Welcoming the Wilderness: Toward a Paradigm of Faith Formation in the African American Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition

Abstract

This thesis argues that within the African American Holiness-Pentecostaltradition, faith formation has been shaped primarily through experience, a mode emerging from the historical realities of sharecroppers, formerly enslaved persons, and communities denied access to formal theological education in the post-Reconstruction era. Within this context, experience became the primary means of knowing God and was often treated as a destination rather than an ongoing process of formation. By the early twentieth century, a figure such as James Baldwin, formed within the sanctified church of Harlem, reveals, through his narrative, the limitations inherent in an experience-centered mode of faith formation. Baldwin’s witness anticipates the present moment, in which Millennials, Generation Z, and Generation Alpha increasingly disengage from the tradition in search of communities where questions, doubt, and uncertainty may be expressed without fear of being labeled unfaithful. This thesis contends that for the tradition to remain faithful to its theological identity while engaging emerging generations, it must expand its formative imagination beyond moments of spiritual intensity. Faith cannot be measured solely by mountaintop experience but must also be cultivated within the wilderness of lived human struggle. In response, this project proposes Welcoming the Wilderness, a constructive paradigm that affirms the tradition’s experiential ethos while integrating the formative significance of wilderness existence. Rather than rejecting experience, this paradigm reframes it by holding together the revelatory power of spiritual encounter and the ongoing work of formation within conditions of uncertainty, limitation, and dependence upon God. Methodologically, the project employs an interdisciplinary methodological framework integrating historical analysis, biblical exegesis with particular attention to the Exodus narrative, ethnographic sensitivity, and constructive theological reflection. Drawing upon Pentecostal scholarship, including Black Pentecostal voices such as Cheryl Sanders and Anthea Butler, as well as Christian education and faith formation scholars such as Ann Streaty Wimberly and Robert Mulholland, and engaging the literary corpus of James Baldwin alongside the broader biblical witness, this thesis demonstrates that embracing the wilderness as a site of divine encounter offers a more holistic, theologically robust, and sustainable model of faith formation for emerging generations within the African American Holiness-Pentecostal tradition.