Theological Hermeneutics

in the Classical Pentecostal Tradition

 Global Pentecostal and
Charismatic Studies

Edited by
Andrew Davies
William Kay

Editorial Board
Kimberley Alexander, Pentecostal Theological Seminary
Allan Anderson, University of Birmingham
Mark Cartledge, University of Birmingham
Jacqueline Grey, Alphacrucis College, Sydney
Byron D Klaus, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary,
Springfijield, MO
Wonsuk Ma, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies
Jean-Daniel Plüss, European Pentecostal/Charismatic
Research Association
Cecil M Robeck, Jr, Fuller Theological Seminary
Calvin Smith, King’s Evangelical Divinity School

VOLUME 12

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/gpcs

Theological Hermeneutics in the
Classical Pentecostal Tradition

A Typological Account

By

L. William Oliverio Jr.

LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oliverio, L. William.
 Theological hermeneutics in the classical Pentecostal tradition : a typological account / by
L. William Oliverio, Jr.
  p. cm. -- (Global Pentecostal and charismatic studies, ISSN 1876-2247 ; v. 12)
 Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-23019-4 (hardback : alk. paper)
 1. Pentecostal churches. 2. Pentecostalism. 3. Pentecostal churches--Doctrines. 4. Theology,
Doctrinal. 5. Hermeneutics--Religious aspects--Pentecostal churches. I. Title.

 BX8762.O45 2012
 230’.994--dc23

2012025020

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ISSN 1876-2247
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 To George and Sarah Jane (Goldberger) Mastrobuono,
and to Sarah Jane Mastrobuono-Angel,
who taught me a Pentecostal theological hermeneutic of love
 CONTENTS

Abbreviations............................................................................................................... xi
Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................xiii

Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1
 1. Theological Hermeneutics, Paradigms and Interdependence .............. 2
 2. Classical Pentecostalism as a Tradition....................................................... 5
 3. Review of the Literature ................................................................................12
 4. An Overview of My Thesis ............................................................................15

1 The Theological Roots of Early Pentecostal Theology .................................19

       1. Theological Roots of Classical Pentecostalism
and the “Full Gospel” .......................................................................................20
                 1.1. Roots in the Wesleyan-Holiness Tradition .........................................21
                1.2. Roots in the American Revivalist Tradition
and Radical Evangelicalism....................................................................24
                1.3. Roots in the Keswick Movement ..........................................................27
                1.4. Roots in Premillennialism ......................................................................28
 2. Conclusion: The Roots of Early Pentecostal Theology ............................30

2 The Original Classical Pentecostal Hermeneutic .........................................31

       1. Major Interpretations of Early Pentecostal Hermeneutics ...................34
                 1.1. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen ..............................................................................35
                 1.2. Grant Wacker .............................................................................................36
                 1.3. French Arrington ......................................................................................41
                 1.4. Kenneth J. Archer .....................................................................................44
                 1.5. Douglas Jacobsen ......................................................................................48
                 1.6. Conclusion: Interpretations of Early Pentecostal
Hermeneutics ............................................................................................50
 2. Early Pentecostal Hermeneuts: Four Exemplars .......................................51
                2.1. Charles Fox Parham: Proclaiming the Everlasting Gospel.............51
                2.2. William Joseph Seymour and the Azusa Street Apostolic
Faith Mission: The Cradle of Early Pentecostalism.........................57
                2.3. Charles Harrison Mason: Interpreting the Signs
in God’s World ...........................................................................................66
                2.4. Garfijield Thomas Haywood: Apostolic Interpretation....................73
 3. Conclusion: The Original Classical Pentecostal Hermeneutic ..............78
viii contents

3 The Early Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic .........................................83

            1. The American Evangelical Tradition and the Authority
of Scripture........................................................................................................85
         2. Daniel Warren Kerr and the Early (Re)Turn to Evangelical
Theological Method ........................................................................................88
         3. Pentecostalism and Fundamentalism .................................................... 104
                         3.1. American Fundamentalism.............................................................. 104
                      3.2. Pentecostalism and Fundamentalism ........................................... 106
                      3.3. Dispensationalism and Pentecostal Hermeneutics ................... 113
         4. The Emergence of “Pentecostal Scholasticism” ................................... 116
                         4.1. P.C. Nelson’s Translation of Eric Lund’s Hermeneutics:
Common Sense Grammatical Biblical Hermeneutics .............. 118
                      4.2. Myer Pearlman: Organizing and Delineating
Pentecostal Doctrine .......................................................................... 121
         5. Conclusion: The Early (Re)Turn to Evangelical Hermeneutics ....... 130

4 The Contemporary Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic .................... 133

            1. Contemporary Evangelical Theological Hermeneutics:
      The Penultimate Authority of Scripture ................................................ 136
            2. The Contemporary Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic .............. 141
                         2.1. The Hermeneutics of Inerrancy in the
Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic ........................................... 142
                      2.2. The Author-Centered Evangelical-Pentecostal
Hermeneutic ......................................................................................... 148
                      2.3. Pneumatic Interpretation in the Evangelical-Pentecostal
Hermeneutic ......................................................................................... 157
                      2.4. David Bernard’s Apostolic Interpretation ..................................... 165
            3. Gordon Fee and the Debate over the Hermeneutics
of Pentecostal Doctrines ............................................................................ 167
                         3.1. Gordon Fee’s Hermeneutics and Pentecostal Theology............ 168
                         3.2. Luke as Theologian: Roger Stronstad, Robert Menzies
and the Biblical Justifijication for the Distinctive
Pentecostal Doctrines ........................................................................ 177
                         3.3. The Signifijicance of the Debate ....................................................... 182
            4. Conclusion: The Signifijicance of the Contemporary
Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic ................................................... 182

5 The Contextual-Pentecostal Hermeneutic.................................................. 185

            1. Hans-Georg Gadamer and Contemporary Philosophical
Hermeneutics ................................................................................................ 187
 contents ix

            2. The Postmodern Contextual-Pentecostal Critique

of the Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic ....................................... 190
            3. Ethnic and Cultural Contexts and Pentecostal Theology ................. 202
            4. James K.A. Smith’s Creational Hermeneutic:
An Incarnational Pentecostal Hermeneutic after
the Linguistic Turn ...................................................................................... 204
                            4.1. Creation, Finitude and the Ubiquity of Interpretation:
Smith’s Turn to Temporality, Situationality
and Traditionality ............................................................................... 209
                         4.2. Smith’s Creational Hermeneutic and Its Incarnational
Strategy .................................................................................................. 215
                         4.3. Smith’s Creational Hermeneutic and Ethical
Responsibility toward Authors ....................................................... 218
                         4.4. The Pentecostal Speech of the Christian Community ............. 220
                         4.5. Smith’s Hermeneutic as a Contextual-Pentecostal
Hermeneutic ........................................................................................ 223
            5. John Christopher Thomas and Kenneth J. Archer: Narrative
and Communitarian Approaches to Pentecostal
Hermeneutics ............................................................................................... 224
                             5.1. John Christopher Thomas and the Role of Community
in Biblical Hermeneutics.................................................................. 224
                         5.2. Kenneth J. Archer and the Making of Meaning in
Pentecostal Communities ................................................................ 227
            6. Amos Yong’s Trinitarian-Pneumatological Approach
to Pentecostal Hermeneutics ................................................................... 232
                            6.1. Trinity, Epistemology, Metaphysics and
Pneumatology ..................................................................................... 233
                         6.2. Discernment of Spirit(s) ................................................................... 238
                         6.3. The Trialectic Movement of Spirit-Word-Community ............. 240
            7. Conclusion: Evaluating the Development of the
Contextual-Pentecostal Hermeneutic ................................................... 247

6 The Ecumenical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic ................................................ 253

            1. Classical Pentecostalism and Ecumenism:
A Brief Historical Overview ....................................................................... 255
           2. Pioneering Toward an Ecumenical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic........ 264
                         2.1. Ernest Swing Williams: A Mid-Twentieth Century
Pentecostal Dialectician .................................................................... 264
                         2.2. Cecil M. Robeck, Jr.: Ecumenism’s Pentecostal
Advocate................................................................................................ 272
x contents

                         2.3. Pentecostal Theological Hermeneutics in Ecumenical

Dialogues............................................................................................... 279
            3. The Contemporary Ecumenical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic ............. 292
                         3.1. Frank D. Macchia and the Expansion of the Boundaries
of Spirit Baptism .................................................................................. 293
                         3.2. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen and the Development
of Consensual Doctrines ................................................................... 300
                         3.3. Simon Chan’s Call for Pentecostal “Traditioning” ...................... 306
                         3.4. Koo Dong Yun and a Dialectical Approach to Baptism
in the Spirit ........................................................................................... 308
            4. Conclusion: Tradition, Systematic Theology and
Pentecostalism ............................................................................................. 310

7 Toward a Hermeneutical Realism for Pentecostal

Theological Hermeneutics ..............................................................................315
            1. Theological Hermeneutics in the Classical Pentecostal
Tradition: Summarizing a Typological Account .................................. 315
            2. Toward a Hermeneutical Realism for Pentecostal
Theological Hermeneutics ........................................................................ 319
                         2.1. The Linguistic Turn and the Rejection of a
Foundationalism of Indubitable Beliefs........................................320
                         2.2. Paradigms and Best Accounts of Our World ............................... 327
                         2.3. The Hermeneutic Responsibility toward the Real ..................... 342
                         2.4. Fides Quarens Intellectum: Faith and Theology .......................... 343
                         2.5. Meaning, Reality and Hermeneutic Responsibility................... 345
            3. Resources (and Our Guide) for Pentecostal Theological
Hermeneutics ............................................................................................... 354
                         3.1. The Spirit, Our Guide ......................................................................... 355
                         3.2. Word ....................................................................................................... 357
                         3.3. Creation and Culture ......................................................................... 358
                         3.4. Tradition................................................................................................ 360
            4. Conclusion: Growing in Faith, Hope and Love.................................... 361

Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 363

Index........................................................................................................................... 377
 ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations of Denominations, Societies and Ecclesial Organizations:

AFM Apostolic Faith Mission (South Africa)
A/G Assemblies of God
CMA Christian and Missionary Alliance
COG Church of God (Cleveland, TN)
COGIC Church of God in Christ
CWS Church World Service (of the National Council of
Churches)
FCC Federal Council of Churches
FMCNA Foreign Missions Council of North America (of the
Federal Council of Churches)
IPHC International Pentecostal Holiness Church
NAE National Association of Evangelicals
NCC National Council of Churches
PCCNA Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches of North America
PCPCU Pontifijical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (of the
Roman Catholic Church)
PFNA Pentecostal Fellowship of North America
PWC Pentecostal World Conference
SPCU Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity (of the
Roman Catholic Church)
SPS Society for Pentecostal Studies
WCC World Council of Churches

Abbreviations of Sources:
PNEUMA PNEUMA: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal
Studies
JPT Journal of Pentecostal Theology
JPT Supplement Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series
DPCM Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee, ed. Dictionary of
Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan, 1988.
NIDPCM Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard M. van der Maas, ed.
The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and
Charismatic Movements. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2003.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Pentecostals are known for being good storytellers. They are also known for
being long-winded. I know I have been long-winded in this project, but that
is because I consider the story of the development of theological herme-
neutics among Classical Pentecostals a story worth telling, in its complexi-
ties. In keeping with this motif, my acknowledgments themselves are a
story of the becoming of this text. In telling it, I hope it will acknowledge
those who have also played a part in the production of this account of theo-
logical hermeneutics in the Classical Pentecostal tradition.
I fijirst recognized that someone needed to tell the story of the develop-
ment of Pentecostal theological hermeneutics a year before I came to
Marquette University’s Department of Theology to begin my doctoral stud-
ies. In Fall 2002, I was asked to teach a class on Pentecostal history and the-
ology at my undergraduate alma mater, North Central University in
Minneapolis. I had studied my Pentecostal history and theology before
teaching this course. I had read my Edith Blumhofer, Stanley Horton and
William Menzies. But as often occurs when a teacher prepares to teach a
course for the fijirst time, I began discovering how much I did not even know
about Pentecostalism’s history and the development of its theological
understanding. As I brushed up on these things by reading the resources on
Pentecostalism available at that time, I found a signifijicant and growing
scholarly body of historical work on the events and persons which marked
Pentecostal history. On the other hand, I found a paucity of scholarship on
the development of Pentecostal theological understanding. Over the next
few years, however, Douglas Jacobsen, Grant Wacker, Amos Yong, Veli-Matti
Kärkkäinen, Frank Macchia and James K.A. Smith, just to name a few of the
leading voices, offfered a fresh wave of scholarly work on Pentecostal theol-
ogy and its development.
As I was discovering these works, I was asked to teach another course at
North Central the following June, the concluding course in the systematic
theology track, on pneumatology, ecclesiology and eschatology. It was the
second time I was to teach this course. On the teaching depth chart, I was
second-string to Amos Yong, who would make the drive to downtown
Minneapolis from the north suburbs where he was teaching at Bethel
College (now University) to teach at North Central. Amos had run into
the same difffijiculty I had in teaching on the development of Pentecostal
xiv acknowledgments

theology – a paucity of sources. Ever able, Amos solved the problem by

editing the volume of essays by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen called Toward a
Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on
Ecclesiology, Soteriology, and Theology of Mission specifijically as a textbook
for this course. This second time I taught the course, I too used this volume
as a textbook. And as I was teaching from this text, I found the opening
essay addressing what I was coming to see as a central issue. The essay was
entitled “Hermeneutics: From Fundamentalism to Postmodernism,” and it
was a revised version of an article Kärkkäinen had recently published in the
Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association.
In this essay, Kärkkäinen offfered a “broad outline” of the development of
Pentecostal hermeneutics in four movements: 1) an oral, pre-reflective stage
of Bible reading, 2) a trend toward Fundamentalist-Dispensationlist inter-
pretation in line with certain streams of twentieth century Evangelicalism,
3) a quest for a distinctive pneumatic exegesis among Pentecostal scholars
seeking an authentically Pentecostal methodology, and 4) a variety of
approaches coming from emerging postmodern developments. Yet, he con-
ceded that “a comprehensive analysis of the history and development of
Pentecostal hermeneutics remains to be completed.” I thought that his
work on this matter was informative – a helpful foray, but agreed that much
more work needed to be done on understanding developments in
Pentecostal hermeneutics. Since, several others have also taken up aspects
of this task, and I will recount their work throughout in offfering my account.
Intellectually, this account was birthed in response to Kärkkäinen’s essay,
and so I fijind it appropriate to acknowledge my debt to it here.
Another motivating factor was a lingering problem with claims that a
particular hermeneutic was the proper Pentecostal hermeneutic, claims
which came from multiple Pentecostal hermeneuts offfering multiple
Pentecostal hermeneutics. It seemed that most works on Pentecostal
hermeneutics sought to simply defijine, with a singular account, what
Pentecostal hermeneutics was and should be. I became acutely aware of
this problem in Fall 2003 as I was writing my paper on Pentecostal theologi-
cal methods for a seminar at Marquette on theological method with Thomas
Hughson, S.J. I kept coming to the conclusion that Pentecostal theologians
and biblical scholars needed to acknowledge that what we were dealing
with were several diffferent types of Pentecostal hermeneutics. In that semi-
nar paper, I began to develop some categories for understanding Pentecostal
theological hermeneutics. And in another seminar at Marquette, in Spring
2005 with Bradford Hinze on hermeneutics, I began to sketch out the typol-
ogy found in this text. This typology and the philosophical and theological
 acknowledgments xv

proposal for a hermeneutical realism for Pentecostal theological herme-

neutics underwent further revision as I developed this project as a doctoral
dissertation, written under the guidance of Philip J. Rossi, S.J. and defended
in Spring 2009.
My approach on this matter, I have come to see, has been signifijicantly
influenced by the Catholic and ecumenical context of Marquette. This
became especially clear to me during the Fall 2008 departmental address
from Susan Wood, our department chair, at our now annual department
convocation. In her address, Wood characterized our department with the
terms classical, contextual, ecumenical and Catholic. While there is not, of
course, a direct one-to-one correlation between those categories and the
types of Pentecostal theological hermeneutics I have identifijied in this
account, there are many points of resonance between Wood’s characteris-
tics and the hermeneutical types which I have used to account for the devel-
opment of Pentecostal theological hermeneutics. I realize that as I am
seeking to speak truths about the development of Pentecostal theological
hermeneutics, that this account has been developed from my own context.
It is best that I own up to this.
Another important way this project has been influenced by the context
of its writing is in my approach to Pentecostal hermeneutics as theological
hermeneutics. While Amos Yong set the precedent for approaching
Pentecostal hermeneutics as theological hermeneutics in Spirit-Word-
Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective, doing my
doctoral work at Marquette, where it is usually just assumed that the theo-
logical task includes hermeneutics of tradition, engagement with other
approaches, and a developed set of philosophical convictions, encouraged
me to take on this approach as well. Approaching hermeneutics as theologi-
cal hermeneutics is a diffferent approach to Pentecostal hermeneutics than
another common approach that is characterized by its movement back and
forth between biblical and general hermeneutics. This means that I agree
with Yong’s claim, noted in the Introduction of Spirit-Word-Community, that
this latter approach is insufffijicient for the theological task and will end up
sabotaging it. With Yong, I claim it is better for Christian theologians to
work out a more comprehensive “hermeneutics of life” that operates from
the convictions of Christian faith in order to theologically interpret all
of reality. The interpretation of Scripture will thus be one part, albeit a
critical one, for this task, and what is sought for in these approaches as
general hermeneutics includes much more than a free standing hermeneu-
tical theory informed by a few biblical or theological convictions.
Approaching Pentecostal hermeneutics as theological hermeneutics allows
xvi acknowledgments

for theological convictions to permeate one’s general hermeneutics, even

while it allows one to learn from the fijindings and approaches of other
disciplines.
My hope is that this project will provide a helpful account of how
Pentecostals have developed in their theological understanding in light of
four hermeneutical types I have developed: the original Classical Pentecostal
hermeneutic, the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic, the contextual-
Pentecostal hermeneutic and the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic.
While I do not claim to offfer here a comprehensive analysis, I do hope that
this is a thorough and helpful account which will move the conversation
concerning Pentecostal theological understanding forward. My further
hope is that the hermeneutical realism I propose for Pentecostal theological
hermeneutics will provide productive contours for Pentecostal theology’s
continuing development. The above influences have all been helpful in
composing this account and my concluding proposal, and none of the
responsibility for any of my mistakes or insufffijiciencies is to be attributed to
them.
Many people have encouraged and helped this project along to publica-
tion. There are too many to mention everyone here. So to all of those who
have influenced and aided me along the way, I offfer my appreciation.
During my doctoral work, I was blessed to have been part of an academic
community known at once for its industry, the depths of its inquiries, and
its irenic spirit. Philip J. Rossi, S.J. advised this project in a manner which
guided it toward reaching its potential. His way of focusing on important
concepts and patterns helped me to draw certain ideas together and recog-
nize certain patterns in Pentecostal theological understanding. As anyone
who has worked with him knows, he is a fount of insight. He has exhibited
patience and faith as I worked through the details of this project and as its
length expanded. I thank him for his Jesuit hospitality towards this
Pentecostal. Other Marquette faculty who have offfered guidance, commen-
tary and evaluation of this account include Patrick Carey, Ralph Del
Colle, Bradford Hinze (now of Fordham), Thomas Hughson, S.J. and Pol
Vandevelde. A few other Marquette friends were notably influential on my
work. Paul Heidebrecht, Christopher Stephenson and Lisa Stephenson
directly aided this project with their comments and suggestions.
The Interlibrary Loan offfijice of Marquette’s Raynor and Memorial
Libraries did a fijine job of providing me with all kinds of sources, even difffiji-
cult to fijind texts. The online archives of the International Flower Pentecostal
Heritage Center (IFPHC) granted me access to many of my sources for the
fijirst several chapters. And in the singular instance where neither was able
to locate several rare texts from Charles Harrison Mason, my colleague
 acknowledgments xvii

Adam Bond, who was doing research on African-American theologians,

delivered them to me.
This project could never be what it is without the Society for Pentecostal
Studies (SPS), of which I have been an active member since 2004 and
Philosophy Interest Group Leader since 2008. SPS has allowed me the privi-
lege of getting to interact with many of the contemporary fijigures who
appear in this project, and to try out some of the ideas within it. Portions of
fijive papers originally presented as research at SPS appear within this book.
Additionally, SPS members Glen Menzies and Amos Yong each took the
time to give me feedback on the structure of this project at an early stage.
It was a comment from Glen that led me to split my account of the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic into the early Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic (Chapter Three) and the contemporary Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic (Chapter Four).
The editorial stafff at Brill has been a pleasure to work with as this text has
been brought to publication. The series editors, William K. Kay and Andrew
Davies, along with Els Meijer and Mirjam Elbers at Brill, have been helpful
and encouraging every step along the way.
To my family, friends and church families, I offfer my appreciation.
My own theological hermeneutic has been developed amidst friendships
at Meadowbrook Church and Immanuel Church-Milwaukee. My parents
and their spouses, Sarah Mastrobuono-Angel and Edgardo Angel, and
L. William Oliverio, Sr. and Kathleen Oliverio, have been sources of unwav-
ering support. Amidst my work on this project, Trish Arnold, John Certalic,
Karen Huxley, Michelle Martin, Patrick and Janet Mastrobuono and Sierra
Snapp each contributed in supportive ways, perhaps unknown to them.
My entire extended family has long been an encouragement to me, and
I hope the dedication of this book to George and Sarah (Goldberger)
Mastrobuono, along with my mother, Sarah Mastrobuono-Angel, will also
honor them.
No other individual, however, deserves more credit for the writing of this
text than my wife, Rachel. She has patiently supported my work and lis-
tened to my seemingly endless queries and ideas in the development of this
account. I am thankful for her love and support. Our sons, Nicholas and
Joshua, were a part of this account’s composition as well. Dad’s “book” had
no pictures in it, yet they sensed its importance to me and their presence
buoyed me along the way.
Finally, as an author committed to my own theological hermeneutic
of life, I have sensed the grace and strength of the Triune God throughout.
I hope that the quality and tone of this work will reflect that, and that
I might be forgiven for any of my shortcomings in these regards.
 INTRODUCTION

A robustly theological hermeneutic is one that aims at interpreting the

totality of human experience – and that includes God and God’s relationships
with human selves and the world as a whole – from a perspective that is
specifijically and explicitly grounded in faith.
– Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community (2002)1

Offfering an account of the development of Pentecostal theological herme-

neutics presupposes an understanding of what constitutes Pentecostalism.
It also requires an understanding of what it means for theology to be
Pentecostal theology, as well as an understanding of theological hermeneu-
tics. The purpose of this introduction is to explain my use of each of these
terms as well as provide additional background information that will clarify
the orientation of this project.
The typology that will be used in what follows is analogous to Henry
May’s account of the forms the Enlightenment took in America in his The
Enlightenment in America. May argues that the Enlightenment in America
is better seen not as a single set of events but as four sets of events, as four
intellectual movements which integrated themselves into American intel-
lectual, religious, political and social life. Of these four movements, May
claims: “Such categories are not, of course, immutable and fijinal, they are
organizing devices to be pragmatically tested…I hope that these four may
make it easier to think about a large and complex portion of American
intellectual history.”2 By recognizing that he is offfering tentative categories
for approaching a particular subject in intellectual history, May is acknowl-
edging that they are not completely determinative. He is making the more
modest claim that they are good and generally helpful categories for engag-
ing a complex matter. It is my hope to do a similar thing for Pentecostal
theological hermeneutics. Rather than assuming that all Pentecostal
approaches to hermeneutics fijit into one broad category, I will provide

1 Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective

(Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), 6.
2 Henry May, The Enlightenment in America (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1976),
xvi.
2 introduction

categories for understanding what Pentecostal hermeneutics, as theologi-

cal hermeneutics, has been, and for what it is becoming. I will follow this
typology with a brief constructive proposal that suggests a direction for the
future of Pentecostal theological hermeneutics along the contours of
hermeneutical realism. That I approach Pentecostal theology using the
framework of theological hermeneutics, that doing theology is an act of
interpreting one’s world, implies that understanding and discourse are, by
nature, hermeneutical. The typology used in this project exhibits this
understanding of theology as I seek to account for how each major
Pentecostal hermeneutical type has arisen and developed.

