 202, 207 Hart, T. 131, 132, 133,
Bray, G. 176 Ervin, II.E. 185, 194 172, 200, 201,205
Brookes, J.11. 62 Ewart, F.J. 29,99, 101, Hauerwas, S. 131,204
Brooks, J.P. 17,22, 102, 110, 112, 113, Hawk, L.D. 133, 134,
149,150,151,152 114, 115, 116, 117, 232, 233
Brueggemann, W. 253 118, 121, 123 Hawkes, T. 214
Bruner, D.R. 183, 184, Hays, R.B. 170,244,
195, 209 Fackre, G. 132 246, 252
Burgess, S.M. 11, 152 Faupel, D.W. 13, 26, Haywood, G.T. 98,
Bush, L.R. 38 28, 49, 135, 136, 138, 111, 112, 116, 117,
Byrd, J. 165 139, 147, 153,159, 118, 119, 120, 121,
181 123, 125
290 Spirit, Scripture and Community
nines, V.11. 29,30, land sell, 11. 81 Myland, D.W. 27, 98,
32, 33, 34, 35, 36 Linnemann, L. 176 126, 139, 140, 141,
Ilirsch, ILD. 177, 178, Lovett, L. 12, 14, 15 142, 143, 144,145,
200, 201, 202 Lundin, R. 200 147, 148, 149
I Iollenwegcr, W.J. 12, Luz, U. 175 Nash, R. 11. 38
13, 14, 93, 95,127, Nelson, D.J. 13
160, 161, 173, 179, Machen, J.G. 73,80, Nienkrichen, CW.
180, 187, 225 100 137, 138
I Iughes, R.T. 25, 185 MacIntyre, A. 130, Noll, M. A. 15,20,23,
I Iunter, I I.D. 57, 59, 131, 132, 199 28, 29, 48, 49, 50, 55,
63, 73 Maclloberts, I. 13 56, 57, 62, 65,71,72,
Mahan, A. 154 74, 76, 78, 79, 80, 149,
Iser, W. 201,229,230, Marsden, CLM. 15, 16, 154, 184
231,234, 235,237, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 42, Norwood, I\.A. 17
238, 239, 240, 241, 44, 48, 49, 50,51,52,
242, 243 54, 56, 58, 59,70,71, Oden, T.C. 38, 44, 83,
72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 79, 200
Jacobsen, D. 155, 179 84, 86, 87 Orr, J. 53
Johns, C. Bridges 23, Marshall, I.II. 97, 186, Osborne, CLR. 178
24, 96, 203, 257 199
Johnson, L.T. 170, Martin, L.R. 193 Packer, J. I. 79, 80, 83
179, 254, 255, 264 Martine, J.P. 198 Parham, C. 12, 13, 14,
Johnson, R. 18, 19,90, Mauro, P. 59 15, 20, 98,99,101,
169, 189 McCauley, D. 161 102, 103, 104,107,
Jones, L.Cl. 130, 131, McClung, Jr, L.G. 15 108, 156, 162, 163,
206, 213 McGee, G.B. 11, 14, 164
71, 103, 106, 107 Parham, S.K 12, 99,
Kallenberg, B.J. 130 McGrath, A.L. 57, 73, 102, 103
Kenneson, P.D. 31 83, 191,203, 228, 245 Patte, D. 83
Kenyon, II.N. 13,250 McKay, J. 193,194 PelikanJ. 100
King, J.11. 106 McLean, M. 171, 191, Perkins, J.L. 124, 125
Kingsbury, J.D. 229, 194 Petersen, N.R. 244
231,232 McLoughlin, W.G. 47, Pierson, A.T. 136
Klein, W. 59,67, 100, 65 Pinnock, (LI I. 198,
178, 200, 201,202 McPherson, A.S. 108, 206
Knight, III, II.II. 19, 128 Poloma, M.M. 35, 43,
20, 99 McQuillian, J. 128, 44
Kraft, C. 157 172 Powell, M.A. 225,
Kuhn, T. 49, 50 Menzies, R.P. 179, 226, 227,;28, 230, 231,
185, 186, 187,188, 237, 243
Land, S.). 14, 127, 189, 206
173, 174, 175,180 Menzies, W.M. 15, 19, Ramm, B. 100
Larkin, C. 74,76 188, 189, 190,192 Reed, D.A. 13,91,97,
Lategan, B.C. 128, Middleton, J.R. 156 98, 99, 111, 112, 117,
172, 190, 205 Miller, A.G. 29 Rhoads, D. 227, 229,
Lawrence, B.K 98, Moore, R.D. 194, 211 230, 231
103,104,106,121, Moore, S.D. 228, 231, Ricoeur, P. 10, 181,
122, 125, 147, 149, 232, 243 192, 214,:215, 234
152, 154 Morgan, R. 175, 190, Robbins, V.K. 41,221
Lederle, 11.1. 183 205, 237 Robeck, Jr, C:.m . i
Lennox, S.J. 101,104 Murphy, N. 53, 54, Robinson, ILB. 139
Lincoln, C.L. 12 86, 130, 131 Russell, B. 51
Index o f A uthors 291
In this state of the art study, K enneth J. A rcher provides the m ost
com prehensive analysis of Pentecostal herm eneutics to date.
After defining the tradition as a param odern m ovem ent, he places
the herm eneutical practices of early Pentecostalism w ithin the
context o f oth er nineteenth-century interpretive approaches.
ISBN 978-0981965116
CPT Press