Browsing by Subject "Pentecostal"
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Item Open Access Convincing the World: Pentecostal Liminality as Participation in the Mission of the Paraclete(2013) Raburn, MichaelDid the early Pentecostals regard themselves as servants to the wider church, bearers of the gifts of the Spirit, sent to bring a renewed focus on love, unity, holiness, and justice to all parts of the church? Or did they see themselves as the only true believers in the midst of apostates, heretics, and reprobates? What can be found among the early Pentecostals, as a people whose primary self-identity was as a people of the Spirit, that carried the Spirit's mission forward in unique or significant ways? Can the loss of such practices help explain the decline of the Pentecostal movement? Narrating the Pentecostal movement through the lens of the Spirit's mission to the world is an attempt to give a normative account of Pentecostal liminality, to describe certain communitas commitments as ones that gave rise to the movement and propelled it forward. This study describes in detail how this understanding itself came to be something else, something quite damaging. Still, the general principle was that the Holy Spirit comes in power and blesses work that aligns with the Spirit's own mission. That is the primary presupposition at work here as well, that through understanding the mission of the Holy Spirit, we may find ways to align ourselves with that mission, to co-labor with the Spirit by privileging the liminal moment. Implicit in this claim is the denial that such alignment is automatic, guaranteed, or even self-sustaining. The argument here is that the incompatibility of the Pentecostal ethos represented by these communal commitments with the uncritical acceptance of evangelical-fundamentalist theological accounts on the part of the second and third generation Pentecostals resulted in a loss of what constituted the Pentecostal movement as such. This dissertation begins with an exegesis of John 16.8-11 in an effort to articulate Pentecostal ethics in terms of participation in the Spirit's mission of convincing the world with regard to sin, righteousness, and power. The conclusions of this exegesis are that the entire world is in view throughout this passage; that the Spirit convicts all with regard to sin, defined as not believing in Jesus, righteousness, defined as following Jesus' example in a life of holiness, and power, defined as the Spirit's judgment on all forms of power that are self-aggrandizing as opposed to the cruciform mode of authority that must characterize the Christian life; and that the Spirit accomplishes this convincing work primarily through the life of the communitas the Spirit forms, embodies, and empowers. These results are then carried to the Pentecostal movement in its earliest instantiation and as it exists as a Christian subculture today, asking what Pentecostal liminality might look like, if the rubric of the Spirit's mission to the world is applied as a moment we are to participate in enduringly.
Item Open Access Towards an Ecumenical Understanding of the Eucharist: A Proposal for Pentecostals(2005) Biddy, Wesley ScottHistorically, most Pentecostals have tended to be wary of the concept of "sacraments," and accordingly have favored a purely memorialist understanding of the Lord's Supper or Eucharist. Yet the resources latent in Pentecostal spirituality hold much potential for developing a conscious theological appreciation of the sacramental character of worship in general, and of certain ecclesial practices in particular. My goal in this thesis is to investigate that potential so as to demonstrate how, if shaped in a certain way, this area of Pentecostal theology can aid doctrinal rapprochement between Pentecostals and other groups of Christians. I begin by clearing a space for talking about sacraments generally from a Pentecostal perspective and then narrow my focus to the Eucharist. Turning to the Wesleyan roots from which many Pentecostal groups sprang, I argue that a retrieval of the Wesleys' understanding of this "means of grace" should be amenable to Pentecostals for a number of reasons and would be ecumenically profitable for dialogue with Methodists, Reformed, and Anglican Christians—and, indeed, with at least some Roman Catholics. I engage various theologians who represent those traditions to determine where Pentecostalism might be able to appropriate some of their ideas, but I also outline a frame of reference within which it might develop its own distinctive take on the Eucharist, a move that would be both internally and ecumenically constructive.Item Open Access Worship On Earth As It Is On Earth: Discovering the Liturgical History of Pentecostal-Charismatic Worship(2022) Ottaway, Jonathan MarkSince the 1990s, the Pentecostal theological guild has emerged with the aim of re-envisioning all the theological subdisciplines through the distinctive Pentecostal experience. Alongside this increase in Pentecostal theological scholarship, there has been a corollary increase in Pentecostal liturgical scholarship. Reflecting the aims and ethos of its broader context in Pentecostal theology, Pentecostal liturgical scholarship has re-envisioned Pentecostal worship by retrieving the distinctive practices and theologies of the first five-ten years of Pentecostalism (ressourcement) and reconceptualizing that history through dialogue with systematic theology and other liturgical traditions (aggiornamento). However, this approach has left a critical lacuna in the scholarship: consideration of the lived reality of Pentecostal worship either in the intervening century since early Pentecostalism or in its current expression. Little of the scholarship has tried to understand the relationship between the pentecostal-charismatic rule of belief (lex credendi) and their rule of prayer (lex orandi) as actually lived by Pentecostals across time. This lacuna constitutes a grave absence of liturgical history for Pentecostalism.In response to this lacuna, the dissertation presents two historical case studies on the worship of pentecostal-charismatic organizations that emerged after the early Pentecostal period. Both organizations—the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (IHOPKC) and 24-7 Prayer—are prominent leaders in the 24/7 worship movement that emerged at the end of the twentieth century. In both case studies, the history starts by describing the theology of worship that each organization has held and how this theology shaped their respective practice of worship. Despite emerging in a similar timeframe and from a similar historical tradition, not only have both organizations appealed to different biblical motifs in understanding Christian worship but they have also approached the task of theologizing about worship in different ways. The dissertation, therefore, proceeds to uncover the deeper theological influences that placed these organizations’ worship upon different trajectories. IHOPKC’s theology of worship was built on an early Pentecostal theological method that has also incorporated later biblical ideas that arose within the 1948 Latter Rain revival. By contrast, 24-7 Prayer’s theology of worship reflected the biblical and methodological consensus that emerged in the wake of the Third Wave movement of the 1980s and its transformation of British Evangelical and Charismatic Christianity. Together, the case studies demonstrate both the diversity of pentecostal-charismatic worship and the explicit and implicit ways in which distinct theological and historical ecosystems have given shape to pentecostal-charismatic worship. The dissertation concludes that such liturgical history as was outlined in the case studies is indispensable for the work of Pentecostal liturgical theology. With particular reference to Pentecostal theologian Simon Chan, the dissertation argues how liturgical history should shape and inform Pentecostal liturgical scholarship. Ultimately, liturgical history describes the actual lived context this scholarship should serve. Thus, to theologize for this ecclesial context should necessitate its consideration as a methodological starting place.