1. Theological Hermeneutics, Paradigms and Interdependence

Throughout this project I make the important assumption that any given
set of hermeneutical habits, strategies or principles is in a relationship of
mutual dependence with other beliefs about reality, including theological
or doctrinal, as well as anthropological, metaphysical and epistemological
afffijirmations. I hold that these afffijirmations mutually inform and reinforce
one another within diffferent theological paradigms. In fact, the types of
Pentecostal theological hermeneutics that will be discussed in this project
can be viewed as distinct theological paradigms. In making this assump-
tion, I am also claiming that the set of epistemic principles guiding the
forms of belief for a given theological paradigm, and the ontology which
sustains the paradigm, are interdependent. This strongly resists the modern
epistemological project’s claim that it is the fijirst philosophy, although it still
recognizes the primacy that belief forming habits can have at any given
moment. Rather, the quest to know which claims to truth are trustworthy
and which are not go hand-in-hand with a pre-understanding of what is
true and what is not. Thus, I will be operating with a view that while epis-
temic structure guides us into how to discern what is true from what is not,
these structures are sustained and informed by layers of beliefs leading all
the way back to an understanding of what is, ultimately, real, an assumed
ontology. And so I hold that epistemology is based on our pistis, on what we
have found to be faithfully real and true. Together, our pre-understandings
and epistemic habits form paradigms from which we interpret reality – they
become our hermeneutics. Like all of life, paradigms or hermeneutics are
dynamic. And when these paradigms shift – when they develop to the point
where core beliefs, habits or strategies are changed – they require new
 introduction 3

categories for understanding them.3 Something similar can also be said

about the relationship between beliefs and experiences. They are mutually
informative and interdependent on one another. My analysis of Pentecostal
hermeneutics in this project works from the understanding that experi-
ences shape beliefs while beliefs shape our experiences.
Hermeneutics itself is a concept that has signifijicantly expanded in
recent philosophical discourse. Kevin Vanhoozer succinctly explains this
change:
Traditionally, hermeneutics – the reflection on the principles that undergird
correct textual interpretation – was a matter for exegetes and philologists.
More recently, however, hermeneutics has become the concern of philoso-
phers, who wish to know not what such and such a text means, but what it
means to understand.4
The blurring of the boundaries between hermeneutics and theological
method in the current times is, to a great extent, the result of the “linguistic
turn” made by a signifijicant segment of twentieth century philosophy. With
major fijigures like Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig
Wittgenstein emphasizing the way that language shapes our understand-
ing, and with understanding itself taken as a matter of interpretation,
hermeneutics has replaced epistemology as the key means of reflection on
human knowledge or understanding among many philosophers, especially
from the Continental tradition.5 To use Heidegger’s phrase, our stance
toward any thing is “always already” shaped by our own linguistic tradition
in its fijinitude and historical situatedness. This hermeneutical tradition
from Continental philosophy has rivaled the traditions of both Romantic
and Analytic hermeneutics, traditions which have more narrowly defijined

3 I am using the term “paradigm shift” in a manner informed by the term’s usage in
philosophy of science, especially as used by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientifijic
Revolutions, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); and Imre Lakatos in The
Methodology of Scientifijic Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers, vol. 1, eds. John Worrall
and Gregory Curie, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978). I favor Lakatos’
approach over Kuhn’s and will offfer an explanation of their projects in Chapter Seven.
4 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?: The Bible, The Reader, and the
Morality of Literary Knowledge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 19.
5 See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and
Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1990); Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans.
John MacQuarrie and Edward Robinson (London: SCM Press, 1962); and Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan, 1953).
4 introduction

the task of hermeneutics as a quest for understanding the intention of the

author through careful reading of the text and its context.6 The divide
between, on the one hand, the Continental understanding of hermeneutics,
and, on the other, the Romantic and Analytic understandings, comes to a
head over difffering assessments of the possibility, at least ideally, of attain-
ing a determinative interpretation of a text. Because claims about what
constitutes Pentecostal hermeneutics among contemporary Pentecostal
theologians have been informed powerfully, though often tacitly, by both
sides of this philosophical divide, I understand hermeneutics in Pentecostal
circles as a multivalent and contested concept. Thus, a signifijicant purpose
of this project is to examine and analyze the pre-understandings of herme-
neutics itself which are informing various Pentecostal theologies.7
My own understanding of theological hermeneutics draws on the
work of one of the major contemporary fijigures in Pentecostal hermeneu-
tics, Amos Yong. Yong defijines theological hermeneutics as “the hermeneu-
tics of the divine,” and he understands it to be broad enough to “be

6 The key exemplars of hermeneutics in the Romantic and Analytic traditions are, respec-
tively, Friedrich Schleiermacher and E.D. Hirsch, Jr. See Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics and
Criticism and Other Writings, trans. and ed. Andrew Bowie (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 1998); and Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1967); and, The Aims of Interpretation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976).
7 Hermeneutics has always had a signifijicant place in the Christian theological tradition
preceding its relationship to the modern Western philosophical tradition. Augustine’s semi-
otics and Aquinas’ approach to the “four senses” of Scripture are key exemplars. See
Augustine, On Christian Teaching, trans. R.P.H. Green (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997);
and Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 3 vols, trans. Fathers of English Dominican
Province (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1947), I.1.9-10.
The importance of hermeneutics to the Protestant tradition is also clear. Historically,
according to Wolfhart Pannenberg, the role of Scripture as the guiding principle of
theology is the most important part of the “older Protestant prolegomena” to the theological
task. The Reformation teaching that the essential content of Scripture is clearly recognizable
made Scripture its own norm of interpretation and became the authoritative principle of
interpretation. This meant that, on this older Protestant view, the essential content of
Scripture can be derived if the interpreter has sufffijicient competency in language and logic
and carefully attends to the scope, context and circumstances of the text. This led to an
objectivist understanding of divine revelation. According to Pannenberg, it was actually
Calvin who began the turn away from Luther’s understanding that Scripture is the theologi-
cal principle from which all theological statements can be drawn. For Calvin, the authority
of Scripture is recognized as the divine authority on the basis of the testimony, or inner wit-
ness, of the Holy Spirit. Yet it also was a quest based offf of the challenges posed by Spinoza,
and then others at the dawn of modernity, to develop a history of Scripture as the basis for
interpretation. See Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, trans. Geofffrey W. Bromiley
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988), 26–48.
 introduction 5

indistinguishable from a viable theological method.”8 It is not equivalent to

biblical or canonical hermeneutics. And against advocates of the equiva-
lence of theological and biblical hermeneutics, he holds that biblical and
canonical hermeneutics are only part of theological hermeneutics, not its
totality.9 Instead, Yong concludes that “a hermeneutics of the divine that
fails to properly account for the interpretation of the extra-Scriptural world
will ultimately sabotage the theological task.”10 This project follows Yong in
approaching the importance of hermeneutics for Pentecostal theology in a
broader sense than simply Scriptural interpretation. A theological herme-
neutic is a hermeneutics of life which proceeds “from the perspective of
faith toward a hermeneutics of reality as a whole.”11 Approaching the sub-
ject matter this way will fijind me regularly asking the following two ques-
tions of Pentecostal theologians: What are the sources of the knowledge of
God? And how are these sources approached and utilized for developing
Pentecostal theology? Thus it will seek to identify both the sources of God’s
self-revelation and the habits, strategies and principles used in Pentecostal
theological interpretation.12

2. Classical Pentecostalism as a Tradition

Clarifying the identity of Pentecostalism is also an essential task for this

introduction. Demographically, Classical Pentecostalism is often consid-
ered the “oldest part of (the Pentecostal/Charismatic) Renewal, claiming

8 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 2. Another important recent work that considers the

task of doing theology in terms of theological hermeneutics is Jens Zimmerman, Recovering
Theological Hermeneutics: An Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004).
9 Ibid., 4.
10 Ibid., 5.
11 Ibid., 7.
12 Werner Jeanrond, in dealing with the question of theological hermeneutics, raises
the potential problem of the reading of all texts, or all things as texts, from a theological
point of view. He claims that this can be problematic because theological hermeneutics, as
that which “aims at understanding this universe as God’s universe” (a task he does afffijirm)
can easily turn into an ideological reading. Since not every text, or thing to be interpreted, is
composed in a theological genre, then they fijirst must be understood on the terms of their
own potential meaning. Yet, on the other hand, Jeanrond reafffijirms theological hermeneutics
as a “marcro-hermeneutical goal.” But he notes the ideological danger of taking up the
task of theological hermeneutics. Before one does so, he suggests that one must be ready
to do “hermeneutical theology,” that is, to recognize the interpretive nature of the theological
task. Thus Jeanrond helpfully points out that by recognizing that these afffijirmations
6 introduction

name, history, experiences, and theology of Pentecostalism.”13 It stands as

the originator of the worldwide Pentecostal/Charismatic Renewal which
represents a “vast renewal in 3 waves experiencing charismatic gifts of the
Holy Spirit.”14 According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, in 2000, this
renewal made up 523,767,390 of the 1,999,564,000 Christians worldwide
and included 65,832,970 Classical and Oneness Pentecostals (2,768,350
Oneness, the rest Classical and Trinitarian) in the “First Wave”; 175,856,690
Charismatics (both active and “Postcharismatic”) from Anglican, Catholic,
Protestant and Orthodox backgrounds in the “Second Wave”; and
295,405,240 Neocharismatic Christians of the “Third Wave.” This large
“Third Wave” is geographically diverse. Its largest numbers are in Sub-
Saharan Africa, Brazil, the other nations of South America, and it has been
recently expanding in China and the rest of South Asia. But there are also
large numbers in predominantly-white, post-denominational American
and European churches.15 Since the scope of this project is already wide,
I will be limiting my inquiry to the theological hermeneutics of the “First
Wave” – what has become known as Classical Pentecostalism. When mak-
ing occasional reference to all three waves of renewal together in a broader
category, I will use the term “pentecostalism” (with a small-p).16
In his offfijicially sponsored history of the Assemblies of God (A/G), the
largest predominately white Classical Pentecostal denomination in North
America, William Menzies speaks of Pentecostalism as a movement:
The Pentecostal Movement is that group of sects within the Christian Church
which is characterized by the belief that the occurrence mentioned in Acts 2

themselves come through a tradition of interpretation, one will recognize both the interdis-
ciplinary nature of hermeneutics and be more aware of the excess that ideology can bring in
the interpretation of texts [see his Theological Hermeneutics: Development and Signifijicance
(New York: Crossroad, 1991), 3–9].
13 David B. Barrett, George T. Kurian and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Encyclopedia:
A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, 2 vols. (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001), vol. 1, 21.
14 Ibid., vol. 2, 10.
15 Ibid., vol. 1, 20–21; vol. 2, 4–10. It is important to note that Barrett and his co-authors
count individuals twice when they fijit into multiple categories. For instance, a Charismatic
Catholic would be counted as both a Catholic and as part of the “Second Wave” of the
Pentecostal/Charismatic Renewal. More specifijically, for the context of this project, they
count 27% of the entire United States population in 2000 (75,156,000) to fijit under this broad
category of religious afffijiliation with the Pentecostal/Charismatic Renewal, with only
4,946,390 from the “First Wave,” but 19,473,158 in the “Second Wave,” and 50,736,451 in the
“Third Wave.” See Ibid., vol. 1, 772, 837.
16 Notably, Yong and Douglas Jacobsen, as two leading scholars of Pentecostal
theology, have usually adopted this distinction.
 introduction 7

on the Day of Pentecost not only signaled the birth of the Church, but
described an experience available to believers of all ages. The experience of an
enduement with power, called the ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit,’ is believed to
be evidenced by the accompanying sign of ‘speaking with other tongues as the
Spirit gives utterance.’17
Edith Blumhofer also labels Pentecostalism as “a religious movement,” one
“which comes in a bewildering variety of forms, each marked by tremen-
dous internal diversity – Catholic and Protestant; classical and charismatic;
black, white, Hispanic, Asian; Trinitarian and oneness.”18 Like Menzies, she
does not make the “big-P”/“small-p” distinction assumed here. For
Blumhofer, what “Pentecostals” share in common is that the gifts of the
Holy Spirit described in the New Testament continue to operate in the
church today, and that Christians are to experience a distinct “fijilling” or
“baptism” with the Holy Spirit, even if there are disagreements about its
evidence.19
Both Blumhofer and Menzies locate the birthplace of the movement at
the tiny Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, an institution which
occupied one building, had only 40 students, and lasted only one year.
On January 1, 1901, Agnes Ozman, followed by others, spoke in tongues as
a result of an assignment by the school’s founder and leader, Charles
F. Parham, which had been to discover the “Bible evidence” for the
sign that the baptism of the Holy Spirit had occurred.20 This was the

17 William W. Menzies, Anointed to Serve: The Story of the Assemblies of God (Springfijield,
MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1971), 9.
18 Edith L. Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and
American Culture (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 1.
19 Ibid.
20 Douglas Jacobsen notes that the total number of students who claimed to speak in
other tongues at Parham’s Bethel Bible College during the fijirst few days of 1901 was twelve.
See Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit: Theologies of the Early Pentecostal Movement
(Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 2001), 4. The events during the fijirst few days
of 1901 have led Jacobsen to interpret them as a case in which theology played a proactive
role in shaping experience by providing seekers with descriptions of what this religious
experience should look like. According to Jacobsen’s historical assessment, Parham came to
the belief that the “Bible evidence” of the baptism in the “Holy Ghost” was evidenced by
speaking in tongues, which was, for Parham, foreign human languages.
Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. notes that Parham came to this belief in his encounters with
Frank Sandford, an evangelist who ran a small Bible school in Shiloh, Maine, in 1900.
Sandford held a series of tent meetings in Topeka, Kansas in June 1900 and Parham spent
six weeks at Sandford’s “Holy Ghost and Us Bible School” in Shiloh afterwards. Sandford
had come to the belief that God was going to provide miraculous signs and wonders to aid
missionary and evangelistic work around the world, the current status of which he consid-
ered inadequate and inefffective. After Parham’s encounters with Sandford, he came to his
view that speaking in other (foreign) tongues was the “Bible evidence of the Baptism with
8 introduction

culmination of Parham’s quest to answer the question posed by the

Holiness movement, out of which he arose, about the nature and biblical
evidence for the baptism in the Holy Spirit.21 Indeed, the titles alone of
Asa Mahan’s The Baptism of the Holy Ghost (1870) and Rueben A. Torrey’s
The Baptism With the Holy Spirit (1895) demonstrate that the question of

the Holy Ghost.” See Robeck, Jr., The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the
Global Pentecostal Movement (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 41–42. It was Parham’s belief,
then, that the baptism in the Holy Spirit was an eschatological gift precipitating the
parousia, providing a shortcut to language barriers in the preaching of the gospel throughout
the world. So, according to Jacobsen, “Parham interpreted his students’ experience as
direct proof of the truth of his theology” (Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 4–5, 18–20, 46–50).
The hypothesis that Parham is, essentially, the founder of Pentecostalism as a movement is
predicated upon the assumption that its essence is doctrinal. And it is based upon Parham’s
doctrinal claim that there exists another experience in the Wesleyan-Holiness ordo salutis
beyond salvation and sanctifijication, in the baptism in the Holy Spirit, evidenced by
glossolalia.
James R. Gofff, Jr., in his biography of Parham, supports the school of thought that
Pentecostalism essentially began with Parham. See Gofff, Fields White Unto Harvest: Charles
F. Parham and the Missionary Origins of Pentecostalism (Fayetteville, AK: University of
Arkansas Press, 1988); other works which have supported this thesis include Vinson Synan,
The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in America (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans,
1971); and Edith Lynn Waldvogel (Blumhofer), “The ‘Overcoming Life’: A Study in the
Reformed Evangelical Origins of Pentecostalism,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University,
1977). Gofff’s historical claim is that “Charles Parham founded the Pentecostal movement in
Topeka, Kansas, early in 1901 and that the essential character of this new faith revolved
around an intense millenarian-missions emphasis” (Gofff, Fields White Unto Harvest, 15). For
Gofff, Parham was the founder on account of his doctrinal stance on the baptism in the Holy
Spirit, “the central theological corpus which had always defijined the movement” (Ibid., 11).
Beyond his role in delineating the key doctrine among Pentecostals, Parham’s status as
founder of the movement has also been justifijied on account of his leadership in the move-
ment. Gofff notes John Thomas Nichol’s reasons for deeming Parham the founder of
Pentecostalism:
“Parham was the recognized Pentecostal leader in the Midwest both before and during
the Azusa Street beginnings, (2) His application of “Apostolic Faith” was the universal
term used by the earliest members of the movement, (3) He published the fijirst
Pentecostal periodical, the Apostolic Faith (Topeka, Kansas), (4) He organized the fijirst
interstate Pentecostal meetings, and (5) He issued the fijirst ministerial credentials
within the loosely organized Pentecostal movement” (Ibid., 1; see also: John Thomas
Nichol, Pentecostalism (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 81).
This, however, was followed by his “fall from grace” among Pentecostals amidst sodomy
charges in 1907 and his rivalry with William Durham over the role of sanctifijication in the
ordo salutis in the early part of the following decade. In contemporary times, there is a strong
reluctance to claim Parham as a founder due to the integration of racial bigotry into his
theological views. For an example of this reluctance, see Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 20–24.
21 For the Holiness roots of this quest, see Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of
Pentecostalism (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1987), 87–113; these will also be recalled in
Chapter One of this work.
 introduction 9

this baptism was already one posed by those in the Holiness movement.22
However, what became the Pentecostal answer was also precipitated by a
number of experiments in answering the question of the baptism’s nature
and evidence.23
The other candidate for a founder or foundational point for
Pentecostalism is the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles (1906–1909) led
by the African-American preacher William J. Seymour. As a historian, Cecil
M. Robeck, Jr. labels the revival on Azusa Street the birthplace of the
Pentecostal movement. He justifijies this label on account of four reasons.
First, the unparalleled speed with which the revival grew and spread
Pentecostal Christianity throughout North America and to a number of
international missions. Second, through the influence of the Azusa Street
Mission, numerous other congregations, many from the Holiness move-
ment, joined the emerging Pentecostal movement. Third, it continues to
serve as the “primary icon” of the worldwide Pentecostal movement, its
story providing the template for encounter with God and spiritual growth.
Fourth, it prophetically served as an example of outreach and service to the
marginalized in an era of strong racial and socio-economic tensions. It also
provided leadership roles for women as well as men. In serving and elevat-
ing the poor, ethnic minorities and women, the revival placed a form of
egalitarianism at the center of the Pentecostal paradigm, although within a
decade this egalitarianism was beginning to be pushed to its margins.24

22 Asa Mahan, The Baptism of the Holy Ghost (New York: Palmer and Hughes, 1870);
Rueben A. Torrey, The Baptism With the Holy Spirit (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1895).
23 One notable example is the theology of Benjamin H. Irwin. See Dayton, Theological
Roots of Pentecostalism, 97–98; and Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition:
Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997),
51–54.
24 Robeck, The Azusa Street Mission, 4–16. Jacobsen’s assessment of the Azusa Street
Revival’s role in Pentecostal history is similar to Robeck’s. While Jacobsen speaks of the role
of radical Holiness preachers formulating “original visions,” most notably Parham and his
Apostolic Faith Movement, he notes that: “Very quickly the Azusa revival became the Grand
Central Station of global pentecostalism…In essence, the pentecostal movement was born at
the Los Angeles revival. Before the Azusa meetings, Pentecostalism had been a small regional
religious phenomenon limited mostly to the Midwest. At Azusa, pentecostalism became a
national and global movement of faith” (Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 57). Thus while
Jacobsen recognizes a prehistory to Azusa Street, he gives primacy to the revival in the origi-
nating constitution of Pentecostalism, and thus pentecostalism.
According to Walter Hollenweger, the choice between Parham and the events
surrounding the emergence of the Apostolic Faith movement and Seymour and the events
surrounding the Azusa Street revival is a theological, not a historical, question (Hollenweger,
Pentecostalism, 23). If the decisive contribution of Pentecostalism is the doctrine of a
baptism in the Holy Spirit that is subsequent to salvation and evidenced by glossolalia,
10 introduction

Increasingly, Seymour began to see “divine love to all” as the mark of the
Spirit’s presence while never denying that tongues should follow a genuine
experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. This widespread agape entailed
racial, gender and class egalitarianism.25
Part of what makes Classical Pentecostalism a tradition is its diversity,
evidenced by contention over that by which it is constituted. It is a theologi-
cal tradition as it is a continuous stream of explication and elucidation of
accumulated experiential wisdom about God.26 It is also a tradition which
has understood itself, as other Christian traditions have as well, as the true
expression of “apostolic faith.” With the original transmission of the Gospel
to the apostles, the apostles are to faithfully transmit the faith given to them
(see 1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Tim. 1:14) as the deposit of faith.27 While Protestants have
usually eschewed the authority of tradition in terms of the role of the uni-
versal Church in continuing apostolicity, they have looked to the authority
of the deposit of faith. Such a return to a core aspect of that original deposit
in the empowerment for witness has been crucial to the founding of
Pentecostalism. My claim here is that the passing along of this afffijirmation
has gone well beyond a movement within Christianity to the point that it
has formed a signifijicant Christian tradition.

then Parham is rightly deemed the founder. But if Pentecostalism is about an experience of
reconciliation, between God and humankind as well as between humans, then Seymour and
the Azusa Street revival are more properly foundational. This latter interpretation was
advanced by Douglas J. Nelson in his biography of Seymour, “For Such a Time as This: The
Story of Bishop William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival,” (Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Birmingham, UK, 1981). Yet Nelson’s thesis has been criticized by Gofff as sufffer-
ing from “an inability to support such a redefijinition of Pentecostalism, given the admitted
brief tenure of interracial worship and the subsequent failure of Pentecostals to prevent
racial church segregation. In the fijinal analysis, it is clear that racial equality was a doctrine of
black Pentecostals at Azusa” (Gofff, Field White unto Harvest,10).
I disagree with Gofff’s conclusion and, in line with Dale T. Irvin, “ ‘Drawing All Together in
One Bond of Love’: The Ecumenical Vision of William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street
Revival,” JPT 6 (1995): 25–53, hold that a theology of the equal dignity of human beings was
at the core of early Pentecostal theology coming from Azusa Street.
25 See Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 74–80, and Chapter Two of this work for a more
detailed discussion of Seymour’s theology of baptism in the Spirit.
26 My statement here is informed by “Tradition,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church, 3rd rev. ed., F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005), 1646–1647.
27 Ibid., See also “Tradition,” in Louis Bouyer, Dictionary of Theology, trans. Charles
Underhill Quinn (Tournai, Belgium: Desclée, 1965).
 introduction 11

Operating from the premise that subsequent history reshapes the

identity of past events (though, of course, it cannot “change” the past in a
harder sense) I concur with Yong when he argues that “pentecostalism as a
worldwide movement provides an emerging theological tradition.”28
“Small-p” pentecostalism has become a major religious, ecclesial and theo-
logical tradition in the Christian family. And “big-P” Pentecostalism is the
narrower tradition from which it fijirst emerged.
I am operating with the conviction that Pentecostalism is rooted in and
has continuity with the greater tradition of Christian faith, yet it cannot be
properly identifijied as part of another major Christian tradition. Rather, it
has embraced various heritages from within the wider Christian oikumene
while it has rejected others.29 It is a Christian tradition for which Spirit
baptized living, especially informed by the narrative of Acts, is held as a
normative model. My selection of fijigures and schools of thought for this
project is thus based upon their self-identifijication within the Classical
Pentecostal tradition. Investigating others, including those within the wider
Charismatic movement or other forms of “small-p” pentecostalism, would
be far too broad a task for this project.

28 Yong, Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh, 18.

29 Steven J. Land offfers a helpful series of contrasts:
“Pentecostalism flows in paradoxical continuity and discontinuity with other streams
of Christianity. Insofar as it retains similarity to the fijirst ten years of the movement, it
is more Arminian than Calvinist in its approach to issues of human agency and perse-
verance. It is more Calvinist than Lutheran in its appreciation of the so-called ‘third
use of the Law’ to guide Christian growth and conduct. It is more Eastern than Western
in its understanding of spirituality as perfection and participation in the divine life
(theosis)…It is both ascetic and mystical…Pentecostalism is more Catholic than
Protestant in emphasizing sanctifijication-transformation more than forensic justifijica-
tion, but more Protestant than Catholic in the conviction that the Word is the author-
ity over the church and tradition for matters of faith, practice, government and
discipline. In its origins Pentecostalism was more Anabaptist than the magisterial
Reformation in its concern for peace and a covenantal believers’ church where disci-
pleship and discipline are essential features of congregational life. Pentecostalism has
a more Holiness-evangelical hermeneutic than the fundamentalist-evangelical tradi-
tion in terms of its actual use of Scripture and understanding of the role of reason.
Finally, it is more liberation-transformationist than scholastic-fundamentalist in its
way of doing theology as a discerning reflection upon living reality…Pentecostalism,
therefore, exists in continuity but diffferentiating continuity with other Christian
spiritualities.”
See Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (JPT Supplement 1; Shefffijield UK:
Shefffijield Academic Press, 1993), 29–30.
12 introduction

3. Review of the Literature

Most of the literature on Pentecostal hermeneutics speaks of hermeneutics

in a sense that is not clearly delimited. It usually has particular reference
and import for biblical hermeneutics but is often immediately drawn back
into questions of theological hermeneutics (and theological method) and
general hermeneutics. Nevertheless, several accounts of the development
of hermeneutics in the Classical Pentecostal tradition have emerged in the
past several decades. Furthermore, a signifijicant amount of Pentecostal
scholarship and theology has contested matters of hermeneutics and theo-
logical method and, in the process, offfered brief accounts of such.
A very signifijicant example is Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen’s “Hermeneutics:
From Fundamentalism to Postmodernism,”30 which accounts for the devel-
opment of Pentecostal hermeneutics through four stages. He prefaces his
account by stating that his is a broad outline and that “a comprehensive
analysis of the history and development of Pentecostal hermeneutics
remains to be completed.”31 Kärkkäinen’s outline charts the development of
Pentecostal hermeneutics through the four stages of (1) “oral, charismatic
spirituality in early Pentecostal Bible reading,” (2) “a move toward
Fundamentalism and alliance with Evangelicalism,” (3) “toward a distinc-
tive Pentecostal ‘pneumatic’ hermeneutics,” and (4) “the promise and
problematic of an emerging postmodern paradigm.”32 While Kärkkäinen’s
outline focuses upon the central topics of hermeneutical discussion through
several periods of time, my project attempts to understand this develop-
ment in terms of the sources of theological knowledge and the conditions
of such knowing.
Another important account of Pentecostal hermeneutics is Kenneth J.
Archer’s A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First Century: Spirit,
Scripture and Community.33 Archer seeks to give an account of Pentecostal

30 Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Hermeneutics: From Fundamentalism to Postmodernism,” in

idem, Toward a Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on
Ecclesiology, Soteriology, and Theology of Mission, ed. Amos Yong (Lanham, MD: University
Press of America, 2002): 3–21. This is a slightly revised and abbreviated version of his earlier
“Pentecostal Hermeneutics in the Making: On the Way from Fundamentalism to
Postmodernism,” Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 18 (1998):
76–115.
31 Kärkkäinen, “Hermeneutics,” 4.
32 Ibid., 4–19.
33 Kenneth J. Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First Century: Spirit,
Scripture and Community (JPT Supplement; London: T&T Clark, 2004).
 introduction 13

hermeneutics before offfering his own constructive proposal for   Pente-

costal hermeneutics “for the twenty-fijirst century.” Much of it is an account
of the development of the early Pentecostal hermeneutic, what I am calling
the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic. He concentrates on the
relationship of early Pentecostalism to modernity and the use of what he
calls the “Bible Reading Method” in light of the eschatological narrative of
the “Latter Rain.”34 I offfer a description of his account of early Pentecostal
hermeneutics in Chapter Two. His explanation of the development of
Pentecostal hermeneutics then skips ahead to the contemporary debate
between, as he sees it, those who follow the Evangelical version of the his-
torical-critical method and those who reject it and take a postmodern or
narrative approach as he does. This is followed by his constructive proposal
for Pentecostal hermeneutics, which I include as an important version of
the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic in Chapter Five. However, my
account of the development of Pentecostal hermeneutics difffers from
Archer’s in several signifijicant ways. First, my account broadens the topic to
theological hermeneutics, intertwining it with the traditional concerns of
theological method, while Archer moves between speaking of hermeneu-
tics as biblical hermeneutics and hermeneutics as a more general concept
of interpretation of texts, including the broadened postmodern sense of
what a “text” is. Second, whereas Archer skips from the early Pentecostal
hermeneutic to competing contemporary hermeneutics, I spend more time
focusing upon the movement towards Evangelical hermeneutics, locating
the beginning of this development very early on in Pentecostal history.
Third, I offfer a diffferent categorization of the major Pentecostal hermeneu-
tics. In Archer’s account, the major hermeneutics are the “early Pentecostal
hermeneutic,” the “Modernized Evangelical Hermeneutic” and the “post-
modern and narrative hermeneutic.” Beyond our somewhat difffering judg-
ments about these hermeneutics, my categorization difffers in that it
broadens the second and third of his categories, especially pushing his third
category into the broader terms of what I call the contextual-Pentecostal
hermeneutic. I also add an additional fourth category, the ecumenical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic. A fourth diffference is that I seek to account for

34 The narrative of the “Latter Rain” was the historical narrative among early Pentecostals
that saw the outpouring of the Spirit in this modern Pentecost as the “Latter Rain” which
would come just prior to the parousia. This involved a typological interpretation of God’s
actions based on Palestinian weather patterns in which there were earlier and then later
rainy seasons. Modern Pentecostalism was the “Latter Rain” to the “Earlier Rain” poured out
on the early church recorded in Acts. This narrative will be explained further in Chapter Two.
14 introduction

systematic theology and other topical forms of theology in approaching

theological hermeneutics. My inclusion of fijigures like James K.A. Smith,
Amos Yong, Frank Macchia and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, among others, offfers
a new layer of analysis to current scholarship of Pentecostal theology. Fifth,
my constructive proposal will difffer signifijicantly, especially in regards to my
philosophical approach to hermeneutics.
The grandfather of Pentecostal scholarship, the Swiss scholar Walter
Hollenweger, offfers his well-known account of Pentecostal “roots”: the black
oral, the Catholic, the evangelical, the critical and the ecumenical in
Pentecostalism, the updated version of his The Pentecostals. Hollenweger
characterizes Pentecostal hermeneutics in a single, rather short and anec-
dotal chapter.35 He recounts the current hermeneutical debate options
offfered by several of the adherents to what I label the Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic and the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic. Additionally,
Hollenweger suggests a community-oriented and experiential approach to
Pentecostal hermeneutics that would fijit into the ecumenical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic, and attempts to fijind insights from both of the contemporary
hermeneutical traditions in Pentecostalism which he recounts.
Several other accounts have chronicled the development of Pente-
costal   hermeneutics or theological method. Frank Macchia’s entry,
“Theology, Pentecostal” in the NIDPCM briefly deals with the development
of Pentecostal approaches to “interpretation,” from popular “non-academic
theology” to the interpretation of “Bible doctrines” through to the spiritual
discernment of the texts in worshipping communities.36 He credits Steven
J. Land’s Pentecostal Spirituality with formulating the thesis that Pentecostal
spirituality is the foundation of Pentecostal theology. Macchia also follows
Pentecostal theology through its major loci in the “full gospel” before briefly
accounting for the move toward a contextualized Pentecostal theology,
although his focus is more social and cultural than the more philosophical
focus on display in this project.
David Kling places the Pentecostal reading of the biblical texts in the
context of the greater history of the Christian tradition. Recounting
instances of inductive readings of the texts by early Pentecostals in relation
to their spiritual experiences and the narrative of the “Latter Rain,” Kling

35 Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 307–325. See also idem, The Pentecostals: The Charismatic
Movement in the Churches, trans. R.A. Wilson (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1972), originally pub-
lished as Enthusiastisches Christentum: Die Pfijingstbewegung in Geschichte und Gegenwart
(Wuppertal: Theologischer Verlag Brockhuas, 1969).
36 Frank D. Macchia, “Theology, Pentecostal,” NIDPCM, 1120–1141.
 introduction 15

also chronicles the development of the justifijication of Pentecostal distinc-

tive doctrines by Roger Stronstad and Robert Menzies, as well as their
critics.37
There are also a signifijicant number of assessments of what I call the orig-
inal Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic that will be discussed in Chapter
Two. Additionally, in the debate between what I am calling the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic and the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic, pro-
ponents of each position at times address the development of their own
hermeneutics and that of their debate partners. These will be recalled in
Chapter Four and Chapter Five, but especially at the beginning of the
latter.

4. An Overview of My Thesis

My thesis throughout this project is that the development of Classical

Pentecostal theology can be well accounted for under the rubric of the
types of hermeneutics I am suggesting.
Chapter One recounts the origins of Pentecostal theology, drawing on
its roots in the Wesleyan Holiness tradition, the American revivalist tradi-
tion, the Keswick movement and premillennialism. The opening part of
Chapter Two then summarizes the major interpretations of early Pentecostal
hermeneutics. While I understand hermeneutics more broadly as theologi-
cal hermeneutics, at the same time I consider the work of others who think
of hermeneutics primarily as biblical hermeneutics. Because the Scriptures
are considered to be the primary authoritative source for theological knowl-
edge among Pentecostals, and because of the inherent complications in
modern biblical interpretation, it is often assumed that the matter of
hermeneutics in theology essentially pertains to the Bible.
My account of the fijirst type of hermeneutic, what I label the original
Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic, demonstrates how I understand
hermeneutics more broadly. Though largely concurring with the accounts
of this original hermeneutic recounted earlier in the chapter, in the second
part of Chapter Two I offfer my own summary of this hermeneutic as I exam-
ine four major early Pentecostal fijigures: Charles F. Parham, William J.
Seymour, Charles H. Mason and Garfijield T. Haywood. I conclude that this

37 David W. Kling, “ ‘Filled with the Holy Spirit’: The Roots of Pentecostalism,” Ch. 7 of The
Bible in History: How the Texts Have Shaped the Times (New York: Oxford University Press,
2004), 231–268.
16 introduction

original hermeneutic of Pentecostalism reinterpreted Scripture, spiritual

experiences and Christian teaching anew around the categories of the “full
gospel,” utilizing a mostly naïve common sense and supernaturalistic ratio-
nality in order to norm their Christian experience. This new hermeneutic
will end up beginning a new Christian tradition, as it will open up new
theological readings of the text and our world, as well as provide the imagi-
nation for new forms of Christian experience.
However, this original hermeneutic was met, even in the early part of the
twentieth century, with a Pentecostal hermeneutic that was chastened by
the American Evangelical justifijication of doctrinal teaching as the system-
atic integration of the intentional meanings of the words of the biblical
authors. The hermeneutic that emerged as a result is what I  refer to as
the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. I cover this important develop-
ment in two stages. In Chapter Three I make the claim that the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic emerged early in the Pentecostal movement,
exemplifijied by its employment in the hermeneutics of two important early
twentieth century Pentecostals: Daniel Warren Kerr in the fijirst generation
of Pentecostals, and Myer Pearlman in the second. The articulation of
the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic in the latter part of the twentieth
century and in our contemporary setting in the early twenty-fijirst is
recounted in Chapter Four. Gordon Anderson, Gordon Fee and Robert
Menzies are highlighted as its major advocates.
Although the Evangelical-Penetecostal hermeneutic, especially in its
later form, began using a “believing criticism” to engage the historical con-
texts of the biblical authors in order to better understand the textual mean-
ing of the biblical texts, the context of the reader or interpreter was not
considered important. The defijining move, then, of the third type of
Pentecostal hermeneutic arises with the rejection of this hermeneutical
assumption. Chapter Five thus considers the contextual-Pentecostal her-
meneutic as the rise of a Pentecostal approach to doing theology which
accounts for the situation and context of the interpreter in a manner that
both denies that this can be overcome in interpretation, and considers the
quest for objectivity to be an impossible and problematic modern dream.
Rather, theology is done within cultural, social, historical and, especially,
linguistic contexts. In this chapter, I emphasize the philosophical questions
that have arisen among Pentecostals concerning the conditions of theologi-
cal understanding more than the concrete contextual experiences which
shape these conditions. The hermeneutical programs of James K.A. Smith,
Amos Yong and Kenneth J. Archer are the most signifijicant effforts in this
type of Pentecostal hermeneutic.
 introduction 17

Chapter Six then addresses a current in Pentecostal thought that has

been emerging in recent decades. The ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneu-
tic is the orientation with which Pentecostal theology has engaged other
Christian traditions and their respective theological concerns, fijinding
places of convergence and divergence. Its advocates are thus willing to draw
from older Christian traditions, including their doctrines and theologians,
as resources. The work of Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Frank
Macchia, Simon Chan and Koo Dong Yun will exemplify the contemporary
version of this fourth type of hermeneutic in my typology. But the earlier
impulses to such a program will also be recounted in the person of Ernest
Swing Williams and the pioneering work of David Du Plessis.38
The fijinal chapter will offfer my own constructive suggestions for
Pentecostal theological hermeneutics. My suggestion is that Pentecostal
theological hermeneutics be considered in terms of paradigms, and not
only descriptively so but also prescriptively for its constructive effforts.
Central to this move is my claim that the Pentecostal theological
tradition ought to adopt a hermeneutical realism which recognizes that, on
the one hand, human understanding is always linguistic and contextual
and, on the other, that reality is transcendent to the interpreter’s construals
of it. I will contend that this basic move to a hermeneutical realism will be
essential to the success of Pentecostal theological endeavors in the foresee-
able future.

38 In H. Richard Niebuhr’s noted typology, Christ and Culture, he suggests that someone
offfering a typology ought to recognize the type to which she has an allegiance. See H. Richard
Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), xxxix. Yet, perhaps because they
are each a part of my own tradition, I fijind myself sympathetic to each of them. The emphasis
on new experiences with God through new readings of Scripture and experience in the origi-
nal Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic, the recognition of the authority of Scripture for theo-
logical inquiry and reflection in the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic, the implications
of the contextualization of human understanding for theology in the contextual-Pentecostal
hermeneutic, and the impulse to recognize, draw upon and contribute to the traditions of
Christian faith in the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic each have my sympathies. Still, I
recognize that it is the third type, the contextual-Pentecostal, to which this project stands in
greatest allegiance.
 chapter one

THE THEOLOGICAL ROOTS OF EARLY PENTECOSTAL THEOLOGY

The older denominations have a past which is their own in a peculiar sense;
they can trace the beginnings of their church and the course of its history
subsequent to its foundation. The time between the beginning and the pres-
ent has been sufffijicient to establish precedent, create habit, formulate custom.
In this way they have become possessed of a two-fold inheritance, a two-fold
guide of action, a two-fold criterion of doctrine – the New Testament and the
church position. The Pentecostal Movement has no such history; it leaps the
intervening years crying, “Back to Pentecost.” In the minds of these honest-
hearted thinking men and women, this work of God is immediately connected
with the work of God in New Testament days.
– Pentecostal evangelist Bennett F. Lawrence (1916)1

The self-understanding of the vast majority of early Pentecostals was that

their movement bypassed the history of the Church and went straight back
to the Christianity of the New Testament. While the case can be made that
something from the early Church was recovered and reappropriated by
Pentecostals in the modern era, claims such as Lawrence’s demonstrate a
lack of awareness of the historical roots of Pentecostal theology among
early Pentecostals.2
Early Pentecostal theology inherited its core doctrines and habits from
four streams of Anglo-American pietistic Christian faith and practice: the
Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, the broader legacy of American revivalism
and radical Evangelicalism, the Keswick movement and the coalition of
premillenialists. The beliefs, values, practices and patterns of experiences
among early Pentecostals were framed by this background. Historically,
they are rooted in the above traditions. And the considerable overlap
between them allowed for Pentecostalism to draw from each, both

1 Bennett F. Lawrence, The Apostolic Faith Restored, intr. John Welch (St. Louis: Gospel
Publishing House, 1916), n.p., cited in Edith L. Blumhofer, The Assemblies of God: A Chapter
in the Story of American Pentecostalism, vol. 1 (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House,
1989), 14.
2 The title of one of Pentecostalism’s fijirst historical assessments from within, Carl
Brumback’s Suddenly…From Heaven (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1961), exem-
plifijies this self-understanding.
20 chapter one

in human and theological resources, as it emerged at the turn of the

twentieth century.3

1. Theological Roots of Classical Pentecostalism and the “Full Gospel”

Classical Pentecostal churches, movements and groups are usually divided

along three lines. First, there are those that teach a doctrine
of sanctifijication in line with the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. These groups
see three stages in the spiritual progress of the Christian life: salvation/
conversion, entire sanctifijication, and then there is a baptism in the Holy
Spirit for empowerment of witness that is evidenced by speaking in tongues.
This was the original version of Pentecostalism held by Parham and
Seymour, as well as other key leaders including Charles H. Mason and
A.J. Tomlinson. And it was nearly universally promoted among   Pente-
costals during Pentecostalism’s early years (ca. 1901–1911). It became associ-
ated with the theology of two major Pentecostal bodies in the Church of
God in Christ (COGIC) and the Church of God based in Cleveland, Tennessee
(COG). Second, there are the “fijinished work” Pentecostals. This version of
Pentecostalism emerged early in Pentecostal history with the controversy
(begun in 1911) that bore that name and surrounded the ministry and
teaching of William H. Durham. It came to be associated with the
emergence of the Assemblies of God (A/G) in 1914. It denied the need for
sanctifijication as a second stage of spiritual development since the work
Christ did on the cross for salvation was sufffijicient to make one holy. Third,
there is the “Oneness” or “Jesus Only” Pentecostalism with its Pentecostal
unitarianism based upon a modalistic Christocentric doctrine of God.

3 While I have narrowed my recounting of the roots of Pentecostalism to its primary theo-
logical sources, Walter Hollenweger’s description of fijive roots (the black oral, the catholic,
the evangelical, the critical and the ecumenical) offfers a more comprehensive approach to
the roots of Pentecostalism. See Hollenweger, Pentecostalism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
1997). Also see Matthew S. Clark, “Pentecostalism’s Anabaptist Roots: Hermeneutical
Implications,” in The Spirit and Spirituality: Essays in Honour of Russell P. Spittler, Wonsuk Ma
and Robert P. Menzies, eds. (JPT Supplement 24; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 194–211, who has
argued for an Anabaptist root of Pentecostalism. He holds that there is a line of continuity
between the Radical Reformation through the later Anabaptist tradition to Pentecostalism,
suggesting that the Anabaptist ethos has come through Wesley and, subsequently, the
Holiness movement into the Pentecostal ethos. He considers both Anabaptism and
Pentecostalism as radical Jesus-centered martyr movements and holds that Anabaptism
should, along with a non-Fundamentalist form of Evangelicalism, be allowed to inform
Pentecostal hermeneutics.
 roots of early pentecostal theology 21

It emerged in the Summer of 1913 following a revelation of God at a camp-

meeting in Southern California and was a splinter from the “fijinished work”
camp.4
Donald Dayton has argued that the two traditional competing claims
about the essentials of the gospel – the four-fold and fijive-fold “full gospel”
patterns – provide the theological grid which forms the logic for Pentecostal
theology.5 The fijive-fold pattern claims that the essentials of the “full gospel”
are to recognize Christ as savior, sanctifijier, healer, baptizer (in the Holy
Spirit), and soon coming king. The four-fold pattern drops the claim about
sanctifijication as it held, following Durham’s teaching, that Christ’s work on
the cross in salvation was sufffijicient to make believers holy.6 The fijive-fold
pattern is historically prior, yet the four-fold pattern came to greater
prominence in the expansion of Pentecostalism, especially worldwide. This
self-understanding among early Pentecostals that they had the “full gospel”
reveals the power of the restorationist narrative driving Pentecostal
understanding.

1.1. Roots in the Wesleyan-Holiness Tradition

That the fijirst Pentecostals followed the Holiness doctrine of sanctifijication
demonstrates their predominately Wesleyan-Holiness background, though
it also included the influence of “radical evangelical” piety.7 The theological
assumptions, doctrines and premises of the Methodist tradition, as the

4 Donald Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1987),

18–19. Dayton summarizes Oneness Pentecostalism as “a variation within Pentecostalism
produced by a literalistic efffort to harmonize the trinitarian baptismal formula in Matthew
28:19 with the pattern common in Acts (especially Acts 2:38) of baptism in the name of the
‘Lord Jesus’ or ‘Jesus Christ.’ ” See also Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 156–157.
5 Dayton, Theological Roots, 21.
6 For accounts of Durham’s influence, see Allan Anderson, An Introduction to
Pentecostalism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 45–47; Edith Blumhofer,
The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism, vol. 1 (Springfijield,
MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1989), 128–130; and Douglas Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit:
Theologies of the Early Pentecostal Movement (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,
2003), 134–193.
7 I am using “radical evangelical” in line with Grant Wacker’s usage of the term to describe
those who were part of a wide range of zealous, low church, pietistic and generally working
class people who were usually counter-establishment toward institutions and constituted a
signifijicant part of the American religious landscape at the turn of the twentieth century.
See Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2001), 1–8.
22 chapter one

leading populist religious tradition of nineteenth century America among

America’s diverse religious mosaic,8 were commonly assumed among the
fijirst Pentecostals. The Wesleyan-Holiness tradition provided early
Pentecostalism with its theological roots in the Christocentric “full gospel”
pattern. It supplied the emphasis on and understanding of the nature of
salvation and sanctifijication, a restorationist impulse, and the attention
paid to the image of the biblical Pentecost – with even the idea of a dispen-
sation of the Spirit circulating. In some cases, the quest for a second work of
grace in sanctifijication became associated with a baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Wesley and the tradition that emerged in his wake influenced all fijive of
the major doctrines in the Pentecostal “full gospel.”9 But Wesley was also
“strikingly Christocentric in his patterns of thought,”10 a theme which would
carry through to the Christocentric nature of the Pentecostal “full gospel”
where Christ is the savior (and sanctifijier), baptizer in the Holy Spirit, divine
healer and soon coming king.11 The Pentecostal doctrines of salvation
and sanctifijication, as well as their corollary doctrines of human nature,
were much the result of the theological convictions that emerged from
this heritage until Durham’s more Reformed and Baptistic “fijinished work”
theology challenged it. In this Wesleyan paradigm, the salvation/conversion
experience included forgiveness for all actual sins of commission so that,

8 On the place of Methodist tradition in nineteenth century American religion, see E.
Brooks Holifijield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of Puritans to the Civil
War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 256–272; and Mark A. Noll, America’s God:
From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002),
330–364.
9 Dayton’s Theological Roots of Pentecostalism is a demonstration and explanation of
this. Even for “fijinished work” Pentecostals, sanctifijication is an important doctrinal theme, as
it is the continual working out of salvation. This is demonstrated in the inclusion of sanctifiji-
cation as one of the Fundamental Truths of the Assemblies of God, originally written in 1916.
The original version of the Fundamental Truths was ambiguous on its statement on sanctifiji-
cation, though it was later clarifijied to explicitly deny the position of entire sanctifijication.
Dayton and Synan both trace the roots of the “full gospel” pattern among Pentecostals to the
Methodist tradition and the trajectory of the theological convictions of John Wesley and his
prominent associate John Fletcher. See Dayton, Theological Roots, 35–60; and Synan,
Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition, 1–20. Dayton and Synan both fijind the influence of the Anglo-
Catholic tradition and German Pietism to have been mediated through Wesley and his fol-
lowers through the Holiness tradition and into Pentecostalism. While they cite the Anglo-
Catholic and German Pietistic influences on Pentecostalism, they claim that these influences
should be understood as indirect; the influence of the Methodist-Holiness tradition was
primary and direct. See especially Dayton, Theological Roots, 37–38.
10 Dayton, Theological Roots, 43.
11    Wacker claims that among early Pentecostals “in actual practice, in the daily devo-
tional life of ordinary believers, Jesus Christ the Son readily upstaged God the Father”
(Heaven Below, 87).
 roots of early pentecostal theology 23

though a person became a Christian, a residue of sin within remained. The

remaining sin was the result of the Fall and was dealt with by a second work
of grace where the believer is purifijied and given perfect love toward both
God and all of humankind.12 Mediated through the Methodist-Holiness
lens, the overcoming of sin was emphasized, as Wesley had stressed and was
influenced by his Herrnhuter German Pietist friends in contrast to the
Lutheran dialectic of the Christian existing as simultaneously sinner and
saint.13 This paradigm thus rejected a forensic view of salvation for a thera-
peutic one, one in which the forgiveness offfered in salvation was healing
and restorative. Wesley’s doctrine held that sanctifijication restored believers
to the image of God. Christ was thus understood as the one who saves, sanc-
tifijies and heals.14
The theme of restoration was also a part of Wesley’s ecclesial and theo-
logical impetus.15 Wesley was convinced that spiritual coldness was the
cause of the decline of spiritual gifts and miracles after Constantine; he
insisted that the love of Christians had waned since, and that as a result
extraordinary gifts had been given to only a few. Wesley’s concern thus
became focused on what the Holy Spirit is to each individual believer for
personal salvation and sanctifijication.16 Wesley’s goal of restoring a corrupt
church to a more primitive one became a theme on which Pentecostals
would build their own tradition. Further, though Wesley resisted its devel-
opment during his lifetime, in some Wesleyan circles the “moment” of
entire sanctifijication was understood in the imagery of Pentecost in the New
Testament. So the question arose as whether or not to identify this experi-
ence of entire sanctifijication with baptism in the Holy Spirit. And Wesley’s
successor, John Fletcher, moved in that direction. Further, Fletcher offfered
a dispensational account of human history that pushed Methodism to a
more pneumatocentric orientation. He  held to a dispensationalism, like
that of the Medieval mystic Joachim of Fiore’s, which divided history into
three periods corresponding to each member of the Trinity. Fletcher also

12 See Synan, Pentecostal-Holiness Tradition, 6–8; Dayton, Theological Roots, 38–54.

13 Dayton, Theological Roots, 37–48; Synan, Pentecostal-Holiness Tradition, 1–6.
14 Dayton, Theological Roots, 46–48.
15 According to Dayton, Wesley’s major concern was a rigorous restoration of the
practices and church order of the fijirst three centuries of Christianity. “It was the fijirst three
centuries of the church to which Wesley appealed, the ante-Nicene fathers and the pre-
Constantinian church. The shape of Wesley’s primitivism was then in this sense somewhat
more historically nuanced than the biblicistic appeal of Pentecostalism to the Book of Acts.”
See Dayton, Theological Roots, 41.
16 Dayton, Theological Roots, 44–45.
24 chapter one

focused his attention on the book of Acts more so than Wesley.17 His version
of the Methodist agenda found its way into the American radical evangeli-
cal movement. As noted by Dayton, in post-bellum America, “revivalist cur-
rents, whether within or without the mainstream churches, were dominated
in this period by one variation or another of a doctrine of Pentecostal bap-
tism in the Holy Spirit – though still at this point, of course, without the
practice of glossolalia.”18

1.2. Roots in the American Revivalist Tradition and Radical Evangelicalism

Another successor of a great revivalist leader, Rueben A. Torrey, a successor
of Dwight L. Moody, came to the conclusion that the “Baptism with the
Holy Spirit” is a separate and distinct work from salvation, always connected
with testimony and service, and an experience which people either knew
they had or not.19 Thus, in some radical Evangelical circles, the baptism in
the Holy Spirit had come to be closely associated with empowerment for
service. And, separated from salvation, a natural desire for evidence to
discern its occurrence arose. In the 1890s, Benjamin H. Irwin and his

17 Dayton, Theological Roots, 51–54. Since Fletcher’s dispensationalism held that God
dealt with humankind in three stages that corresponded to the members of the Trinity, both
corporately and personally God is revealed as the Father of humankind, as its savior in the
dispensation of the Son, but fijinally in all of God’s fullness of perfection in the dispensation
of the Spirit in which the baptism in the Holy Spirit provides abiding grace and witness. See
Amos Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global
Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: BakerAcademic, 2005), 247–250. See also D. William Faupel, The
Everlasting Gospel: The Signifijicance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought
(JPT Supplement 10; Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 1996), 80–81. In Dayton’s inter-
pretation, this dispensationalist approach provides evidence that Fletcher and other
Methodists moved beyond Wesley toward a more teleologically-oriented approach to history
but they kept in mind Wesley’s more personal and soteriological orientation with these
tripartite dispensations describing the stages of spiritual growth in individual lives (Dayton,
Theological Roots, 51–52).
18 Dayton, Theological Roots, 87. In this late-nineteenth century setting, Dayton sees three
variations of the doctrine. First, there was the mainstream Holiness teaching of Pentecostal
sanctifijication, which understood sanctifijication as a crisis experience. Second, a more radical
Holiness variation split the sanctifijication experience into two separate works of grace: sanc-
tifijication, dealing with personal holiness, and baptism in the Holy Spirit, an empowerment.
Third, among those radical evangelicals associated with the Reformed tradition, the baptism
in the Holy Spirit was considered a second, defijinite work of grace subsequent to salvation for
the purpose of enduing with power for service, and the Wesleyan association between sanc-
tifijication and the baptism in the Holy Spirit was suppressed (Dayton, Theological Roots,
87–104).
19 Dayton, Theological Roots, 102–104. It should be noted that Torrey rejected the
Pentecostal understanding of baptism in the Holy Spirit that sought to draw upon his own
theology of it.
 roots of early pentecostal theology 25

Fire-Baptized Holiness Church were another precursor to Pentecostalism,

though his influence waned signifijicantly around 1900. He sought spiritual
experiences with evidential confijirmation of them. Coming out of the Iowa
Holiness Association, Irwin preached a third experience, “the fijire,” mani-
fested by tongues, shouting, screaming, holy laughter, dancing and the jerks.
He would then add one spiritual baptism upon another as he sought to pro-
mote additional baptisms or stages within this third blessing. There were,
according to Irwin, baptisms of “dynamite,” “lyddite,” and “oxidite” beyond
the initial baptism in the Holy Spirit.20
That this desire for evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the
Pentecostal solution to this quest occurred in the context of the American
Holiness movement is not an accident. Though American revivalism is
often characterized as afffective, and even irrational, its theology has often
taken on the evidentialist forms of its conservative American Christian
brethren. The theological context in which the late-nineteenth century
Holiness movement dwelt was still dominated by the American “common
sense” version of “evidentialist Christianity.” In this tradition, natural theol-
ogy was utilized in order to defend Christian faith against a deistic or mor-
alistic natural religion by claiming that when the human mind functioned
properly, both morally and physically, in discovering knowledge about the
world, it produced evidence to confijirm God’s existence and “pointed toward
and confijirmed truths above the capacity of reason to discover – truths
accessible only through special revelation.”21 The quest for the “Bible evi-
dence” of the “Baptism in the Holy Ghost” may then be understood as stand-
ing in continuity with this stream of conservative Protestant theological
rationality.
Pentecostalism was also rooted in the divine healing movement associ-
ated with revivalism and radical Evangelicalism. Wesley’s therapeutic
model of grace and salvation provided, in the “double cure” of justifijication
and sanctifijication, a sense of God’s restoring and healing power over his
creation. His extension of the benefijits of God’s grace unto completion in
this life provided an inclination for his views on health and healing to do

20 Dayton, Theological Roots, 97–98; and Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition, 51–54.

21   E. Brooks Holifijield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans
to the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 5; see also Ibid., 5–8, 173–196. On the
common sense realism and rationality and its Scottish origins behind this, see Terence
Cuneo and René van Woudenberg, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004); and Nicholas Wolterstorfff, Thomas Reid
and the Story of Epistemology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
26 chapter one

the same. The biblical realism and belief of the continuation of miracles
among the Pietists, like Johann Christoph Blumhardt, also influenced the
practice of prayer for healing in the American Holiness and radical evan-
gelical traditions.22 American Holiness advocates and revivalists, including
Charles Finney, Charles Cullis, A.J. Gordon, and A.B. Simpson, developed
theologies of divine healing which shaped the context of the emergence of
Pentecostal thought on healing.23
A radical version of this belief placed divine healing “in the atonement.”
Just as salvation is available to all, if certain conditions are met, so is heal-
ing. This is represented by a fijigure like Captain R. Kelso Carter, an associate
of Simpson, who held that healing in the atonement was mechanical. Any
continuing disease or sickness was a sign of continuing lack of faith or sin.
Thus the use of medical help and medicine was to be avoided as a lack of
faith. However, experience contradicted Carter’s teaching. He reformed his
view of healing and came to assign the experience of it – and its lack – in a
more traditional manner to the inscrutable will of God.24 Many key fijigures
in the late-nineteenth century Holiness movement, including Gordon,
Simpson, John A. Dowie and Maria B. Woodworth-Etter, were all pioneers of
the healing message that would soon be owned by Pentecostals as well.25
Each of these healing pioneers saw their current healing ministries as part
of the restoration of the Church to a more primitive state.26

22 See Frank D. Macchia, Spirituality and Social Liberation: The Message of the Blumhardts
in the Light of Wuerttemberg Pietism (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1993).
23 Dayton, Theological Roots, 119–131.
24 Dayton, Theological Roots, 129–131.
25 Edith Blumhofer accounts for the rise of interest in divine healing, in part, to the
social situation of late-nineteenth century America which was experiencing a growing
cultural awareness of physical health: “The fascination for physical well-being had a
religious counterpart in prayer for the healing of the sick” (Blumhofer, Restoring the
Faith, 19).
26 Dowie, in particular, saw himself as having a key role in this restoration as he declared
himself “Elijah the Restorer,” the eschatological reappearance of the prophet. Gordon and
Simpson held more moderate views than did Dowie and Woodworth-Etter, for they sought
to renew the receptivity to God’s healing power among their adherents and only discour-
aged, but did not denounce, medical attention. Dowie, on the other hand, thought there
was “no fellowship between the blood of Christ and medicine,” John Alexander Dowie,
“The Everlasting Gospel of the Kingdom of God Declared and Defended,” Leaves of Healing
(July 1899), 713, cited in Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 22. And Woodworth-Etter held that
since healing was in the atonement, then all prayers with sufffijicient faith and prayed by
one without harbored sin would necessarily result in healing. Thus, failure to be healed
was the result of a failure of one of those two criteria (Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith,
19–24).
 roots of early pentecostal theology 27

1.3. Roots in the Keswick Movement

The Keswick movement “was the form Holiness and ‘higher life’ teaching
took in Britain, primarily among Anglican Evangelicals.”27 It dealt difffer-
ently with the tension between holiness and empowerment for service in
the second work of grace than did the American Holiness tradition. The
Keswick movement was concerned that the second blessing serve as an
answer to sin, yet it shied away from the perfectionism in American Holiness
teaching. While the British movement was greatly influenced by its coun-
terparts from the American Holiness movement, it denied the Wesleyan
Holiness doctrine of entire sanctifijication.28 It came to claim, instead, that
“a normative Christian life is characterized by ‘fullness of the Spirit’…that
gives power for living a consistent Christian life.”29 This infijilling was consid-
ered a defijinite act distinct from but often temporally coincident with regen-
eration. There is thus a logical distinction, if barely any temporal distance,
between the two in the Keswick ordo salutis. It difffers from the Holiness
doctrine of complete sanctifijication in that it does not eradicate sinful ten-
dencies. The Keswick movement also preached further “fijillings” to be
sought according to biblical paradigms.30 The infijilling of the Spirit was thus
not a matter of eradicating sin but an enduement with power, thought of
more as an anointing than a cleansing, and as a maintained condition
rather than a status. Through this more Reformed view of sanctifijication, the
“fijinished work” doctrine, especially promoted by Durham among
Pentecostals, provided an understanding of sanctifijication as process rather
than crisis.31 The Keswick movement also emphasized premillennialism,
faith healing, and “the gifts of the Spirit,” and it practiced many of the reviv-
alistic methods found among its American Holiness siblings.
Keswick’s influence in America came through, among others, Dowie,
Simpson, and Gordon. According to William Menzies, “The single most
signifijicant influence from the Keswick world which came upon the

27 Dayton, Theological Roots, 104. Beginning in 1875, annual conventions were held in
tents in Keswick, England which became a major center of spirituality among Evangelicals
and became closely associated with the foreign missions movement, particularly the China
Inland Mission. The movement was also associated with the Welsh Revival of 1904.
28 Dayton, Theological Roots, 105.
29 David D. Bundy, “Keswick Higher Life Movement,” in DIPCM, Stanley M. Burgess and
Gary B. McGee, eds. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), 518.
30 Ibid.
31 William Menzies, “The Non-Wesleyan Origins of the Pentecostal Movement,” in Aspects
of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins, Vinson Synan, ed. (Plainfijield, NJ: Logos International,
1975), 85–86, 90–94.
28 chapter one

pentecostal revival was that of the Christian and Missionary Alliance,”32

the fellowship begun by Simpson. In the latter half of the fijirst decade of
the twentieth century, Reformed and Baptistic theological tendencies
entered into the Pentecostal movement through converts from those tradi-
tions, especially in the Eastern and Southern United States. Many Christian
and Missionary Alliance (CMA) ministers went over to Pentecostalism,
though the CMA under Simpson neither endorsed Pentecostalism nor
excommunicated those who came to speak in tongues with its noted
dictum, “Seek not, forbid not.” Still, numerous CMA leaders came over
to Pentecostalism in the early years of the A/G, including Frank Boyd,
William Evans, J. Roswell Flower, Daniel Warren Kerr, David Wesley
Myland, Noel Perkin, and A.G. Ward.33

1.4. Roots in Premillennialism
Robert Mapes Anderson’s notable thesis held that it was premillennial
escapism that was the original attraction which drove those from the mar-
gins of society to Pentecostalism. It provided its theological core as the
socially deprived turned to an eschatological vision.34 More sympathetic
observers, however, have also noted this link between a negative outlook
on the future of this world and a pneumatological orientation to the
heavenly.35

32 Ibid., 87.
33 Ibid., 87–89.
34 Robert Mapes Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American
Pentecostalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979). Using Marxist social analysis,
Anderson argues that Pentecostalism is an otherworldly eschatological reaction to the social
deprivation experienced by its originators and early adherents.
35 Dayton suggests a pattern of confluence between pneumatologically-oriented and
apocalyptic movements in Christian history: “Whether by a common influence of such bibli-
cal texts or by some similar experiential dynamic, we fijind that the more Spirit-oriented
movements in the history of the church have had a particular fascination with prophetic
and apocalyptic themes” (Dayton, Theological Roots, 144); “The Pentecostal accounts in Acts
(and perhaps the Lukan theology as a whole) tend to link eschatology and pneumatology, as
we have already seen. When these texts are elevated to the hermeneutical key by which the
whole of Scripture is read, these tendencies may gain force” (Ibid., 151). Stanley J. Grenz
argues that a premillennial vision usually coincides with a pessimistic view of current events.
See Grenz, The Millennial Maze: Sorting Out Evangelical Options (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1992), 175–195. And the turn of the twentieth century was a threatening
and tumultuous time for theological conservatives in which such a pessimistic view of
earthly events was prevailing. William Faupel argues that Pentecostalism is a result of a para-
digm shift in the American Holiness movement which, though still committed to perfection-
ism, turned away from postmillennialism towards premillennialism and then towards the
eschatological hope of a Latter Rain outpouring before the events surrounding the Second
Coming would ensue (Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel).
 roots of early pentecostal theology 29

Modern premillennialism is usually traced back to John Nelson Darby, a

member of the separatist Plymouth Brethren movement in England in the
middle of the nineteenth century.36 Darby’s form of dispensational premi-
llennialism came into American radical evangelical and Holiness circles
through the annual Bible and prophecy conferences in Niagara Falls, NY,
the emergence of Bible institutes in the Holiness, revivalist and radical
evangelical traditions, and the wideapread use of the dispensationalist
Scofijield Reference Bible. The Holiness forerunners of the early Pentecostals
were among the major proponents of this premillennialism; Simpson and
the CMA as well as Gordon and his followers were some of the fijirst to link a
fundamentally premillennial outlook with an emphasis on missionary
activity and the restoration “of early Christian vitality” which “would
include the exercising of apostolic power and spiritual gifts.”37
Though rooted in this dispensational premillennialism, early Pentecostals
modifijied the dispensationalist model in order to better explain their under-
standing of what God was doing in their midst. Rather than follow a seven-
stage dispensational framework like that found in the Scofijield Reference
Bible, Pentecostals developed an eschatological framework based on the
concept of the Latter Rain, even though some Pentecostals would come to
draw on Dispensationalism (see Chapter Three).38 This theme developed in
light of biblical passages which referenced God’s actions in relation to
Palestinian weather patterns where an early rain season was later followed
by another, the “Latter Rain.” This motif was utilized by early Pentecostals to
describe the outpouring of God’s Spirit. Whereas God’s Spirit was poured
out at the original Pentecost upon the Apostles, now the apostolic faith was
being restored in this Latter Rain outpouring before the eschatological

36 According to Grenz, what was unique about this dispensational premillennialism

which emerged with Darby was neither its premillennial outlook nor its periodization of
history but its “strict literalism in interpreting Bible prophecy, which set the predictions of
Daniel and Revelation into the future and demanded a reintroduction of Israel, rather than
the church, as the major subject of biblical prophecy”; this espousal took place in the midst
of the Fundamentalist-Liberal controversy (Grenz, Millennial Maze, 60–61, 92). Dayton
claims that postmillennialism had been recently defeated in the revivalist Protestantism of
the 19th century on account of massive immigration bringing non-Protestant populations to
America as well as the rise of Darwinism and higher biblical criticism (Theological Roots,
160–163). Dayton fijinds that the arguments about millennial views then turned on empirical
questions regarding the conditions of the culture at large.
37 Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 18.
38 For a description of these seven dispensations, see Grenz, Millennial Maze, 94 fff.
Scofijield’s seven epochs are the ages of innocence, conscience, human government, promise,
law, grace and kingdom.
30 chapter one

consummation would occur: the “Blessed Hope” of the return of Jesus

Christ and the series of events which were presumed to follow in a pretribu-
lational, premillennial scheme.39

2. Conclusion: The Roots of Early Pentecostal Theology

Despite claims to the contrary, early Pentecostal theology was rooted in tra-
ditions and tendencies which came from the history of the Church. Many
early Pentecostals did not realize the degree to which they retained the
tendencies of the traditions from which the majority of them came.
Early Pentecostal theology drew from and modifijied the doctrines of
the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. The quest for the baptism in the Spirit and
the interest in divine healing were anticipated by an earlier coalition of
revivalists and radical Evangelicals. The large number of converts to
Pentecostalism from the ranks of the CMA – though also from other
churches with more Reformed or Baptistic orientations – brought in the
convictions and tendencies from the Keswick movement, especially con-
cerning salvation and sanctifijication and their relationship. And nineteenth
century Anglo-American premillennialism provided an eschatological
orientation that would evolve into the Pentecostal narrative of the “Latter
Rain” outpouring which gave early Pentecostals their orientation towards
history, including their conviction that they could bypass the history of the
Church to get back to the “apostolic faith” found in the New Testament.

39 The early Pentecostal David Wesley Myland states in his Latter Rain Covenant that:
“The latter rain was once literally restored to Israel’s land after the seventy years of
captivity, but that rain largely ceased. God is bringing it back the second time to the
land which is shown by the reports from the weather bureau in Jerusalem. Since 1860
the measurement of rain in Palestine has been recorded very accurately at Jerusalem,
and shows a great increase, especially of the latter rain…now we begin to understand
this great prophecy: ‘I will pour out My Spirit’ – literally on Israel, spiritually on God’s
church, dispensationally to bring in the consummation of the ages and open the mil-
lennium, the age of righteousness.”
See Myland, The Latter Rain Covenant and Pentecostal Power with Testimony of Healings and
Baptism (Chicago: Evangel Publishing House, 1910), 78–79, cited in Douglas Jacobsen, ed., A
Reader in Pentecostal Theology: Voices From the First Generation (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 2006), 73.
 chapter two

THE ORIGINAL CLASSICAL PENTECOSTAL HERMENEUTIC

All along the ages men have been preaching a partial Gospel. A part of the
Gospel remained when the world went into the dark ages. God has from time
to time raised up men to bring back the truth to the church. He raised up
Luther to bring back to the world the doctrine of justifijication by faith. He
raised up another reformer in John Wesley to establish Bible holiness in the
church. Then he raised up Dr. Cullis who brought back to the world the won-
derful doctrine of divine healing. Now He is bringing back the Pentecostal
Baptism to the church.
– The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), October 19061

The purpose of this chapter is to identify, illustrate and interpret the

original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic which was the originating
hermeneutic of Classical Pentecostalism and has come to serve as the
starting point for Pentecostal hermeneutics. My claim is that it was
a theological hermeneutic which was based on at least four core interpre-
tive assumptions which gave orientation to the ethos of early Pentecostalism.
This is based upon my own evaluation of four major early Pentecostal
theologians, but fijirst it builds upon several important interpretations of
early Pentecostal hermeneutics.
The fijirst, and foremost, interpretive assumption is that the Protestant
Christian Scriptures were the sole ultimate authority for Christian
belief and living which functioned dialogically with the religious and gen-
eral experiences of early Pentecostals to form a theological understanding
of their world. For early Pentecostals, this authority functioned as the
Scriptures served as normative exemplars for Christian experience which,
in turn, informed their reading of Scripture. I assess their actual practice of
relating to Scripture as dialogical. The human experience of hearing
Scripture, in relation to all other human experiences, provided moments
of experiencing it as God’s word, and these stood out as authoritative and
normative for the rest of a Pentecostal Christian’s lived experience. Then,
from this lived experience, a theological interpretation of the world

1 “The Pentecostal Baptism Restored,” The Apostolic Faith 1:2 (October 1906), 1.
32 chapter two

followed, informed by both Scripture and life’s experiences as related to

Scripture.2
Second, the restorationist beliefs of the early Pentecostal movement,
centering on the narrative of God’s plan for humankind coming to pass with
the outpouring of the Spirit in the Latter Rain, came to form the primary
Pentecostal story of history. Third, the four-/fijive-fold “full-gospel” came to
serve as the doctrinal grid that oriented Pentecostal beliefs and living and
came to operate as new doctrinal hypotheses which explained Scripture
and spiritual experiences. And fourth, a pragmatic naïve realism, integrated
with an understanding of the primacy of the supernatural, formed early
Pentecostal rationality. The words of Scripture (almost always in the King
James Version of the Bible) were identifijied in relation to the common sense,
supernatural experiences of early Pentecostal readers. Because of this tacit
naïve realism, the understanding of direct correspondence between early
Pentecostals’ theological views and the realities to which these articula-
tions pointed, in many cases, led to an absolutism which engendered the
signifijicant splintering of Pentecostalism in the decades following the Azusa
Street Revival.3

2 In Martin Jay’s investigation of experience in modern Western thought, he accounts for
“the American culture of experience” as drawing on the rhetoric of experience as a source of
legitimation against rational abstraction or unexamined authority. In the American context,
experience is a “knowing how” in forming habits in the interaction between one’s self and
one’s world. There is continuity, then, between belief and action in this understanding of the
American account of experience. Experience serves as a corrective on many levels in
American culture and has led to a general rejection of all-embracing systematic truth –
whether theological, philosophical or political – in favor of the adjudication of truth claims
by “the canons of a constantly shifting collective experience.” This was especially true of the
American pragmatist tradition, represented by the likes of Charles Sanders Peirce, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Jr., William James and John Dewey. See his Songs of Experience (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 2005), 265–271.
To a degree, this is true of the early Pentecostals’ understanding of experience. As
American theologians, they held the authority of the Bible in tension with the primacy of
religious experience in the devotion and practice of Christian faith. Experience taught them
that belief in the baptism in the Holy Spirit caused vibrant spiritual life. It was in the experi-
ential context of America which this quest for a deeper experience of empowerment and
holiness took place. For early Pentecostals, these religious experiences “worked,” therefore
the truth of their doctrines was demonstrated.
3 For several major historical accounts of this era in which the splintering occurred, see
Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), 45–57; Edith L. Blumhofer, The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of
American Pentecostalism, vol. 1 (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1989), 217–372;
idem, Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture
(Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 142–179; and William Menzies, Anointed to
Serve: The Story of the Assemblies of God (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1971),
106–121.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 33

The interaction between these interpretive habits came to form the

original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic. Though the Scriptures were
certainly considered the authority over experience, a dynamic of interde-
pendence between the authority of Scripture and the experience of
Pentecostal Christian living emerged. Pentecostals’ spiritual and general
experiences were the place in which they tested their beliefs against reality,
including those beliefs elevated to the level of doctrines, as the essential
teachings of their communities of Pentecostal faith. The dynamic between
Scripture, doctrinal hypotheses and experience allowed for the production
of new readings of Scripture and religious experiences to occur. Scriptural
texts were read at face value within the frames and structures these
doctrines gave to their readings. These doctrines operated as hypotheses
which incorporated the Scriptural texts into their theological explanations.
The tenets of the “full gospel” served as these core doctrinal principles in
the Pentecostal paradigm, shaping its reading of Scripture even as it
emerged from its reading of Scripture. The strength of the restorationist
theme with the imminent expectation of the parousia, especially as this
was linked to the baptism in the Holy Spirit, was also at the core of this her-
meneutic and sets it apart from both its Holiness predecessors and its
Pentecostal successors.4 A defijining aspect of the development of the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic will be the moderation of this expec-
tation. All of this was met with a common sense, pragmatic and supernatu-
rally-oriented rationality which provided it its logic.5
But another important defijining characteristic of the original Classical
Pentecostal hermeneutic is its manner of openness to reinterpreting
Christian theology and doctrine in light of charismatic religious experience
and Christian devotion. In this, there is an attempt to resolve the modern

4 On this point, I am largely concurring with Kenneth Archer’s claim in A

Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First Century: Spirit, Scripture and Community
(JPT Supplement 28; London: T&T Clark, 2004) that the narrative of the Latter Rain is
crucial to diffferentiating this early Pentecostal hermeneutic from its Holiness predecessors.
5 As an alternative to the critical rationalism and empiricism of the Enlightenment, the
common sense rationality of early Pentecostals stood in continuity with the common sense
realist tradition which became normative for Evangelicals in the nineteenth century. The
common sense realists held an optimistic epistemology which, in many aspects, stood in
contrast to the epistemological skepticism toward unredeemed humankind found in
Reformed Christianity. Henry May, in The Enlightenment in America (Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press, 1976), 305–362, categorizes the common sense tradition as a sub-movement
of criticism from within the Enlightenment tradition itself. Also see Mark A. Noll, America’s
God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (Oxford, UK and New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 93–113; and Sydney E. Ahlstrom, “The Scottish Philosophy and
American Theology,” Church History 24:3 (September 1955): 257–272.
34 chapter two

Protestant divide on the matter of theological method. The relationship

between the authority of the Bible (orthodoxy) is interwoven with the
primacy of religious experience (both in orthopraxis and orthopathos).6
This is then a movement, though not a consciously theoretical one, toward
a way beyond the divide between the biblical propositionalism of conser-
vative Protestantism and the placing of the locus of divine revelation on
religious experience as in liberal Protestantism.7 It is a manner of working
out this dynamic in a dialogical manner between experience and Scripture,
yet one in which experience was always supposed to bow to the authority of
the Scriptures. While experience was treated experimentally, analogously
to scientifijic method, its authority difffered from that in science or empiricist
philosophy. While experience could confijirm or disconfijirm hypotheses
about Scripture, Scripture itself could not be disconfijirmed. Thus the doctri-
nal hypotheses needed to be revised, and they were by early Pentecostals.
In another sense, then, this hermeneutic is also a radical development of
the Protestant belief in the authority and perspicuity of Scripture. For those
who were having proper moral and spiritual experiences, these individual
believers could ground their theological beliefs in their own judgment
over and against grounding them in any form of tradition. Understood in
this light, tradition was an obstacle rather than an aid for forming correct
beliefs. The original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic was thus a theolo-
gical hermeneutic seeking to interpret the Scriptures and the world by
reforming Christian beliefs in order to return to the “apostolic faith.” But
the goal of this theological hermeneutic was living out and experiencing
this “apostolic faith,” not just forming true beliefs about it.

1. Major Interpretations of Early Pentecostal Hermeneutics

The past two decades have seen a substantial increase in the amount
of scholarship on early Pentecostal theology. Enough historical reconstruc-
tion and research has occurred, and enough texts collected and preserved,

6 This use of orthodoxy, orthopraxis and orthopathy to describe Pentecostal spiritual and
theological practices follows Steven J. Land’s Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the
Kingdom (JPT Supplement 1; Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 1993).
7 For descriptions of this tension, see Stanley J. Grenz and Roger E. Olson, 20th Century
Theology: God and the Word in a Transitional Age (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,
1992) where this tension is a theme; and Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine:
A Canonical-Lignuistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John
Knox Press, 2005), 3–12.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 35

to begin the process of analyzing early Pentecostal theology. The following

scholars represent signifijicant assessments of its hermeneutics.

1.1. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
Primarily considering hermeneutics with regard to biblical or textual
hermeneutics, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen fijinds that the “supernatural, charis-
matic ethos, coupled with an intense eschatological expectation…naturally
informs Pentecostal hermeneutics.”8 This supernatural ethos includes an
awareness of God that is personal and direct through the Holy Spirit.
Through preaching, testimonies and periodicals, the early Pentecostals
communicated this hermeneutic in such a way that Kärkkäinen speaks of it
as “oral, charismatic spirituality in early Pentecostal Bible reading.”9 He sees
this direct awareness characterized by the place of the sermon in Pentecostal
worship. The sermon “was an occasion for the listener to immediately
experience the biblical message rather than being characterized by a
hermeneutics that spent its time exegeting a text in historical-critical man-
ner. The preacher focused on the immediate meaning of a text.”10 He further
characterizes this pattern of immediacy with fijive principles:
The early Pentecostals’ use of the Bible, still the dominant pattern in churches,
can be summarized as follows. First, Scripture is the inspired Word of God,
authoritative and wholly reliable; this has often led to the downplaying of the
role of human authors. Second, Pentecostals have not recognized a historical
distance between themselves and the text: there has thus been an emphasis
upon the immediate meaning and context. Third, the early Pentecostals’
“operative principle of interpretation was the conviction that exegesis is best
when it is as rigidly literal as credibility can stand.” Little or no signifijicance
was placed upon the historical context, and the Bible was understood at face
value. Fourth, the Pentecostals’ interpretation was theologically colored by
the Christological “full gospel” pre-understanding, where Jesus stood at the
center of charismatic life. Last, the prime interpreter and preacher was the
local pastor, most of whom were uneducated, ordinary folk.11

 
8 Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Hermeneutics: From Fundamentalism to Postmodernism,” in
Amos Yong, ed., Toward a Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives
on Ecclesiology, Soteriology, and Theology of Mission (Lanham, MD: University Press of
America, 2002), 4–5. For an earlier version of this essay, see his “Pentecostal Hermeneutics in
the Making: On the Way from Fundamentalism to Postmodernism,” Journal of the European
Pentecostal Theological Association 18 (1998): 76–115.
 
9 Ibid., 4–6.
10 Ibid., 5.
11 Kärkkäinen, “Hermeneutics,” 5–6. Ibid. cites Grant Wacker, “The Functions of Faith in
Primitive Pentecostalism,” Harvard Theological Review 77:3/4 (July-October 1984), 365, in
describing the third principle.
36 chapter two

Though Kärkkäinen has only briefly assessed the early Pentecostal

hermeneutic, he brings out a number of its important themes in his fijive
principles: the early Pentecostal view of Scriptural inspiration, the imme-
diacy of the text to the reader, literality in a modern sense, ahistoricity, the
embedding of the doctrinal content of the “full gospel,” and the lack of
formal theological training among early Pentecostal hermeneuts.

1.2. Grant Wacker
A more sustained evaluation comes from Grant Wacker. His reading
of early Pentecostals fijinds that they blended primitive and pragmatic
impulses. “The genius of the pentecostal movement lay in its ability
to hold two seemingly incompatible impulses in productive tension…the
primitive and the pragmatic.”12 There was a consistent longing for original
or fundamental things, for the restoration of pure religion. On the other
hand, a shrewdness and practicality meant that Pentecostals were willing to
work, and work hardily, with the means and opportunities that lay before
them.13 While he never claims to be examining Pentecostal hermeneutics,
he essentially offfers an analysis of early Pentecostal theological hermeneu-
tics by examining patterns of thought and action, sources of authority and
worldviews in his project of assessing early Pentecostal culture.

12 See Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2001), 10. Ibid., 14, summarizes this dynamic between these two
impulses:
“The primitive and pragmatic impulses balanced each other. In some spheres the for-
mer predominated, in others the latter predominated, but overall they compensated
one another as needed. Viewed from one angle it is clear that the two impulses stood
in tension, partly because the logic of the primitive excluded the pragmatic, and partly
because pentecostals almost always denied that the pragmatic existed at all. Yet
viewed from another angle it is equally clear that the two impulses creatively comple-
mented each other. Pentecostals’ primitivist conviction that the Holy Spirit did every-
thing, and that they themselves did nothing, bore grandly pragmatic results. It freed
them from self-doubt, legitimated reasonable accommodations to modern culture,
and released boundless energy for feats of worldly enterprise. At the same time, this
vigorous engagement with everyday life stabilized the primitive and kept it from con-
suming itself in a fury of charismatic fijire…some practices mainly helped the commu-
nity relate to the divine, while others mainly helped it navigate the hard complexities
of modern life.”
Douglas Jacobsen has also noted that there are some similarities in the logic and ideas of
early Pentecostal theologians and American pragmatist philosophers of their era, though
some aspects of their worldviews were very far apart from that of early Pentecostals. See
Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit (Bloomington, IL: Indiana University Press, 2003), xii.
13 Wacker, Heaven Below, 10–14.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 37

In examining the patterns of thought and action among early Pente-

costals, what he calls their “temperament,” Wacker seeks to identify those
deeply ingrained habits which reside in an “almost inaccessible zone of
impulse and attitude that preceded self-conscious rationalization.”14 He
identifijies these recurring attitudes as piety, certitude, absolutism, prevail-
ing prayer, independence and canniness, with the fijirst four focusing on the
primitivistic impulse and the latter two on the pragmatic. All of these, he
argues, were tamed, though only relatively so, as Pentecostalism headed
into its second generation and a measure of institutionalization set in.
According to Wacker, early Pentecostal piety focused on producing a
“heaven below.”15 They held to a pilgrim mentality which sought to
bring heaven to earth and the restoration of the New Testament church
with its attendant signs and wonders. This often meant that Pentecostals
had a fundamentally new way of seeing all of life, including nature itself.
Early Pentecostals testifijied to their experience of heavenly things, and even
heavenly time. As a result, they held little interest in earthly afffairs, from
simple and innocent pleasures to major political and social events. This
piety focused their lives on personal salvation, baptism in the Holy Spirit
and subsequent evangelistic endeavors. And it also led to certitude in theo-
logical beliefs. Holy Spirit baptism served to dispel all doubts about the
supernatural, Christian beliefs in general, and confijirmed the distinctive
and even novel claims made by the burgeoning Pentecostal movement.
However, Wacker maintains that, “For pentecostals the essence of certitude
was not narrowness but irreversibility.”16 This entailed a preclusion of criti-
cal analysis of their cherished beliefs, and it provided motivation for provid-
ing ad hoc explanations when external events seemed to disconfijirm
Pentecostal beliefs. Wacker claims this certitude engendered a moral abso-
lutism which tended to see life in moral extremes, a trait he also attributes
to their apocalypticism. Viewing every theological belief as a matter of life
or death meant that early Pentecostals took opposing viewpoints as more
than misguided, they were often considered forms of infijidelity or evil.
Wacker thus deems this milieu “a binary world constituted by up or down

14 Ibid., 18.
15 This phrase comes from an article in the Apostolic Faith (Azusa Street) Mission’s peri-
odical: “We have no need of organs or pianos, for the Holy Ghost plays the piano in all our
hearts…It is so sweet. It is heaven below.” See Wacker, xv, which cites Untitled, Apostolic Faith
1:4 (December 1906): 2.
16 Wacker, Heaven Below, 22.
38 chapter two

choices” where considerations for context or gradations of value were not

entertained.17
The spirit of independence and vigor that many early Pentecostals car-
ried with them was imbued in their core theological doctrines and their
understanding of selfhood. The autonomy of individual choice was a key
hidden assumption. “Conversion, sanctifijication, and Holy Spirit baptism
started with the individual, skirted the institutional church, downplayed
the ordinances, and ended with the individual…Everything centered, they
imagined, in a sovereign, rational decision of the unfettered self.”18 In
Wacker’s telling, this independence, together with the senses of certitude
and absolutism, led to another practical result, a determination to get the
job done rather than to spend needless time theorizing. This, he suggests, is
missed by assessments of Pentecostalism as inherently anti-intellectual,
assessments which he thinks have missed the motivating factors.19
Beyond the habits of the early Pentecostals, Wacker cites the underlying
sources of their worldview as their sources of authority. They were the Bible,
doctrine and the Holy Spirit.20 Among these, there is not a hierarchy but a
situation in which “All represented co-existent and perfectly equal expres-
sions of the same divine mind.”21 Further, he adds the caveat that while

17 Ibid., 25. This temperament concluded with the ramifijication of the practice of prevail-
ing prayer, that is, prayer that could bend nature to one’s interests in an almost mechanical
sense. This was most profound in the belief that divine healing for the body had been
provided for “in the atonement.” Wacker notes the shift from a consideration of prayer as a
petition for God’s favor to a view in which prayer itself was a causal agent since God was
always prepared to do his part. Thus healing became a necessary result when the proper
conditions were met. And the only conclusions that could be drawn when healing failed to
occur were that there was a lack of purity or a lack of faith on the part of the ill, the interces-
sors or both. See Wacker. Heaven Below, 19–28.
18 Wacker, Heaven Below, 29.
19 Wacker suggests that the defijining characteristics of the pragmatic spirit of the early
Pentecostals were fijierce independence and, contrary to what has been a stereotype of them,
their canniness. As the other pragmatic value, canniness is found in the shrewdness with
which Pentecostal personalities advanced their cause and themselves in the process. There
was no shortage of charismatic personalities or those willing to follow them. In practical
matters, they were not anti-modern, but, rather, they utilized technology and promotional
strategies that were innovative and which drew and compelled their audiences. See Wacker,
Heaven Below, 28–34.
20 Wacker explains that “virtually all converts would have said that legitimate authority
rested fijinally in the Bible, in the doctrines the Bible contained, and in the Holy Spirit’s direct
communication of biblical and doctrinal truths. The key here is that all three sources of
authority…served as interlocking components in a single mechanism not subject to histori-
cal change” (Wacker, Heaven Below, 70).
21 Ibid., 81.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 39

experiences did modify these formal convictions, this type of adjustment

was seen as “just a minor concession to common sense.”22
The Bible “contained all the information one needed to know in order
to navigate life’s tough decisions,” a concept Wacker refers to as “plenary
relevance.”23 It offfered all the answers to all of life’s signifijicant questions.
Thus, he notes that the Bible became virtually the sole textbook among
Classical Pentecostal educational institutions.24 Held highly in this manner,
the Bible in general, and the book of Acts in particular, became the “blue-
print” for Christian living in the restorationist vision of the early Pentecostals.
They offfered the normative example for Christian existence.
Like Kärkkäinen, Wacker fijinds that in interpreting the Bible the imme-
diacy of the text to the preacher or reader became a practical hermeneuti-
cal principle. He adds that this belief was supported by another, that of the
verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture; under such a vision of inspiration,
though the Bible did address the historical settings in which it was written,
the setting did not substantially influence it. The Bible was thus preserved
from any errors of any sort, be they theological, scientifijic or historical. And
out of respect for the divine nature of the Scriptures, the Bible must be read
as literally as possible so that what was done was not considered an inter-
pretation of Scripture but simply “reading it” as it is.25 Wacker suggests that
the assumption that “truthfulness required literalism” was mostly held on
account that it “hung low in the radical evangelical air they breathed.”26
And the reason that it was in the air can be accounted for by the lingering
influence of common sense realism in Protestant America. He cites the
influence of common sense realism on early Pentecostals as coming through
radical evangelicals such as W.D. Godbey and Reuben A. Torrey.27 And he
fijinds common sense realism offfering Pentecostals two rationales for their
literalism. The moral rationale claimed that “a literal reading of Scripture
implied a humble willingness to bend before the plain meaning of God’s
own words.”28 The intellectual rationale claimed that “since God’s rules for
the world were clear, God’s Book must be equally clear. Literalism produced
clarity, allegorism produced confusion.”29

22 Ibid., 70.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid., 71.
25 Ibid., 73–75.
26 Ibid., 75.
27 Ibid. specifijically cites the influence of Reuben A. Torrey’s What the Bible Teaches (1898)
on early Pentecostals.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
40 chapter two

Doctrine, the second of Wacker’s three sources of authority, is the formu-

lations of the truths Pentecostals so vigorously held. He notes the numerous
uses of claims to holding the truth in the names of early Pentecostal periodi-
cals, Bible schools and sermons, let alone their content. This is the outwork-
ing of what he characterizes as the certitude and absolutism in the
Pentecostal temperament. Contrary to the idea that Pentecostals had done
theology to substantiate their deep spiritual experiences, he found many
testimonies of those who became fijirst convinced by Pentecostal arguments
for the doctrine of baptism in the Holy Spirit before experiencing it.30
Doctrine sometimes preceded experience. He fijinds the numerous schisms
which occurred among Pentecostals from the 1910s through 1930s to bear
witness to the emphasis placed on precision in doctrine and the belief in its
utmost importance.31 “The goal then was precision – fijirst, last, and always,
precision. Authors rarely acknowledge, let alone took pleasure in, the pos-
sibility that language might bear multiple meanings.”32
Third, according to Wacker, the Holy Spirit was a source of authority for
Pentecostals. Wacker delineates three modes in which the Holy Spirit com-
municated to early Pentecostals. First, and unusually, there existed tran-
scriptions of supernatural revelations that a few early Pentecostals claim to
have received from the Spirit.33 Second, and commonly, early Pentecostals
held that they had received direct disclosures to their consciousnesses. This
was often associated with a willingness to revise traditional Christian doc-
trines.34 Third, and according to Wacker, most commonly, the gift of tongues
was met with interpretation. He fijinds this form of communication of the
Holy Spirit as in most cases focusing on spiritual edifijication, but in others it
offfered specifijic guidance for life’s afffairs.35

30 Ibid., 80.
31 Wacker cites the infamous claim by Charles Parham that he had prayed that God would
smite the one in error on the doctrine of sanctifijication when he disputed William Durham
over the “fijinished work” issue and boasted of this at Durham’s early death at 39 years old.
Already, by 1911, Wacker notes the experience of the Norwegian evangelist T.B. Barratt who,
upon touring Pentecostal works throughout the United States, put out “An Urgent Plea for
Charity and Unity” to stop harsh and ceaseless doctrinal disputation (Ibid., 78–79).
32 Ibid., 81.
33 Wacker cites a set of booklets written by early Pentecostals, circa 1910, in the Chicago
area, entitled Yellow Books, God’s Newspapers, and Letters from Jesus, none of which are
extant but are cited by those who condemned them (Ibid., 81–82, 297–298 n87–89).
34 Wacker describes how “The Holy Spirit transmitted ideas as pure and clear as
sunlight directly into believers’ minds, brightening the dark corners of Scripture and spot-
lighting verities long obscured by man-made creeds and traditions” (Ibid., 82).
35 Ibid., 82–83.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 41

Though not consciously sanctioned as a source of authority for most

early Pentecostals, Wacker holds that the pragmatic impulse within them
resulted in their adjusting to the lessons life threw at them. Experience’s
authority was constituted by the “good sense and sound judgment” that was
highly valued in early Pentecostal culture. This was true of both spiritual
and mundane matters.36 Experience thus constituted a diffferent but very
real authority for early Pentecostals: “If authority grew from supernatural
signs and wonders, it also grew from a life well lived, from a life that mani-
fested the fruits of Christian grace in day-to-day afffairs.”37

1.3. French Arrington
French Arrington has analyzed Pentecostal hermeneutics yet has not dif-
ferentiated their development through any diachronic or synchronic cate-
gories. While he recognizes and accounts for some development, he focuses
on general Pentecostal habits in the textual interpretation of Scripture. He
describes the hermeneutical habits coming from this early period, though
he does so as they move into tendencies I identify with the three later her-
meneutical types I am putting forth in this project.38 Here I will recount his
understanding of what I am identifying as the original Classical Pentecostal
hermeneutic before enough discontinuity emerges that it becomes, in my
estimation, an account of an identifijiably diffferent hermeneutic.
Mediated through the Holiness movement, Arrington fijinds the
hermeneutical tendencies of John Wesley to serve foundationally for what
he refers to as “the Pentecostal hermeneutic.” Wesley’s tendencies included
reading, memorizing and quoting of Scripture so that one becomes a “living
Bible”; studying the Bible as a devotional and not just a scholarly exercise
which includes prayer; understanding the Bible as the primary authorita-
tive source for doctrine; and viewing the application of the biblical message
as a necessary conclusion to the hermeneutical task. According to Arrington,
Wesley saw the purpose of Bible study as the process of discovering the will
of God so that one might act accordingly. Viewed in such a manner, the
Bible was undeniably the authority for doctrinal formulation and practical

36 Ibid., 84–86. This especially pertained to the goal of achieving efffective evangelism as
it utilized various mediums to achieve practical results.
37 Ibid., 86.
38 French Arrington, “Hermeneutics,” in DPCM, 376–389.
42 chapter two

response. He fijinds these above tendencies as the model to follow when

early Pentecostals took up their Bibles and read.39
Arrington, like Kärkkäinen and Wacker, interprets the early Pentecostal
view of Scriptural authority to be predicated upon its divine inspiration
with minimal human mediation. And he fijinds the subtle yet powerful prin-
ciple of ahistoricism permeating the Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic:
Early Pentecostal responses to this problem saw the biblical writers as passive
instruments in the hands of God, as mere channels through which the word of
God was spoken. The result was an understanding of inspiration as dictation.
This early Pentecostal comprehension is demonstrated by the fact that
Pentecostal interpretation placed little or no signifijicance upon the historical
context in which the texts were inscribed. Biblical statements were under-
stood at face value with no appreciation for the ancient context in which they
were delivered.40
He also points out that this manifested itself in the anti-creedalism of the
early Pentecostals. The Bible was viewed as the all-sufffijicient source of God’s
revelation of God’s self, and thus an encounter with the Scriptures was an
encounter with God. Creeds and other forms of theologizing were criticized
as “man-made traditions.”41 However, it did not take long for the early move-
ment to utilize doctrinal statements in the face of theological controversy,
or out of the practical necessity to clarify beliefs. Still, the normativity of the
Bible for early Pentecostals became a central principle of its hermeneutic.
And, like Wacker, Arrington considers one of its motivating factors to
have been humility before God. If the Scriptures were considered a human
document that both has errors and merely contains the word of God, then
sorting out which texts or portions of texts were the word of God put the
interpreter in authority over the text rather than placing the reader in sub-
mission to the text. Pentecostals, however, saw less of a need to defend the
infallibility of the Scriptures than did Fundamentalists. Because Pentecostals
viewed an encounter with the Bible as an encounter with God, they usually
felt that the Bible’s authority and infallibility were self-evident because the
Bible led its readers to experience God. Thus Pentecostals stopped short of
the Fundamentalist position that Scripture is a static deposit of truth appre-
hended through one’s rational faculties. In Arrington’s estimation, they
based their view of Scripture on the simple argument that because God is
infallible, therefore the Bible is too, since God inspired it.42

39 Ibid., 378.
40 Ibid., 380.
41 Ibid., 380–381.
42 Ibid., 380–382.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 43

Arrington goes on to describe the Pentecostal method of interpretation,

both among early Pentecostals and subsequent generations, as having
three basic characteristics. It is pneumatic, experiential, and its focus is
on historical narratives. First, the pneumatic aspects of Pentecostal
hermeneutical method follow the line of thinking found in their doctrine of
inspiration – that since the Holy Spirit had guided the writers of Scripture,
so also should the interpreter seek to receive such guidance. Only through
perception that is guided by the Holy Spirit can the deeper signifijicance of
the biblical texts be perceived. This emphasis on the pneumatic reading of
Scripture was combined with the belief that the one true God was the
embodiment of all truth. It led early Pentecostals to conclude that “there
was one truth and therefore one correct interpretation of Scripture.”43 It did
not lead to any spiritual or allegorical interpretation of Scripture. They thus
sought a unity in doctrine not brought about by human means; it was to
come through the work of the Holy Spirit. But such a set of hermeneutical
assumptions created the danger that caused numerous fractures and dis-
putes among early Pentecostals: “Because the interpreter has claimed divine
guidance, the resulting interpretation is assumed to be above questioning
and thus implicitly demands an authority on par with Scripture itself.”44
Second, Arrington proposes that the relationship between experience, in
personal and corporate, general and religious forms, and the interpretation
of Scripture has operated in a dialogical manner. He denies attempts to
understand that relationship as a linear progression. To see this relationship
as unidirectional, moving from experience to interpretation of Scripture or
from interpretation of Scripture to experience, is a flawed approach to
understanding the Pentecostal hermeneutic.45 Rather, he invokes the claim
that “at every point, experience informs the process of interpretation, and
the fruit of interpretation informs experience,” and thus there necessarily
exists a dialogical relationship between the two.46 Arrington considers that
the Pentecostal emphasis on experience is a result of the desire to enter into

43 Ibid., 382.
44 Ibid., 383.
45 Arrington specifijically identifijies the debate between William Menzies and Gordon Fee
as misguided (Ibid., 383–384). In this debate, the former argues that Pentecostal interpreta-
tion of Scripture has led to Pentecostal experience while the latter has argued that Pentecostal
experience has led to Pentecostal interpretation of Scripture. See William W. Menzies,
“Synoptic Theology: An Essay on Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” Paraclete 13:1 (1979): 14–21; and
Gordon D. Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent – A Major Problem in Pentecostal
Hermeneutics,” in Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism, Russell P. Spittler, ed. (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1976), 118–132. In Chapter Four, I will identify this debate as
one within the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic.
46 Arrington, “Hermeneutics,” 384.
44 chapter two

existential continuity with the apostolic Church. The real concern that has
instigated this misguided linear debate is instead a desire, on the one side,
to defend personal experience from displacing Scripture as an authoritative
norm, and, on the other, to keep Pentecostal religious experiences as
practices grounded in Scripture.47 As an alternative, Arrington describes
Pentecostal hermeneutics as dialogical.
Third, Arrington fijinds the Pentecostal hermeneutic to be highly depen-
dent on historical narratives in Scripture, especially those in Acts. The focus
on these narratives is a result of their foundational character for two
primary Pentecostal doctrines: the baptism in the Holy Spirit as an event
subsequent to salvation, and speaking in tongues as its initial evidence.
Early Pentecostals took the Acts narratives, within their restorationist
framework, as normative for Christian experience. Thus they were seen as a
model for which there was an imperative to follow.48

1.4. Kenneth J. Archer
Kenneth J. Archer deals with the early Pentecostal hermeneutic as it mani-
fested itself in response to modernity. He fijinds that, facing the same chal-
lenges that other conservative Christians encountered in the face of
modernity – including the challenges posed by evolutionary theory to
supernaturalism, higher criticism to Scriptural authority, and comparative
religious studies to Christianity’s ultimate claims – Pentecostalism
responded with a transformative alternative. Indeed, early Pentecostals
were counter-cultural in their pacifijism, economic deprivation, gender
equality, racial integration and ecstatic religious practices. He claims that
Pentecostalism is best characterized as paramodern, not anti-
modern or pre-modern:49

47 Ibid., 383–384.
48 Arrington claims that in doing so, they both borrowed from and were confronted by
dispensationalist theology and its attendant hermeneutic. The theme among Pentecostals
that they were a part of an eschatological Latter Rain which sought to restore the Church to
the faithfulness of the early Church borrowed theological and hermeneutical assumptions
from dispensationalism. On the other hand, early Pentecostals were subject to substantial
criticism from dispensationalists that they were generating false experiences and were
falsely interpreting Scripture because the outpouring of the Spirit on the early Church was
part of God’s work for a diffferent age. Tongues, and all other “spiritual gifts,” had ceased.
Pentecostals responded, and continue to respond, according to Arrington, in two diffferent
ways. They either reject the dispensationalist approach altogether, or they divorce the escha-
tological implications of the approach, which they accept, from its ecclesiological implica-
tions, which they reject (Ibid., 384–385).
49 Kenneth J. Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First Century: Spirit,
Scripture and Community (JPT Supplement 28; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 9–34. For other
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 45

The Pentecostal movement was formed from the margins of mainstream

society and was birthed as an ‘oppressed people’ who yearned for a desire to
see the glory of God. Cold cerebral orthodoxy could not liberate them from an
oppressive society. Pentecostalism has always belonged to the more marginal-
ized members of society. Because early Pentecostals came predominately
from the lower socio-economic strata of society, they tended to be classifijied as
pre-modern, anti-intellectual and anti-social. Yet in practice, Pentecostals
were a paramodern, counter-culture movement.50
He makes these claims about the context of the emergence of Pen-
tecostalism in response to those of Robert Mapes Anderson’s application of
social deprivation theory to Pentecostal origins; Anderson claimed that
Pentecostalism is the result of social deprivation and disorganization along
with defective psychological states among its adherents.51 He argues that

redactions of his approach to Pentecostal hermeneutics, see “Early Pentecostal Biblical

Interpretation,” JPT 18 (April 2001): 32–70; and “Pentecostal Story: The Hermeneutical Filter
for the Making of Meaning,” PNEUMA 26:2 (Fall 2004): 26–59. Archer argues that the
Pentecostal worldview is best characterized as paramodern for the following reasons. First,
it emerged in modernity as a historical time period. Second, though it existed on the social
and economic fringes of modernity, in its use of language and in its understanding of signs
as evidence it utilized modern language of experimentation. Third, Pentecostals could only
accept some of the tenets of modernity. And fourth, the Pentecostal worldview included
aspects of protest against modernity. Thus, the Pentecostal worldview is an alternative
worldview alongside of the mainstream modern worldview.
Archer also argues that Pentecostalism ought not to be considered premodern for
two reasons. First, it was born in the modern age. Second, it used and adapted modern
language and beliefs to form and articulate its beliefs and practices. It also ought not
be considered antimodern because it did not develop a critical argument against modernity
based on modern epistemological principles like the Fundamentalists did (Archer,
Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 29–34).
Historically, Archer claims that Pentecostals followed this paramodern route until they
followed a more modern path following Fundamentalism after the 1920s. In contrast to the
expressivist and experiential path of modern liberal theology and Fundamentalism’s attempt
to reestablish a biblical foundationalism with the reassertion of common sense realist philo-
sophical principles, early Pentecostals followed the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition in afffijirming
both the authority of the Scriptures and the importance of personal experience (Ibid., 40,
63–64).
50 Ibid., 18.
51 Ibid., 23–28. Anderson’s primary claim is that Pentecostalism was essentially a result of
the collision of impoverished rural Americans, both black and white, with little education
retreating into a millennial, ecstatic and escapist form of Christianity in the face of mass
urbanization at the beginning of the twentieth century. Anderson looks to social causes for
Pentecostalism’s emergence and fijinds that, primarily, “the root source of Pentecostalism was
social discontent,” Anderson, Vison of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1979), 240.
Archer counters and reduces the viability of Anderson’s claim to having identifijied the
main reason for Pentecostalism’s emergence. First and foremost, it misses the serious faith
claims of Pentecostals. Second, it fails to account, because of its negative predispositions, for
the positive and normal functioning of Pentecostals in society. And third, Archer notes theo-
rists who have begun to investigate Pentecostalism based on social deprivation theory and
46 chapter two

while social deprivation can be recognized as a facilitating factor in the

emergence and growth of Pentecostalism, it was not its primary cause.
In the place of Anderson’s use of social deprivation theory, Archer
proposes that Pentecostalism be understood as a transformative and
paramodern movement which produced an alternative worldview.52 Such a
worldview served as the hermeneutic from which Pentecostals interpreted
both Scripture and all of human experience. In Archer’s assessment, the
Pentecostal worldview stayed within the broader Christian worldview, but
was on the fringes of the modern one. Theologically, Pentecostalism, with
the exception of the Oneness version, kept the heart of the traditional
Christian doctrines while it adhered to pietistic themes such as the priest-
hood of all believers, the authoritative role of Scripture for doctrinal praxis,
and God’s continued miraculous involvement in creation. The Pentecostal
worldview emphasized divine intervention. And ecstatic experiences
served as “tangible evidence that the person and community had a direct
encounter with the living God.”53 This supernaturalism stood in direct
opposition to the modern naturalistic worldview, and yet it was also the
point of greatest tension with other conservative Protestants. As Archer
characterizes it, “the Pentecostal community was on a direct collision
course with Modernity and cessationist Christianity.”54 And he afffijirms
Margaret Poloma’s claim that Pentecostalism may be understood as an
“anthropological protest against modernity,” as it provided a medium for
encountering the supernatural.55 The Pentecostal worldview thus fused the
natural and supernatural, the emotional and the rational, as well as the
charismatic and institutional.
Archer fijinds the understanding of early Pentecostals to have been
that the Spirit is present in the interpretation of Scripture as well in its

were forced to change their hypotheses because of the emerging evidence (Archer,
Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 23–28). In making his third point, Archer cites Virginia H. Hine,
“The Deprivation and Disorganization Theories of Social Movements” in Religious Movements
in Contemporary America, ed. I.I. Zarestsky and M.P. Leone (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1974), 646–61; Albert G. Miller, “Pentecostalism as a Social Movement:
Beyond the Theory of Deprivation,” JPT 9 (1996): 98–119; Luther P. Gerlach, “Pentecostalism:
Revolution or Counter-Revolution?,” in Religious Movements in Contemporary America, 669–
99; and Hine and Gerlach, People, Power, Change: Movements of Social Transformation
(Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merril, 1970).
52 Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 29.
53 Ibid., 32.
54 Ibid., 32.
55 Ibid., 32–33. Archer cites Margaret Poloma, The Assemblies of God at the
Crossroads: Charisma and Institutional Dilemmas (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,
1989), 19.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 47

origination. The contemporary Pentecostal community, with its super-

natural horizon, experiences the Spirit through reading and living accord-
ing to Scripture. He has thus suggested that the fijirst generation of
Pentecostals utilized what he calls the “Bible Reading Method” as their her-
meneutic.56 The focus of this hermeneutic was on discovering truth for liv-
ing the Christian life, and not for producing a systematic theology. It was
pietistic and practical and rooted in the Holiness tradition’s hermeneutic,
in both Wesleyan and Keswickian varieties. Still, it followed traditional
Protestant Scholasticism in arguing for biblical doctrines by providing
proof-texts, as biblical data was synthesized and harmonized in a manner
in which Scripture interpreted Scripture. He summarizes this approach as
“thoroughly popularistic, thus [it was] a ‘pre-critical,’ canonical and text-
centered approach from a revivalistic-restorational biblicist perspective.”57
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 para-
graph. However, the early Pentecostals (like the Holiness folk) were concerned
in a limited sense about the historical cultural context from which the New
Testament emerged as they attempted to understand a passage…They were
also concerned about properly interpreting a passage according to the syntac-
tical relationships of words and sentences…From a modernisticly critical per-
spective (both liberal and conservative), the Pentecostals were blurring the
boundaries of the past and present as they exegeted Scripture. The Bible
Reading Method lent itself to create new theological mosaics. It allowed the
Pentecostals to push theological boundaries and make interpretive connec-
tions within the Scriptures that had not been previously noticed.58
Archer further suggests that the Latter Rain motif gave Pentecostals the nar-
rative which provided the overarching story from which they identifijied
themselves and their relation to the biblical text.59 And it is this narrative
which distinguished early Pentecostal Bible reading from Holiness Bible
reading, not a diffferent method – the Latter Rain motif provided an apolo-
getic for and explanation of the existence of the early Pentecostal move-
ment. Pentecostals identifijied themselves as “the marginalized people of the
Latter Rain.”60 Archer bases his judgment of the importance of Pentecostal

56 Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 72–93.

57 Ibid., 75.
58 Ibid., 91–92.
59 Ibid., 94–126.
60 Ibid., 116. For Archer, the marginalized social location of early Pentecostals led them to
attempt to keep the praxis of the Holiness tradition in the face of confrontations with ces-
sationist Fundamentalism, on the one hand, and liberalism, on the other.
48 chapter two

narrative on the understanding that “the narrative tradition of a commu-

nity becomes an essential part of any hermeneutical strategy.”61 Thus, on
this narrative approach to understanding Pentecostal hermeneutics, “the
Pentecostal story is the primary hermeneutical context for the reading of
Scripture, hence providing the context for the production of meaning.”62 He
holds that this is not simply a linear process but is dialogical because
“Pentecostals will allow for the biblical stories to challenge and reshape
their tradition.”63 Like Arrington, he considers the relationship between
Scripture and experience to be dialogical.64 But the early Pentecostals
explicitly saw what they were doing as following the model of how Scripture
itself provides for an interpretation of other portions of Scripture.65 Archer
fijinds that it is at the altar and the pulpit where theology has been primarily
done in Pentecostal communities, then and now. The former is the place to
experience the Holy Spirit and the latter the place to proclaim redemptive
experiences. Therefore, he concludes that it is necessary to recognize the
oral nature of Pentecostal interpretive communities where “experiential
knowledge must be revealed by the Holy Spirit, validated by Scripture, and
confijirmed by the community.”66

1.5. Douglas Jacobsen
Douglas Jacobsen fijinds a signifijicant amount of diffference among early
“pentecostals” and in their early hermeneutic.67 He denies the historical

61 Ibid., 96.
62 Ibid., 98.
63 Ibid., 99. Archer further fijinds that Pentecostal communities’ patterns of engagement
with Scripture “imply that the making of meaning and the validation of that meaning rests
in the pragmatic decision of the community. The community must discern what the text
means and how that meaning is to be lived out in the community. This decision making
process is imperative for Pentecostals because Pentecostal interpretation includes an act of
willful obedient response to the Scripture’s meaning” (Ibid.). Archer’s own hermeneutical
convictions which underlay this assessment will be examined in Chapter Five.
64 In the words of Archer, “Revelation, when used by these early Pentecostals, meant an
experiential redemptive knowledge that one comes to comprehend through one’s experi-
ence with the Holy Spirit. However, Scripture must validate one’s experiential knowledge.
There must be an obvious correlation between a person’s experience and a similar experi-
ence narrated in Scripture. Thus there is this dialogical interaction between Pentecostal
experience and the Scripture” (Ibid., 105–106).
65 Archer cites the early Pentecostal David Wesley Myland’s statement in The Latter Rain
Covenant that “Every Scripture must be interpreted by Scripture, under the illumination of
the Holy Spirit, to get its deeper sense,” from Myland, The Latter Rain (Chicago: Evangel,
1910), 107 in Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 106.
66 Ibid.
67 In summarizing Jacobsen’s position on early Pentecostal hermeneutics, I will not capi-
talize “pentecostal” when referring to Classical Pentecostals in order to utilize Jacobsen’s
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 49

claim that there was an original unity in “pentecostal theology” which

endured a fragmentation during the 1910s and 1920s. Rather, he contends
that “a relatively undeveloped spiritual impulse” pushed those in the early
“pentecostal” movement toward a deeper and fuller understanding of the
Spirit. Christian believers, already from various backgrounds in both
doctrine and practice, came into the “pentecostal” circle. Yet, when their
new beliefs and practices were crystallized in new forms as “pentecostals,”
they still difffered. Standing in contrast to the orthodox scholarly interpreta-
tion, Jacobsen claims that “the process was one of simple diffferentiation
rather than declension from unity.”68
For Jacobsen, there was a dialogue between theological beliefs and reli-
gious experiences in the theological method of early “pentecostals,” but it
worked diffferently in diffferent situations. From the very beginning, Jacobsen
fijinds “pentecostals” operating with a reciprocal relationship between
theology and experience. “Pentecostal theology was born out of that need
to bring words and experience together – to connect thought with the expe-
rience of the Spirit in ways that fostered God’s work in the world.”69 At
times, experience was later interpreted in a  “pentecostal” way. At others,
experience was generated, at least in part, by “pentecostal” doctrinal formu-
lation.70 This emphasis on experience focused not on what traditional the-
ology said God was supposed to be doing in the world; instead, it focused on
what God was actually doing in the here and now, as well as what he was
about to do. Following Steven J. Land, Jacobsen afffijirms that “pentecostal
theology” has been diffferent than traditional Protestant and Scholastic
theology in that it values “orthopathy (right experience) just as much
as it values orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right behavior).”71

own terms in his account of early Pentecostal theological interpretation. For Jacobsen, a
“pentecostal” is not necessarily a Classical Pentecostal but any person who is “committed to
a Spirit-centered, miracle-afffijirming, praise-oriented version of Christian faith” (Jacobsen,
Thinking in the Spirit, 12). But what constitutes the above, for Jacobsen, is not clear. Thus, he
suggests that “pentecostalism” is an “essentially contested concept,” that is, an “idea or ideal
that is clear to everyone with regard to its general meaning but impossible to defijine in detail
in a way that will satisfy everyone” (Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 11). Ibid. cites W.B. Gallie’s
concept of “essentially contested concepts” in Gallie, Philosophy and the Historical
Understanding (New York: Schocken Books, 1964), 157–191.
68 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 10–11.
69 Ibid., 2.
70 See Jacobsen’s illustration of Swedish Pentecostal Lewi Pethrus, who illustrates the for-
mer, and of Charles Parham and his students at Bethel Bible College in 1900–1901, who illus-
trate the latter (Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 3–5).
71 Ibid., 6 cites Land’s Pentecostal Spirituality.
50 chapter two

Jacobsen accounts for the seeming anti-intellectualism and suspicion of

traditional theology among “Pentecostals” as, in actuality, an afffijirmation of
orthopathy:
In fact, the pentecostal movement was to some degree born as a protest
against too much reliance on words. Perhaps more accurately, ‘pentecostal-
ism’ was a protest against the use of religious words without religious experi-
ences to back them up; it was a protest against theological hollowness.72
This leads Jacobsen to claim that “the clearest central conviction of the
movement seems to be that ‘God is doing a new thing,’ ” something new
that will even exceed the original.73 This includes a correlative conviction
that part of this new thing is the “pentecostal” community itself. Thus “pen-
tecostals” exhibit a confijidence in their ability to be conduits of God’s Spirit
in the world. This means that “they assume that God’s word to them will be
clear and unequivocal.”74 For Jacobsen, “what binds them together is a
broader understanding of who they are as a community and where they fijit
in [sic] larger scheme of Christian and human history.”75 This is what is
common among “pentecostals” as interpreters, according to Jacobsen.
Through a variety of other “smaller-scale historical narratives,” pentecostals
have adapted their hermeneutics to new situations producing new
hybrids.76 Yet his conviction that newness is central to the “pentecostal her-
meneutic” contains a negative corollary, thus Jacobsen suggests that “there
is no distinctive methodology, system, paradigm or model that does or
should defijine what pentecostal hermeneutics is.”77

1.6. Conclusion: Interpretations of Early Pentecostal Hermeneutics

While these assessments of early Pentecostal hermeneutics have difffering
emphases as well as some contradictory claims, they agree on far more
than on which they disagree. I fijind that they each draw out various
aspects of the early Pentecostal hermeneutical paradigm. And all stand in
continuity with Land’s recognition that Pentecostal theology is embedded

72 Idem, “Introduction,” A Reader in Pentecostal Theology: Voices From the First Generation
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006), 5.
73 Idem, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics in Comparative Perspective,” Annual Meeting Papers
of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Patten College, Oakland, CA (13–15 March, 1997), 21.
74 Ibid., 22.
75 Ibid., 2.
76 Ibid., 23–27. I account for the development of what he considers to be these hybrids in
the following chapters as the development of new types of Pentecostal hermeneutics.
77 Ibid., 1.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 51

in Pentecostal spirituality and practices.78 Because of this, Pentecostal

theology – then and since – has stood in antithesis to a practice of theology
as merely an academic exercise.
Further, from these assessments, a consensus emerges in which early
Pentecostal hermeneutics is characterized – in general – as oral, charis-
matic, largely ahistorical and minimally contextual, “literal” in its interpre-
tations, morally and spiritually absolutizing, pragmatic and pastoral.
Importantly, each assessment recognizes an ongoing dialogue between
Scripture, as the authoritative source of God’s revelation, and experience,
both religious and general, as central to the formation of Pentecostal theol-
ogy. It will be my primary thesis in the rest of this chapter that
their experiential and hermeneutical presuppositions allowed early
Pentecostals to read the Scriptures and interpret their experiences in light
of a broadening perspective about what God can do – and was doing among
them. The ability to see theological things anew was what was so special
about the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic. As a result, a new
Christian tradition was born.

2. Early Pentecostal Hermeneuts: Four Exemplars

In seeking to demonstrate what I have been contending, I will examine the

hermeneutics of four important early Pentecostals. Charles Fox Parham,
William Joseph Seymour, Charles Harrison Mason and Garfijield Thomas
Haywood are each examined as examples of and influences on early
Pentecostal theological hermeneutics. Each fijigure represents the common-
alities found in the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic, as articu-
lated above, along with the particularities of his own approach.79

2.1. Charles Fox Parham: Proclaiming the Everlasting Gospel

Charles Fox Parham’s (1873–1929) life and theological journey is undoubt-
edly an interesting case.80 Parham left two book-length texts explaining his

78 Land, Pentecostal Spirituality.

79 While other fijigures, including F.F. Bosworth, William Durham, Aimee Semple
McPherson and David Wesley Myland, could have been examined, I chose the fijigures I did in
order to represent the movement’s hermeneutics on the grounds that they were influential
in developing and furthering this hermeneutic. Each also provides an interesting case.
80 See James R. Gofff, Jr., Fields White Unto Harvest: Charles F. Parham and the Missionary
Origins of Pentecostalism (Fayetteville, AK: University of Arkansas Press, 1988); and Sarah E.
Parham, The Life of Charles F. Parham: Founder of the Apostolic Faith Movement (original 1930;
52 chapter two

theology that contain his underlying hermeneutic. Kol Kare Bomidbar:

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness was originally written in 1902, and updated
slightly in 1910.81 The Everlasting Gospel was written in 1911, though not
published until 1919 or 1920.82 Despite Parham’s serious flaws, he contrib-
uted greatly to the formulation of Pentecostal theology. And the series of
events in early January 1901 at Bethel Bible School outside of Topeka, Kansas
mark a key event in the beginnings of modern Pentecostalism. For some
early Pentecostals, this event would be interpreted as the beginning of the
Latter Rain, the modern day outpouring of Pentecost in anticipation of
the Second Coming.
Parham’s theology might best be understood as both a product of a
certain ethos in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century American
Holiness culture and as a theological innovation.83 But he considered these

repr., New York: Garland, 1985). Parham was and is a highly controversial fijigure. He was a
racist and held a theological and historical basis for it, expressing it in a fully demeaning
manner. Especially notorious is Parham’s proclamation that “God is sick at his stomach!”
about the mixing of races at Azusa Street (Gofff, Fields White Unto Harvest, 131).The years of
1906 and 1907 saw Parham at the center of controversy. He clashed with his former student
Seymour as he attempted to control the revival at Azusa Street. He tried to take over the
Christian commune in Zion City, Illinois, entering into a power struggle with Wilbur Glenn
Voliva for it. And he even fought with W. Faye Carothers over his own organization. His influ-
ence on the early Pentecostal movement waned signifijicantly after he “fell from grace” when
he was charged with sodomy under Texas law in 1907. Though those charges were eventually
dropped, his reputation was irreparably damaged, especially after the publication of his
alleged confession, which he denied giving. Both Gofff and Jacobsen hold that it is impossible
to tell if these charges were true or trumped up by Parham’s rivals since there is evidence to
make a case for either theory (Ibid., 136–142; and Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 27). Further,
Parham was contentious in theological disputes. Most notably, he claimed that the death of
Durham, with whom he had been involved with in their theological dispute over sanctifijica-
tion, was a result of Durham’s error (Gofff, Fields White Unto Harvest, 152). His writings and
recorded sermons also give an air of their rightness alongside a vigorous condemnation of
the spiritual state of those who disagreed with him, even on some seemingly minor matters.
Also see my description of the case for Parham as the “founder” of Pentecostalism in the
“Introduction.”
81 Charles Fox Parham, Kol Kare Bomidbar: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Baxter
Springs, KS: Apostolic Faith Bible College, n.d.). The title is based offf a transliteration of the
Hebrew for “a voice crying in the wilderness,” hence the subtitle.
82 Charles Fox Parham, The Everlasting Gospel (Baxter Springs, KS: Apostolic Faith Bible
College, n.d.). On its dating, see Gofff, Fields White Unto Harvest, 155; and Jacobsen, Thinking
in the Spirit, 27.
83 Gofff summarizes Parham’s hermeneutical context and legacy as follows: “Parham and
his Pentecostal successors were thus the products of both ideological and social forces. They
consciously sought a theology rooted in the traditional authority of scriptural exegesis and
early church practice. Their interpretation of those sources merged with their devotional
experience to confijirm the hardened theological defijinition of Holy Spirit baptism evidenced
by glossolalia. All the while, they preached a message which met the needs of people in
social flux” (Fields White Unto Harvest, 165).
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 53

innovations to be restorations of true biblical doctrines.84 He delineated

the relationship of tongues to the baptism in the Holy Spirit as its “Bible
evidence.” His understanding of tongues as strictly xenolalia, as an eschato-
logical missionary gift to provide a shortcut to learning foreign languages,
however, would soon be rejected by the majority of those who would
become the fijirst modern Pentecostals. But his influence on Seymour’s the-
ology, and thus on the revival at Azusa Street, as well as on the doctrine of
the baptism in the Holy Spirit and its relationship to tongues is central to
his legacy.
But it is a mistake to understand Parham’s doctrine of the baptism in the
Holy Spirit as the guiding principle of his theology. “The theme that held
Parham’s theology together, however, was not tongues but his understand-
ing of history – the grand narrative of time from the original creation to the
fijinal consummation.”85 Even a cursory look at the structure of Parham’s
books demonstrates this.86 And he had no run of the mill version of history.
This grand narrative, along with the usual common sense afffijirmation of the
authority of Scripture and his use of logic and folk wisdom came to consti-
tute the guiding habits of his hermeneutic.87
Parham combined his view of history with an interconnected apocalyp-
tic vision which, Jacobsen argues, does not bring his theology into a neat
system so much as it provides it with a center of gravity. In doing this, he
reinterpreted the traditional conservative Protestant interpretation of the
creation narrative in Genesis 1–2, not on account of Darwinian theory or
higher biblical criticism, but because he revisited these texts in light of his
narrative of human history. He rejected an interpretation of the days of
creation as six literal days.88 Parham believed in two creations of human

84 “In his understanding, innovative ideas must be biblically based solutions that had
been overlooked or disregarded by those unconcerned with fijinding God’s full revelation”
(Ibid., 31).
85 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 19.
86 A majority of both Kol Kare Bomidbar and The Everlasting Gospel are on historical
themes, which then lead into eschatological ones.
87 For Parham’s “saga of human history,” see Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 28–35.
88 Parham explains that:
“Long ago the theory that the seven days of creation were of twenty-four hours dura-
tion began to lose its force upon the minds of people, and today is found only in nar-
row intellects with a moss-covered growth. The sun, moon and stars, which govern
man’s computation of time, did not exist until after the fourth day. These were God’s
days, reckoned from the standpoint of eternity, computed by the Mind which governs
the same, with whom ‘a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day’
(2 Peter 3:8). The Jewish Talmud declares: ‘A day of God is a thousand years.’ The day
of creation spoken of in Genesis 2–4 is not a twenty-four hour day, but is used as we
refer to the day of Washington, day of Napoleon, meaning a period, so this in Genesis
refers to the period of creation” (Parham, Kol Kare Bomidbare, 81).
54 chapter two

beings, one of those made on the “sixth day,” in Gen. 1, and the other the
race of Adam, from Gen 2.89 This explains Cain’s ability to fijind a wife after
he was expelled from his family’s domain. There was another race with
which he was able to fijind a wife. All of the “sixth day” people, however, were
killed offf in Noah’s flood as well as those who had intermarried with them.90
Parham seemed to believe that his hypothesis better accounted for the
biblical text than previous explanations, and he argues this on account of
the tightness of the explanatory logic of his view. Yet he offfered no indica-
tion of self-awareness that he was bringing his own extrabiblical presuppo-
sitions, in this case about race, to the text.91
Perhaps most importantly for buttressing the thesis of this chapter
is Parham’s development of an aspect of his hermeneutic that would allow
him – and other Pentecostals in his wake – to revisit key Christian doctrines.
“Parham was very much a believer in the Bible, but he bluntly rejected the
notion that Christian ‘orthodoxy’ should set any limits on his own interpre-
tation of that book.”92 “Creedal men” have missed key doctrines that are in
the Bible, including conditional immortality, redemption of the physical
body, the doctrine of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and numerous aspects
of the eschatological outworking of the world’s history. His theological
agenda sought to “displace dead forms and creeds or wild-fanaticism, with

This appears identically in idem, The Everlasting Gospel, 1. That he explicitly criticizes
“(s)cientists, infijidels and higher critics” in Kol Kare Bomidbare, 39, is demonstrative that it
was not the normal modernist concerns that drove his view.
89 Jacobsen notes that concepts of the polygenesis of the human race were not uncom-
mon in late-nineteenth century America (Thinking in the Spirit, 369 n25).
90 “The reason for the flood is plainly seen,” says Parham, “God intended to destroy man
whom he had created, with all the half-breeds resulting from intermarriage. Yet having made
a promise to Adam of a Savior, he is compelled to preserve the Adamic race” (Parham, The
Everlasting Gospel, 4). See also idem, Kol Kare Bomidbare, 84.
91 Another interesting example of Parham’s historically driven hermeneutic was his apol-
ogetic for the breaking of the Davidic line of kings at the Babylonian Exile, after II Sam. 7
promised that the line will last forever. He used questionable extrabiblical historical sources
to argue that the line was unbroken because Tea-Tephi, the daughter of King Zedikiah, the
ruler of Judah at the time of the exile, and the granddaughter of the prophet Jeremiah,
escaped to Ireland to become the Queen of Herman. Through her line the blood of David
traveled through the kings and queens of Ireland, Scotland and Great Britain to the English
monarchy of his day (Parham, Kol Kare Bomidbar, 91–100). This has led Jacobsen to conclude
that on this matter “Parham follows the standard narrative of British Israelism more closely
than he followed the Bible,” even so to the point that he contradicts the biblical account on
a few points (Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 370 n35). Parham was an ardent Zionist on
account of his eschatological views, predicting that the restoration of national Israel would
trigger the beginning of the eschaton (Parham, Kol Kare Bomidbare, 109).
92 Jacobsen, A Reader in Pentecostal Theology, 31.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 55

living truths.”93 But he also condemned many of the religious experiences

which other early Pentecostals had as fanaticism. Most notably, he fell out
with Seymour in November 1906 and condemned the Azusa Street Revival
on account of what he considered its fanaticism and its modes of racial
integration.94 His meetings in nearby Whittier advertised themselves, in
contrast to the Azusa Street meetings, as dignifijied and proper.95 He consid-
ered his only source of authority the Bible; it was to be met with “utter aban-
donment to the commandments of Jesus.”96 And the relationship between
biblical doctrines and Christian experience was supposed to move from the
former to the latter.
Parham seems to have come to his newly found “Pentecostal” doctrines
between his encounters with Frank Sandford and Sandford’s Bible school in
Shiloh, Maine (and elsewhere) in Summer and Fall 1900, and his own teach-
ing of them at Bethel Bible School in Topeka in December 1900 and January
1901.97 His new theology of Pentecost had three main tenets: (1) the miracu-
lous ability to speak unknown actual foreign languages, xenolalia, as the
“Bible evidence” of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, (2) that those who
received the baptism in the Holy Spirit are the sealed “bride” of Christ who
will be raptured and avoid the tribulation in the eschaton, and (3) that these
foreign tongues have the purpose of enabling missionary activity for an end
time revival.98 Of the circumstances in December 1900-January 1901 at

93 Parham, Kol Kare Bomidbar, 6. Parham argued against two sets of theological oppo-
nents in his works: on the one side, orthodox traditional Christians whose faith is based on
creeds and, on the other, radical evangelical and early Pentecostal “religious bigotry and zeal,
without knowledge, known as wildfijire, fanaticism and hypnotism” (Parham, Kol Kare
Bomidbar, 4–5). Jacobsen has also argued that Parham had a strong apologetic thrust, “a
recurring theme in Parham’s writings,” (Thinking in the Spirit, 32–33.).
94 See Robeck, The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal
Movement (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 127–128.
95 Robeck cites an unpublished advertisement for the Whittier meetings claiming: “We
conduct dignifijied religious service, and have no connection with the sort which is character-
ized by trances, fijits and spasms, jerks, shakes and contortions. We are wholly foreign to the
religious anarchy, which marks the Los Angeles Azusa street meetings, and expect to do good
in Whittier along proper and profound Christian lines” (Robeck, Azusa Street Mission, 128).
Though Parham and his Apostolic Faith Movement were usually considered radicals, his self-
assessment was one of propriety. With regard to the propriety and biblical basis for his move-
ment, he concluded that “The Apostolic Faith movement…is a dignifijied movement, directed
by the Almighty power, and has no connection with the sensational Holy Rollers”
[Gofff, Fields White Unto Harvest, 129, cites Parham in the Topeka Daily State Journal (25 July
1906): 6].
96 Parham, Kol Kare Bomidbare, 32.
97 See Gofff, Fields White Unto Harvest, 71–73.
98 Ibid., 132–133, 173.
56 chapter two

Bethel, Gofff concludes that “there can be little doubt that Parham was con-
sciously motivating his students toward this missions tongues concept.”99
Still, Parham was concerned with other aspects of Christian experience
beyond this baptism. Real conversion is “an experimental knowledge of sal-
vation from sin.” And real Christian living is “conscientiously following the
directions of God’s Holy Spirit and meeting with deserved success.”100 This
is the empiricist side of the coin that leads Jacobsen to characterize him as
“a literalist and an empiricist.”101 Much of his theological project had to do
with applying a literal hermeneutic toward biblical texts so that he might
rethink them in opposition to traditional interpretations. Yet, as Jacobsen
describes early Pentecostal thought, it is “experience interpreted in a pente-
costal way” which allows Parham’s theological innovations to be realized.
He had reinterpreted and reorganized the biblical texts so that he came to
recognize that other tongues was the evidence of the Holy Spirit: “it is found
repeatedly, yea every time the Holy Ghost fell and the evidence was noted,
it proved to be this same one of speaking with tongues.”102 But it was the
actual manifestation of these tongues that confijirmed the rightness of this
doctrine. The locutions uttered by Agnes Ozman and the other students at
Bethel were interpreted as foreign languages and as confijirmation of the
entire doctrine as Parham had expressed it. His justifijication for this doctri-
nal interpretation of these experiences follows what Archer has described
as the “Bible Reading Method,” where individual verses or passages of
Scripture are interpreted in light of one another in support of a harmonized
interpretation, using each as a proof text to support the doctrine as a
whole.103
Further, Parham considered his doctrinal conclusions to be proper
because he was properly coming to the text. He spoke of his lack of religious
or theological training, having grown up in a sparsely populated region of
Kansas, as evidence of the veracity of his interpretations. In his own eyes, he
was not prejudiced by religious indoctrination when he came to read the
Bible. He had “no preconceived ideas, with no knowledge of what creeds
and doctrines meant, not having any traditional spectacles upon the eyes to
see through.”104 He tells of this seeming lack of bias in typically dramatic
fashion:

 
99 Ibid., 75.
100 Parham, Kol Kare Bomidbar, 11.
101 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 33.
102 Parham, Kol Kare Bomidbare, 36.
103 See Ibid., 25–38.
104 Ibid., 12.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 57

These facts are stated to show that the early study and impression of the
Scriptures were entirely unbiased; thus by becoming thoroughly familiar with
it and reading it just as it says and not being warped by preconceived notions
or interpretations we have been enabled to weather the theological gales and
outstrip the clergy who attempted to tear away the main-sail and wrap it in
the dogmatic confijines of a single organization; thus by turning the rudder of
the ship, have been guided through storms of persecution, pressing the forts
whose guns were loaded with fijierce hatred and cruel prejudice, able today to
say: The ship sails in the peaceful seas of full salvation.105
This purported lack of bias led to Parham’s most important innovation, his
defijining of the Classical Pentecostal doctrine of baptism in the Holy Spirit
on account of what he considered unbiased interpretation of this Bible doc-
trine. He knew he had come to his view on this and other doctrines because
of careful study of the Bible, and for no other substantial reason.
Though Parham was an eclectic thinker, he came to his theological beliefs
through a hermeneutic which organized and interpreted biblical texts
according to his narrative of history and the various beliefs he had picked
up along the journey of life. Though he considered the biblical text norma-
tive for human experience, his own experiences afffected his reading and
organization of the texts in a far greater way than he recognized. Parham, in
fact, read the biblical texts and interpreted religious experiences with an
anti-creedal bias which permitted him to signifijicantly revise Christian doc-
trines according to his narrative of history and its coming conclusion. This
gave him the boldness to teach his novel understanding of the baptism in
the Holy Spirit and its relationship to tongues, an act that had efffects which
would ripple across the religious landscape of America and then the world.
Ironically, considering Parham’s racism, its most important conduit would
be the ministry of the son of African-American slaves.

2.2. William Joseph Seymour and the Azusa Street Apostolic Faith Mission:
The Cradle of Early Pentecostalism
The son of former slaves, William Joseph Seymour (1870–1922) converted to
the Holiness movement in the Southern and Midwestern United States and
attended, for about six weeks during January and February, 1906, a short-
term Bible school run by Parham in Houston. There Seymour learned and
adopted Parham’s theology of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And though he
was made to sit outside Parham’s classroom during the lectures due to

105 Ibid., 13.
58 chapter two

Parham’s adherence to segregation laws, Seymour, at that time, held Parham

in high regard and considered him to be something of a mentor. In February
and March, 1906, Seymour went to Los Angeles to pastor a Holiness congre-
gation which almost immediately rejected him on behalf of this new teach-
ing. He subsequently began prayer meetings at the homes of sympathetic
families and soon after began services at what became the famed Apostolic
Faith Mission on Azusa Street, a former African Methodist Episcopal (AME)
church building in the warehouse district on the near north side of the city.
The mission soon became a magnet for a segment of Holiness Christians
who were seeking for the spiritual experience known as the “baptism in the
Holy Spirit.” Seymour himself was a member of the Holiness movement
who had only recently adopted the modifijied doctrine of the baptism in the
Holy Spirit which he had learned from Parham.106 He had come to believe
that baptism in the Holy Spirit was an empowering encounter with the Holy

106 Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. notes Seymour’s deep roots in Holiness thought, though he broke
with it on the issue of the nature of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and its relationship with
speaking in tongues. Robeck fijinds it likely that Seymour gravitated to the holiness teaching
of the Evening Light Saints, which became the Church of God (Anderson, IN), and away from
the Methodist Episcopal Church, with which he had been afffijiliated, on account of the for-
mer’s afffijirmation of premillennialism and the latter’s rejection of it. Seymour also difffered
from the Methodist Episcopal Church on the issue of “special revelations,” with Seymour
giving much greater weight to them than that church body did. This occurred during
Seymour’s years in Indianapolis where he worked as a waiter (1896–1900). From Daniel
Warner and the Evening Light Saints, Seymour seems to have become committed to a new
reformation of the Church at large. This reformation was one of non-sectarianism and
non-creedalism.
Of the reformation sought by the “Saints” in Warner’s movement, Robeck comments:
 “The group was committed to classical expressions of Christian doctrine, including
the need for a salvation experience and a subsequent sanctifijication experience with
a strong holiness code of ethics…the notion of ministry and of church governance
needed to be radically reformed. Warner’s commitment to non-sectarianism meant
that in most cases the group went so far as to oppose the keeping of a roll of mem-
bers. His commitment to address all of his followers as ‘Saints’ led him to adopt a
position of racial and gender inclusiveness. In the 1890s the Evening Light Saints
was one of the few groups in which blacks and whites were treated equally and
gifted women were encouraged to preach. Warner also placed considerable power
in the hands of the local congregations” (Robeck, The Azusa Street Mission and
Revival, 30).
 Another Holiness leader who influenced Seymour was Martin Wells Knapp. The his-
torical evidence shows that it is likely, though not certain, that Seymour attended
Knapp’s “God’s Bible School” in Cincinnati in 1900. Knapp and Seymour’s beliefs on
three important and divisive issues lead Robeck to make a case for Knapp’s influence
on Seymour and Seymour’s desire to study with Knapp: belief in full racial inclusivism,
premillennialism and special revelations. Additionally, even prior to his move to
California, Seymour seems to have had some type of relationship with the African-
American Holiness leaders Charles Price Jones and Charles Harrison Mason (Ibid.,
26–31).
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 59

Spirit, evidenced by speaking in other tongues, which had come to those

who had already received the two works of God’s grace: salvation and sanc-
tifijication. But baptism in the Holy Spirit itself was not a “work of grace” but
rather “a gift of power upon the sanctifijied life.”107 At Azusa Street, he
preached this doctrine and provided freedom for those who attended the
revival’s services to experience it.108 The Mission, under his leadership,
became the center of the emergence of Pentecostalism.109
Seymour’s theology can be found in two sources. First, the articles writ-
ten during 1906–1908 in the Mission’s periodical, The Apostolic Faith, pres-
ent the most important source. Through this newspaper, “a rudimentary
theology was being formulated for the movement as a whole.”110 While his
is the key voice behind the articles in The Apostolic Faith, most of them
unsigned, the paper was the work of the Mission’s leadership team, and
especially of Clara Lum.111 Jacobsen aptly describes the role of his voice in
these texts and for the Mission as a whole:

107 Ibid., 63. The doctrinal statement of the Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street from
which this phrase is cited here is reprinted in Robeck’s Azusa Street Mission (120).
108 By the summer of 1906, it is estimated that between 500 and 700 persons usually
attended the daily services at the Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street. Attendance at the
services rose as high as an estimate of 1500 persons, although all could not have been in the
2400 or so square feet of the Mission’s floor at any given time (Ibid., 81–82).
109 The revival at the Mission ran strong from late-Spring 1906 into 1909, with a short
resurgence again in 1911. The mission continued as a predominately African-American con-
gregation, with Seymour as its pastor, into the 1920s. For several recent summaries and analy-
ses of the Revival by historians of Pentecostalism, see AG Heritage 25:4 (Winter 2005–2006).
It includes articles by leading historians and excerpts of eyewitness accounts of the revival.
110 Jacobsen, Reader in Pentecostal Theology, 46.
111 While Lum was the editor of this paper, Seymour’s theology and words were behind it.
Some articles were signed “W.J. Seymour” or “W.J.S.,” while the unsigned articles seem to have
been most often written by Lum to communicate statements and news from the Mission’s
leadership. Some seem to have been excerpts from Seymour’s sermons which were summa-
rized by Lum. About 40,000 copies of each issue were produced. Blumhofer and Wacker
conclude that “it seems most reasonable to think of Seymour and Lum as something like
co-editors of the Apostolic Faith. By this reckoning Seymour exercised general oversight and
undoubtedly produced some of the editorials, while Lum took responsibility for the daily
management of the paper, as well as writing some of the editorials and most of the news
items and unsigned theological essays.” See Blumhofer and Wacker, “Who Edited the Azusa
Mission’s Apostolic Faith?” A/G Heritage (Summer 2001), 18; see also Ibid., 15–21; and Robeck,
Azusa Street Mission, 104–107, 116, on this background.
Lum came to the Mission with experience in stenography and editing Holiness
publications and likely garnered this role and her place in the Mission’s leadership, at
least partially, as a result of those skills (Ibid., 99–107). Robeck fijinds that Seymour
put together a leadership team that was essentially the “stafff” of the revival. This team,
under his leadership, strategically planned the ministry of the revival and the
spreading of its message. This “inner circle” was comprised of seasoned workers
from the Holiness movement who had experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
60 chapter two

The theology articulated during the heyday of the revival seems for the most
part to have reflected the general consensus of the leadership of the mission.
Understood in this way, to speak of Seymour’s theology is to speak of the
theology of the mission as a whole. Only later, as the revival died down
and Seymour become the sole leader of the Azusa Street congregation, did
his voice begin to stand out in clear profijile from those of his former
associates.112
The second source is his adaptation of the AME’s Book of Discipline into The
Doctrines and Discipline of the Azusa Street Apostolic Faith Mission, which he
adapted in 1915 for use in his congregation.113 It represents not the theology
of a revival but that of a congregation. From The Apostolic Faith to Doctrines
and Discipline some shifts in his theology and his concerns can be seen. Yet
even within The Apostolic Faith, the dialogue between the reading of the
authoritative biblical text and the lessons of human experience resulted in
some shifts in his doctrinal convictions.
Seymour’s theological hermeneutic was deeply informed by the restora-
tionist narrative. In fact, the events at the Mission were evidence that the
prophecies found in Joel were coming to pass and that this was the begin-
ning of the Latter Rain. The following statement from the October 1906
issue of The Apostolic Faith has come to be known as the great exemplar of
this narrative in relation to the history of the Church:
All along the ages men have been preaching a partial Gospel. A part of the
Gospel remained when the world went into the dark ages. God has from time
to time raised up men to bring back the truth to the church. He raised up
Luther to bring back to the world the doctrine of justifijication by faith. He
raised up another reformer in John Wesley to establish Bible holiness in the
church. Then he raised up Dr. Cullis who brought back to the world the won-
derful doctrine of divine healing. Now He is bringing back the Pentecostal
Baptism to the church.114

Robeck claims that the well-known picture of Seymour and associates from Summer
1906 (see Ibid., 100) is actually a picture of this team which, along with Seymour, was
comprised of Phoebe Sargent, G.W. Evans, Jennie Evans Moore (who would soon marry
Seymour), Florence Crawford, Thomas Junk, Sister Prince, May Evans, Hiram W. Smith
and Clara Lum. It is notable that this group consisted of African-American men and
women and Caucasian men and women, particularly given the racism of this era in
American history.
112 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 61.
113 William J. Seymour, The Doctrines and Discipline of the Azusa Street Apostolic Faith
Mission of Los Angeles, Cal: with Scripture Readings (Los Angeles, CA: William J. Seymour,
1915).
114 “The Pentecostal Baptism Restored,” The Apostolic Faith 1:2 (October 1906), 1.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 61

Seymour and the Mission’s leadership thus saw themselves as intimately

involved in the restoration of the biblical pattern of God’s saving work.115
Seymour’s theology centered on the three stages of the Christian life.116
The fijirst stage was conversion or justifijication, entering into relationship
with God so that, through repentance, God’s grace in Jesus’ death on the
cross provided forgiveness for the guilt of all of one’s sins. Sanctifijication, the
second stage, was a cleansing of the sinful nature so that the impulse and
compulsion to sin was removed and it was possible to not sin.117 These fijirst
two stages were standard Holiness doctrines. The third stage of the baptism
in the Holy Spirit was treated by Seymour and the Mission as an empower-
ing work of God and not classifijied as an act of grace. It “was seen as yet one
more quantum leap into the love of God.”118 The opening page of the fijirst
edition of the Mission’s Apostolic Faith proclaimed: “Pentecost has surely
come and with it the Bible evidences are following, many being converted
and sanctifijied and fijilled with the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues as they
did on the day of Pentecost.”119 Such an experience meant the restoration of
the full gospel so that the miraculous events that took place among Jesus
and his disciples were now taking place in Los Angeles: eyesight was being

115 Though Seymour probably did not agree with all of Parham’s teaching he heard during
his time as Parham’s student in Houston, he came away afffijirming that the “Baptism in the
Spirit” was “a gift of power beyond the sanctifijied life” for service unto God, signifijied by the
evidence of tongues. Seymour was originally compelled by Parham’s teaching that tongues
was the evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. This was the original doctrine he came to
Los Angeles proclaiming, the one which saw him locked out of the original Holiness congre-
gation he came to pastor there in February 1906. And it is the doctrine he came to proclaim
in the establishment of the Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street. However, Seymour’s
understanding of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and its relationship to tongues as its sign
developed over time. While Parham was more concerned with the eschatological signifiji-
cance of this gift on a cosmic level, Seymour, though not entirely unconcerned with
eschatology, was focused on its pastoral and practical importance. See Jacobsen, Thinking in
the Spirit, 73–74. Also, Seymour’s story of cosmic history was that of a young earth; Robeck
notes that he accepted Bishop Ussher’s dating of creation to 4004 B.C (Azusa Street Mission,
110). “The Millennium,” The Apostolic Faith 1:1 (September 1906): 3, begins by stating that
“All these 6,000 years, we have been fijighting sin and Satan. Soon we shall have a rest of
1,000 years.”
116 See Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 69–74; and Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., “William J. Seymour
and ‘The Bible Evidence,’ ” in Initial Evidence: Historical and Biblical Perspectives on the
Pentecostal Doctrine of Spirit Baptism, ed. Gary B. McGee (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991),
76–78.
117 For example, see the article (most likely sermon notes) signed by W.J. Seymour where
he preaches the Holiness doctrines of salvation and sanctifijication. See “The Way Into the
Holiest,” The Apostolic Faith, 1:2 (October 1906): 4.
118 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 71.
119 Untitled, The Apostolic Faith 1:1 (September 1906): 1.
62 chapter two

restored, demons were being cast out, the lame walked, and foreign lan-
guages were being spoken by those who had not learned them.120
This three-fold order of salvation was the hypothesis that made sense out
of several key passages in the New Testament. In “Tongues as a Sign,” The
Apostolic Faith offfers an explanation of Seymour and the Mission’s basis for
their theological understanding of the stages of Christian life, especially as
they related to the role of tongues. It begins with a claim about revelation,
that since “man” is fallen he cannot “receive the things of the kingdom of
heaven,” but that God uses “signs and wonders” to awaken man from spiri-
tual death. Citing the extended ending of Mark 16, a favorite passage among
early Pentecostals, the article cites the casting out of demons and speaking
in new tongues as signs of those who are baptized and believe in the gospel.
But in this post-resurrection appearance, Jesus comes to his disciples whom
he had already sanctifijied, as the article cites John 15:3 and 17:17 as evidence
that sanctifijication had already occurred. Further, these disciples had
already received the “anointing” of the Spirit when Jesus had breathed upon
his disciples the Holy Ghost in John 20:22.121 This sign of tongues was then
correlated with its mention among the charismata in 1 Corinthians and
then, even more importantly, to Luke and Acts. The tarrying in Jerusalem
commanded by the Lord in Luke 24:49 was met by its fulfijillment in Acts 2.
For “they ALL spoke in other tongues” according to Acts 2:4, that is, those
baptized in the Spirit. Two more texts are cited in support of this three-fold
ordering of the Christian life. In Acts 10, after Peter had preached to
Cornelius’ household, “Pentecostal signs followed.” And in Acts 19:1–6,
which took place 29 years after Pentecost, according to The Apostolic Faith,
the pattern continued as the Holy Ghost came upon the Ephesians as Paul
laid his hands upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. The
article concludes: “How foolish so many of us have been in the clear light of
God’s Word. We have been running offf with blessings and anointings with
God’s power, instead of tarrying until Bible evidence of Pentecost came.”122

120 Ibid., cites Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Zulu and
other African languages, Hindu, Bengali and other Indian dialects, Chippewa, Esquimax and
other American Indian languages, and, notably, sign-language.
121 Early Pentecostals often diffferentiated between the “anointing” of the Holy Spirit from
the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Parham had done this already by the time of his writing of Kol
Kare Bomidbare and had surely influenced Seymour on this point. This diffferentiation
explained why numerous Christians had the power of the Spirit and unction in evangelistic
effforts yet did not speak in tongues.
122 “Tongues as a Sign,” The Apostolic Faith 1:1 (September 1906): 2.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 63

Thus Seymour’s earlier conclusion was that tongues is, just as Parham
proclaimed, the “Bible evidence” and sign of this third stage of Christian
life. Tongues is speaking in foreign tongues, actually spoken human lan-
guages unlearned by the speaker. And, as the closing proclamation of the
above article claims, God’s word all along has been clear on this matter. So
Seymour, like Parham, believed that he was simply reading the Bible prop-
erly. The only aspect of explicit recognition of the process of interpretation
was that signs had in fact awoken them to new spiritual insights and a new
way of understanding God’s word. In light of this awakening, they were in
fact able to reinterpret Scripture, and they continued to do so with the key
Holiness principle of Scripture interpreting Scripture, as well as the use of
proof texts to support doctrinal claims. This occurs extensively again in
Doctrines and Disciplines as proof texts everywhere support the later
Mission’s doctrinal stances and practices. Thus Archer’s claim that the
Pentecostal restorationist narrative of the Latter Rain is what diffferentiates
early Pentecostal hermeneutics from Holiness Bible reading methods fijinds
support in the case of Seymour and the Mission. This narrative undergirded
the citation of these texts supporting Pentecostal doctrines. If someone did
not understand the “Pentecostal story,” she might not understand the sup-
port these texts gave to certain doctrines. Further, as Arrington claims, nar-
rative portions of Scripture gain prominence for doctrinal formation
through this “Pentecostal story.”123 But there was little to no awareness of
how the Holiness tradition had formed their interpretive habits or how they
were drawing on them, let alone the Christian tradition in general.
While a reading of Scripture and its subsequent proclamation at Azusa
Street gave birth to Pentecostal expectations, experiences occurred which
confijirmed those expectations and afffijirmed the new doctrines. Testimonies
abounded in The Apostolic Faith of miracles, evangelistic success and
experiences of baptism in the Holy Spirit. According to Robeck, “Seymour
and his workers found themselves on their own as they interpreted their
experiences. They were pioneers.” They were in new experimental territory

123 Seymour also employed typological interpretations, an approach which Robeck attri-

butes to his expository training in Wesleyan Holiness circles. Robeck cites a sermon at Azusa
Street he preached on Gen. 24 entitled “Rebecca: Type of the Bride of Christ.”Robeck, Azusa
Street Revival, 110. Later on, in Doctrines and Disciplines, there is an illustration of “The
Tabernacle, a Type of Full Salvation” in which the Israelites’ Tabernacle comes to represent
the stages of Christian life. The Brazen Altar represents the sinner’s offfering while the Golden
Altar is the place of the believer’s offfering and of sanctifijication. The Holy of Holies, where
the Ark of the Covenant resides, is representative of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. See
Seymour, Doctrines and Discipline, 11.
64 chapter two

in which they were forced to pave the interpretive way.124 Their experiences
had confijirmed this reading of Scripture and were thus instrumental in con-
fijirming this shift in doctrine. Still, they were always to be submitted to the
authority of Scripture and could not be found to contradict it, thus reigning
in excesses.125 Yet experiences could also shift theology.
Seymour’s own moral and interpersonal experiences did produce sub-
stantial shifts in his theological beliefs after the revival began. Parham’s
rejection of the events at the Azusa Street Mission seems to have initiated
this shift in Seymour’s beliefs. Threatened by Parham’s contempt and
racism, Seymour asserted leadership over and against him, though he had
previously held him in high regard.126 This struggle coincided with
Seymour’s questioning of the sufffijiciency of tongues as the Bible evidence of
the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Robeck marks a shift in Seymour and the
Mission’s understanding of baptism in the Spirit to mid-1907. While the May
1907 edition of The Apostolic Faith spoke of tongues at the “Bible evidence”
for baptism in the Spirit, the June-September 1907 issue exhibits this shift.
In “To The Baptized Saints,” there are a series of reminders to these saints
that despite what God has done for them in the past, they should not think
that their sanctifijication or salvation makes them entirely secure. It is
possible to:
Lose the Spirit of Jesus, which is divine love, and have only gifts which will be
as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, and sooner or later these will be
taken away. If you want to live in the Spirit, live in the fruits of the Spirit every
day…Tongues are one of the signs that go with every baptized person, but it is
not the real evidence of the baptism in the every day life. Your life must mea-
sure with the fruits of the Spirit. If you get angry, or speak evil, or backbite,

124 Robeck, Azusa Street Mission, 110–111.

125 Discernment also played a strong role in Seymour’s leadership role at the Mission. He
had to discern the spirits and make key judgments about what was and what was not of God.
For instance, he adjudicated the dispute over whether writing in tongues should be prac-
ticed, concluding that it should not because it was not a practice found in the word of God
(Scripture). Seymour’s authority was great enough that his statement on this matter “efffec-
tively ended further experimentation of this sort at Azusa Street” (Ibid., 114).
126 In the December 1906 issue of The Apostolic Faith, a prominent article on the front
page asserts that the leadership of the Apostolic Faith movement is the Lord’s, and no one
else’s. See Untitled, The Apostolic Faith 1:4 (December 1906): 1. The implication, though, was
clear: Charles Parham was not the authority over the Mission. In November 1906, Parham’s
anticipated visit to the Mission did not go well. Rather than afffijirming the events there, he
responded in disgust over various issues including full racial integration, the allocation of
leadership roles at the Mission, and the methods used around the altar by Seymour’s work-
ers. After Parham expressed his disgust, he established his competing mission nearby,
(Robeck, Azusa Street Revival, 127–128).
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 65

I care not how many tongues you may have, you have not the baptism with the
Holy Spirit. You have lost your salvation. You need the Blood in your soul.127
While Robeck, as a historian, is reticent to draw an unquestionable histori-
cal conclusion that this shift in Seymour’s was a result of his experience
with Parham in November 1906, the circumstantial evidence is strong and
Robeck is clearly making such an inference.128 No matter the inability to
exactly trace their origins, the indications are that the experiences of
Seymour and the Mission’s leadership with those who spoke in tongues
even as they caused strife led them to modify this doctrine. Continuance in
moral holiness and a spirit of love for all were thus recognized as both con-
ditions for and signs of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. “For Seymour unity
was manifested in the interracial and transcultural experience of worship
in the Spirit, with the gift of tongues playing an important (but not exclu-
sive) role as a biblical sign of the fullness of the human community.”129
“Seymour had clearly broadened his understanding of Spirit baptism to
include an ethical dimension.”130 Robeck notes that by late-1907 the phrase
“Bible evidence” was no longer used in The Apostolic Faith and that tongues
were referred to as a “sign” following baptism in the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless,
Seymour still believed that tongues would follow a genuine experience of it.
This, according to Robeck, was a way of retaining the sovereignty of God’s
Spirit over the experience. In his later years, as the pastor of what became a
small, almost entirely African-American congregation, Seymour would be
concerned that evidential tongues would sidetrack Christian spirituality
away from Scripture and holiness.131
Seymour’s experiences leading the revival at Azusa Street would lead
him to employ Christian virtues deeply in his hermeneutic. These virtues
were love, humility, equality and unity. Repentance and restitution for
sins were main themes of the revival and his teaching.132 These values from
the Holiness tradition were employed by him in deep experiences of
spiritual discernment. And this discernment also took place in a man
who committed himself to extended times of prayer as he did so for fijive or

127 “To The Baptized Saints,” The Apostolic Faith 1:9 (June-September 1907): 2.
128 Robeck, “William J. Seymour and ‘The Bible Evidence,’ ” 81.
129 Dale T. Irvin, “ ‘Drawing All Together in One Bond of Love’: The Ecumenical Vision of
William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 6 (1995): 32.
130 Robeck, “William J. Seymour and ‘The Bible Evidence,’ ” 81. See also “The Baptism with
the Holy Ghost,” The Apostolic Faith 1:11 (October 1907-January 1908): 4.
131 Robeck, “William J. Seymour and ‘The Bible Evidence,’ ” 82–87.
132 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 68.
66 chapter two

more hours a day.133 His theology was thus intensely practical, moral and
spiritual. Still, sound doctrine was important for Seymour, though it was
Scripture in which he placed his confijidence.134 As the source of knowledge
about God, it established the boundaries for legitimate spiritual experi-
ences. He was willing to let himself be corrected in his beliefs by the answers
he received when he studied the Scriptures.135 Thus his principal commit-
ment in his theological hermeneutics was to the authority of Scripture in
norming and guiding Christian beliefs and experiences.

2.3. Charles Harrison Mason: Interpreting the Signs in God’s World

Though Charles Harrison Mason (1866–1961) never offfered much in the way
of written theology, as a Pentecostal founding father he exerted great influ-
ence on Pentecostal theological interpretation in general, and African-
American Pentecostalism theology in particular.136 His contribution to
Pentecostal hermeneutics was especially influenced by the value he placed
on the deep spirituality of African-American slave religion and devotion.
He was “a grassroots prophet” who was “dedicated to preserving the slave
cultural tradition…found in the black church.”137 When Mason attended the
African-American Arkansas Baptist College from November 1893 to January
1894, he came to reject the use of higher criticism in biblical studies taught
there by Charles Lewis Fisher, a recent graduate of the seminary associated

133 Robeck, Azusa Street Mission, 93.

134 See Seymour, Doctrines and Discipline, 13, for an example of Seymour identifying what
he considered unsound doctrines.
135 Robeck, Azusa Street Mission, 110.
136 The founder of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), the largest African-American
Pentecostal fellowship, Mason was the son of slaves raised in the poverty of postbellum
Reconstruction. As a youth in Tennessee and Arkansas, he had great faith as he worshipped
among deeply spiritual African-American Baptists. He was particularly formed by an experi-
ence in 1880 of healing from a fever from which he was thought to be near death. This event
inspired Mason to begin preaching and giving his testimony of healing as a teenager in
Southern Arkansas. See Ithiel C. Clemmons, “Mason, Charles Harrison,” in DPCM, 585–588.
Scholarship on Mason has been grossly absent relative to his importance in American
religious history. Elton Weaver, who recently earned a Ph.D. in history from the University of
Memphis, is working on a full-length scholarly biography. Mason has not left much in the
way of writings from his own hand; instead, most of what remains of primary material from
Mason comes in the way of sermon notes and occasional short articles in religious publica-
tions. For primary materials see Mary Mason, comp., The History and Life Work of Elder C.H.
Mason and His Co-Laborers (1924; reprinted, Memphis, TN: Church of God in Christ
Publishing House, 1987); and Lillian Brooks Cofffey, comp., Year Book of the Church of God in
Christ for the Year 1926 (N.p., 1926).
137 Ithiel C. Clemmons, Bishop C.H. Mason and the Roots of the Church of God in Christ
(Bakersfijield, CA: Pneuma Life Publishers, 1996), 18.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 67

with the University of Chicago.138 Mason had both theological and cultural
objections to higher criticism, considering it both an assimilation to the
larger culture and a reduction of the vitality of the spirituality of African-
American slave religion. Mason wanted to preserve,
The rich spiritual phenomena resident in Slave Religion. He believed that as
blacks clamored for acceptance by whites and assimilation into the American
cultural mainstream, they risked losing a spiritual treasure – the power of reli-
gious experience…He had both cultural and scriptural-hermeneutic suspi-
cions about the black church’s emulation of white, reason-centered culture
and religion.139
He thus insisted on the centrality of personal inner transformation while
still holding on to distinctive African cultural expressions against the
European worldviews that shaped white American culture.140 His experi-
ences at Azusa Street in February and March, 1907, along with two associ-
ates, led him to turn the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) to the new
doctrines of Pentecostalism, causing a split in which he would part with his
close friend and co-founder of COGIC, Charles Price Jones, who in turn
founded the Church of God (Holiness), USA.141
Mason’s hermeneutical struggle while at Azusa Street appears to
have been to apply the right Scriptures to his situation.142 While others

138 Though Mason rejected Fisher’s teaching at Arkansas Baptist College, during his time
there he built two of his most important relationships. The president of the college, Elias
C. Morris, became a mentor to Mason. And through his experience there he soon met, in
1895, Charles Price Jones, a recent graduate of the college who would be his partner in min-
istry until they split upon Mason’s return from the revival at Azusa Street in late-Summer
1907. See Clemmons, Bishop C.H. Mason, 6–23; and “Mason, Charles Harrison,” 586–587.
139 Clemmons, Bishop C.H. Mason, 17–18.
140 Ibid., 21–22.
141 In the analysis of Raynard Daniel Smith, this visit to Azusa Street “played a pivotal role
in Mason’s life for it wedded the experience of his slave religion and the ethical principle of
the common family of humanity with the experience of Spirit baptism.” See Smith, “Seeking
the Just Society: Charles Harrison Mason’s Quest for Social Equality,” Papers of the 31st
Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, 2002 (14–16 March 2002; Southeastern University,
Lakeland, FL), 719–720.
142 Mason’s testimony of “receiving the Holy Ghost” at the Azusa Street Mission tells of a
Pentecostal hermeneutics of divine and demonic action. Mason interprets his experiences
and interactions with others as spiritual encounters where God and Satan are vying for his
spiritual state. He appears to have even stood in doubt of his own salvation, even after nearly
a decade of ministry, during the close of one of Seymour’s sermons. He identifijies certain
thoughts he has with Satan, and he even comes to identify Satan’s voice with an unnamed
minister as well as his friend Elder J.A. Jeter. The unnamed minister, who is perhaps Jeter as
well (the text is unclear if they are the same person), uses the Bible to tempt him to doubt
that what he is observing at the Mission is God’s work. He then hears the voice of the Lord
speaking to him “that Jesus saw all of this world wrong but did not attempt to set it right until
68 chapter two

interpreted Scriptures in order to doubt the veracity and spiritual rightness

of the events at Azusa Street, Mason came to cite others in its favor.143 He
relates the deep experience he identifijied as his “Baptism in the Holy Ghost”
as follows:
Then I felt something raising me out of my seat without any efffort of my own.
I said, ‘It may be imagination.’ Then looked down to see if it was really so. I saw
that I was rising. Then I gave up, for the Lord to have His way with in me. So
there came a wave of glory into me, and all of my being was fijilled with the
glory of the Lord. So when He had gotten me straight on my feet there came a
light which enveloped my entire being above the brightness of the sun. When
I opened my mouth to say glory, a flame touched my tongue which ran down
in me. My language changed and no word could I speak in my own tongue.
Oh, I was fijilled with the glory of the Lord. My soul was then satisfijied. I rejoiced
in Jesus my Savior, whom I love so dearly. And from that day until now there
has been an overflowing joy of the glory of the Lord in my heart.144
Mason is noted for his ability to see and interpret deeply spiritual things in
objects of nature or in human events. Yet this could be recognized as a
hermeneutics of his afffections and spiritual experiences. His spiritual her-
meneutic, as an interpretation of spiritual experiences, stood in a mutually
informative relationship with his theological hermeneutic, that of a
second-order reflection about things from a theological vantage point.145
Early Pentecostals, especially those with a deep spiritual awareness like
Mason, saw the need for a vibrant spiritual hermeneutics. And if, as
Amos Yong has maintained, “a robust theological hermeneutics includes a
penetrating spiritual hermeneutic,”146 then Mason’s importance for
early Pentecostal theological hermeneutics is especially found in the influ-
ence his penetrating spiritual hermeneutic had on his theological
understanding.

God overshadowed Him with the Holy Ghost” (Mary Mason comp., History and Life Work of
Mason, 27). On what was apparently the next night, he had a vision in which he had to chew
and swallow a roll of paper when a man appeared at his side. He interpreted this vision as
God speaking to him that if he turned his eyes to God alone he would be baptized as he
sought to be (Ibid., 27–30).
143 Mason cited portions of Acts 2, though 1 John 3:21–22 was critical to his reflection:
“Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, then have confijidence towards God, and whatsoever
we ask, we receive of him.” Based on this verse and more spiritual interaction with the
“enemy,” the “saints” and “a reason in my mind,” he came to rejoice that God was not con-
demning him and was ready to baptize him at Azusa Street. See Ibid.
144 Ibid., 30.
145 My claims here are informed by Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community: Theological
Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002),
2–7.
146 Ibid., 4.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 69

Mason integrated his hermeneutic of Scripture and spiritual experiences

with his ethics and view of the world as God’s creation. A Memphis, TN
newspaper described him spiritually interpreting sweet potatoes, an Irish
potato and an okra pod – all oddly shaped – during a visit to one of his ser-
vices in May, 1907, shortly after he visited Azusa Street.147 He is also remem-
bered for his similar use of a sweet potato during a sermon at the organizing
meeting of the A/G in 1914 in Hot Springs, AK.148 A young A/G minister
present at that meeting later remembered Mason preaching from Acts 2:17–
21 and using a “a large sweet potato, somewhat resembling a turkey which
– when it talks, he explained – says ‘Took, took, took.’ Then the singers sang,
‘He Took My Sins Away.’ ”149 But this was not merely an object lesson, for
Mason gave “what he believed to be God’s message to those gathered before
him based on what the Holy Spirit had revealed in the sweet potato” that
day.150 Mason was often pictured with these “oddities of nature” which he
spiritually interpreted.151 This caused some of his followers, like C.G. Brown,
the fijirst secretary of COGIC’s Home and Foreign Missions Department, to
believe that Mason possessed supernatural qualities. Brown held that these
signs did more than hold the attention of Mason’s audiences, they also
made known a mystery of God, served as warnings of God’s wrath on sinful-
ness, indicated that God pronounced judgment on wicked persons, and,
most importantly, enabled persons to better understand God.152
Notes of Mason’s sermon “Storms-Storms-Storms,” taken by Anna Smith,
the General Recording Secretary of COGIC, reveals Mason’s interpretation
of storms, earthquakes and other disasters as God’s judgment; both in wrath
and mercy, God demonstrates his power through these events. “God with

147 “Versatile Negro Preacher Uses Freak Vegetables to Paint a Moral and Illustrate the
Powers of God,” The Commercial Appeal (May 1907) cited in Frederick L. Ware, “The Use of
Signs in the Preaching of Charles Harrison Mason,” Papers of the 34th Meeting of the Society
for Pentecostal Studies, 2005 (10–12 March 2005; Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA), 3, 22
n5. Ware fijinds Mason’s early interpretation of signs to have appeared in the larger context of
the American South in the fijirst quarter of the twentieth century, especially in the agricul-
tural crisis which was much the result of soil exhaustion and erosion. The crisis for poor
African-Americans dependent on agricultural production was compounded by a larger than
normal increase in natural disasters in the region during that time period, in particular,
many severe summer thunderstorms. See Ware, “Use of Signs in C.H. Mason,” 7–8.
148 Though he was not invited to join the A/G, Mason bid farewell to many of the white
ministers who had temporarily joined the COGIC with a sermon at that fijirst General Council.
149 Willie Millsaps, “Willie Millsaps Remembers C.H. Mason at Hot Springs,” A/G Heritage
(Summer 1984): 8.
150 Robeck, Azusa Street Revival, 39.
151 Ibid., 37.
152 Ware, “Use of Signs in C.H. Mason,” 2.
70 chapter two

the hand of the storm shall cast down to the earth proud folks; and God
shall trample them under his foot in the storm.”153
Mason’s hermeneutic was also formed by his views on interracial rela-
tions within the church. Here too, Azusa Street epitomized his ideals. Like
Seymour, he came out of the black Holiness movement which “exhibited a
strong interracial impulse that envisioned blacks and whites as equals
in the church and society.”154 Following the pragmatic ethos in early
Pentecostalism, he was pragmatic as well as principled on the issue of race
relations. When white members of COGIC wanted to create overlapping
districts within the fellowship, he permitted it on three grounds. On the
practical level, separation was needed at times for the peace and welfare of
congregations. On the ethical level, the freedom of whites to do things sepa-
rately should not be infringed upon should they so desire. And on the bibli-
cal level, he reasoned that St. Paul had to divide his missions between those
to Jews and those to Gentiles.155 Yet this did not mean that Mason accepted
this compromise as proper, biblical or ideal.156

153 Elder C.H. Mason, “Storms-Storms-Storms,” notes comp. by Anna Smith, Year Book of
the Church of God in Christ for the Year 1926 (N.p., 1926), in Douglas Jacobsen, ed., A Reader in
Pentecostal Theology: Voices From the First Generation (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press, 2006), 215. These events are a result of God’s judgment of human pride and moral
vices. Mason thus discerns the storms as signs of God’s judgment on the worldly and evil
ways of the society around him and especially of those who propagate such evil ways. This
list includes most of the normal complaints of the black Holiness movement as well as
emphasizing his opposition to war. Mason notably opposed American participation in
World War I and was jailed for a time as the Bureau of Investigation, the predecessor organi-
zation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was concerned with his request for conscien-
tious objector status among COGIC members and his ties to German Holiness Christians.
See Clarence Hardy, “ ‘Take the Bible Way:’ Charles Harrison Mason and the Development of
Black Pentecostalism as Biblical Magic,” Papers of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Society for
Pentecostal Studies, 2002, 98–100; Smith, “Seeking the Just Society,” 723–725; and Sherry
Sherrod DuPree and Herbert C. DuPree, Exposed!!! Federal Bureau of Investigation Unclassifijied
Reports on Churches and Church Leaders (Washington, DC: Middle Atlantic Regional Press,
1993), 9–14, 31–32.
154 David D. Daniels, “Charles Harrison Mason: The Interracial Impulse of Early
Pentecostalism,” in Portraits of a Generation: Early Pentecostal Leaders, James R. Gofff and
Grant Wacker, eds. (Fayetteville, AK: University of Arkansas Press, 2002), 260. Mason
ordained many white Pentecostal clergy in COGIC after Azusa Street and before the forma-
tion of the A/G in 1914. COGIC was the only church fellowship capable of giving credentials
to Pentecostal ministers during this brief era. COGIC continued to have a signifijicant fellow-
ship of white ministers within the church body until the “interracial experiment” failed in
the early 1930s (Ibid., 255–270).
155 Ibid., 266–270.
156 See Smith, “Seeking the Just Society,” and Hardy, “ ‘Take the Bible Way,’ ” for analysis of
Mason’s stand against racism and racial inequality.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 71

For Mason, as for other African-Americans with roots in African culture

and African-American slave culture, life was not random or accidental;
rather, everything in life is meaningful. According to Frederick Ware,
continuity between African religions and Southern African-American folk
religion exists on at least fijive points:
They are: (1) the natural world is a “religious universe,” imbued with meanings,
(2) there are various objects and events that convey these religious meanings,
(3) certain persons are skilled in identifying these religious objects and dis-
cerning God’s word and will conveyed by them, (4) signs are an indication that
God is active and participating in nature and human life, and (5) God judges
human beings according to their regard or disregard for the truth conveyed by
signs.157
Mason was one of those religious specialists skilled in interpreting signs. In
his intermingling of folk beliefs and Christian faith, signs were often sought
to confijirm whether or not an experience or a call was genuine. Biblical texts
were used to reinforce folk beliefs and folk beliefs were used to demonstrate
the veracity of the experiences spoken of in the biblical narrative.158 Both
signs and the biblical text reveal God’s truth about the world and his actions
in it.
But it is the Bible which ultimately determines the acceptability of reli-
gious practices in this African-American form of the original Classical
Pentecostal hermeneutic; the Bible was Mason’s authority. However, he did
not seek to establish its veracity through argument:
Mason’s understanding of faith was integrally tied to the Bible. His explication
of the faith was void of any scientifijic or philosophical categories by which to
establish the truth of the biblical message. His fundamental presupposition
was that the Bible record of the story of Jesus as told in the Gospels and
explained in the Epistles was wholly true. The Bible was the source and ground
of truth and the basis for what was just and good…his supreme guide for faith
and practice.159
He understood the Bible and its authority at, what was for him, face value,
with his own categories and not those of the scientifijic or educated classes.

157 Ware, “Use of Signs in C.H. Mason,” 12.

158 Ware notes Southern African-American Christians’ use of texts like the contests in
Exodus where Pharaoh’s magicians perform wonders in response to Moses and Aaron’s per-
formance of them as proof that magic is real (Ibid., 13). Clarence Hardy contends that the
form of magic connected black Pentecostal practice to sacred power in the tradition of
African folk religion (Hardy, “ ‘Take the Bible Way,” 87–107).
159 Smith, “Seeking the Just Society,” 717.
72 chapter two

Following the analysis of Albert Raboteau, Robeck has claimed that

Mason was continuing to do what African-American slave religion had
been doing all along: utilizing the traditional “form” of African spirituality
while infusing it with new “content” and thus transforming the meaning of
that spirituality while preserving the ability to communicate it fluently.160
Mason engaged in practices based on traditional African forms such as
using formulaic phrases in prayer and worship, plant roots for visual illus-
trations of God’s glory, exuberant dancing, and even using chicken entrails
in prophetic utterances. Yet the content of these expressions was Holiness
and Pentecostal content – though it is impossible to simply disconnect
form and content from one another.161 Both Ware and Craig Scandrett-
Leatherman have offfered accounts of Mason’s enculturation of the gospel
in the African roots of African-American Christianity, demarcating the rela-
tionship between the Scriptures, signs and culture.162

160 Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., Azusa Street Mission, 36. Robeck cites Albert J. Raboteau, Slave
Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1978), 87–88.
161 See Hardy, “ ‘Take the Bible Way,’ ” 93–97; Craig Scandrett-Leatherman connects
Mason’s use of plant roots and dance to the practice of the “drum-dance-healing” tradition
of ngoma in the Bantu civilization of Sub-Saharan Africa. See Scandrett-Leatherman,
“The African Roots and Multicultural Mission of Afro-Pentecostalism: Bishop Charles
H. Mason – Slave Religion in His Heart and Roots on His Desk,” Papers of the 31st Meeting of
the Society for Pentecostal Studies, 2002, 217–232.
162 According to Ware, for Mason:
“First, signs reveal God’s wonder and mystery…God reveals Godself [sic] in signs to
believers…Secondly, signs are instrumental in conversion, setting people free from sin
and ignorance. Thirdly, signs are warnings…confijirmations of the imminent return of
Christ and evidence of God’s wrath…He believed that the earth was producing signs in
order to let believers know that the end, the Day of the Lord, was near. Fourth, signs are
calls to holiness. They reveal knowledge about appropriate moral and religious con-
duct” (Ware, “Use of Signs in C.H. Mason,” 14–15).
Scandrett-Leatherman’s analysis fijinds in Mason “several principles for contextualizing a
religious practice” outside of the dominant culture:
“The fijirst principle: if a cultural practice does not contradict Biblical ethics then it may
be considered as a means to communicate Christ…God made all and therefore can
communicate through all…The second principle is that the Bible is the basis of deter-
mining the appropriateness of using a cultural practice for communicating the
Gospel…Mason’s essay on dance [“Should the Saints Dance?”] might suggest that the
practice and teaching of Jesus is the highest authority within scripture. Thus, Mason’s
exegesis is Christocentric; the center of his essay is Christ’s teaching with the parable
of the prodigal who is received with music and dancing. The third principle is an
extension of the second. The cultural form must be able to glorify Christ and fulfijill his
Great Commission…The fourth principle is that the cultural practice must be distin-
guished from the old form which did not or does not give praise to God. The ‘people of
God do not dance as the world dances.’ Saints dance ‘by the Spirit of God’ and ‘to the
glory of God’ and ‘to satisfy the soul’ ” (Scandrett-Leatherman, “African Roots and
Multicultural Mission,” 226).
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 73

Mason thus pushed the boundaries of the forms of Christian religious

practices in relation to Westernized Protestant Christianity. Instead, he
fijilled traditional African forms with content from the biblical narrative and
the beliefs of Holiness and Pentecostal Christianity, producing new forms
that integrated traditional African religion with Western Christian ones. In
doing this, the Scriptures provided a concrete tool for discerning the ways of
the “world” as compared to the ways of the “Spirit of God.” And, in this focus
on the interpretation of signs, it is possible to see his attraction to the then
emerging Pentecostal doctrine of the relation of tongues to baptism in the
Holy Spirit as one of a sign to an inner work.

2.4. Garfijield Thomas Haywood: Apostolic Interpretation

Garfijield Thomas Haywood (1880–1931), the prominent African-American
pastor of Christ Temple Apostolic in Indianapolis, was an articulate, well-
read and innovative leader among the fijirst generation of “Jesus Only” or
“Oneness” Pentecostals.163 “Pentecost came to Indianapolis” when, in
January 1907, Glen Cook brought the message from Azusa Street and pro-
claimed it to a CMA congregation there.164 Later in 1907, Henry Prentiss also
came from Azusa Street and started another small Pentecostal congrega-
tion. By 1909, Haywood was the pastor of this second, small interracial
Pentecostal church, most of whose members came from Bethel AME
Church.165 And by 1913 Haywood’s congregation had 400 people and he had

163 There is also a paucity of scholarship on Haywood. Biographical material is available

in David Bundy, “G.T. Haywood: Religion for Urban Realities,” in Portraits of a Generation,
James R. Gofff, Jr. and Grant Wacker, eds. (Fayetteville, AK: University of Arkansas Press,
2002), 237–254.
164 Urban Indianapolis came to be an early center for Pentecostalism. About twenty
members left the CMA church and formed Pentecostal Tabernacle. This congregation gar-
nered immediate attention on account of its interracial meetings and a famous incident
where a black Pentecostal man had laid his hands on a 12-year old white girl in order to cast
out a demon. This event caused racial uproar across the city. In May-June 1907 Seymour
preached at this church, but the threat of violence forced meetings to become segregated.
J. Roswell Flower, who would come to hold prominent positions in the A/G, began publish-
ing Pentecost (later the Weekly Evangel and the Pentecostal Evangel) in Indianapolis.
According to Bundy, by 1909, the publication had begun to ignore African-American
Pentecostals (Bundy, “G.T. Haywood,” 239–244). The correlation between the complicity
with racist mores by Trinitarian Pentecostals in the 1910s through 1930s, especially in the
urban Midwest, and the siding of a large segment of urban African-American Pentecostals in
the Midwest with Oneness Pentecostalism is a matter for further exploration.
165 Bundy recounts persecution of this congregation on account of interracial mixing,
including being pelted with small objects outside of the church doors on multiple occasions
(Ibid., 244–246). In 1910, with the help of his brother Benjamin, Haywood began publishing
a periodical, Voice in the Wilderness, which lasted only a short time but apparently aided in
drawing attention to Haywood’s ministry. Only a few issues are extant.
74 chapter two

become a leader on a national level. The congregation soon joined the just
formed A/G.166 Then, in 1915, a return visit to Indianapolis by Cook, who was
now preaching Oneness Pentecostal teachings, found converts in Haywood
and his congregation.167 Haywood would go on to write books, hymns, tracts
and prophecy charts, and even have paintings produced at Christ Temple
Apostolic under his inspiration. He eschewed Holiness and Pentecostal
mores in utilizing the medium of fijilm, encouraged women to serve as
preachers, and developed continually evolving ideas on a wide variety of
theological and social issues.168 Though he produced a large amount of
material on theological issues, most of them lack publication dates, and
thus it is hard to trace the chronology of his ideas. Yet, in Jacobsen’s
judgment at least, no other early Pentecostal covered a broader range of
theological issues.169

166 Though Haywood had attended the founding of the A/G, presumably on account of
his race he did so without an offfijicial invitation, did not sign the offfijicial protocol, and was not
included in the offfijicial photo (Ibid., 248–249).
167 The origination of Oneness Pentecostalism is usually traced to a camp meeting at
Arroyo Seco outside of Los Angeles in the spring of 1913. See Donald W. Dayton, “Preface,” in
Seven “Jesus Only” Tracts, Dayton et al, eds. (New York: Garland, 1985), vii-viii. With the
Oneness Pentecostals primarily coming out of the “Finished Work” camp, they further
reformed the ordo salutis into one super event:
“The relationship between salvation, sanctifijication, and the baptism of the Spirit…
would theologically collapse these three activities into one another, assuming that a
person should be saved, sanctifijied, and baptized in the Spirit all at the same time in
the single experience of ‘the birth of the Spirit.’ Ideally this would take place in the
context of water baptism, where the individual would descend into the water as a sin-
ner seeking grace and emerge from the water speaking in tongues as a fully saved,
sanctifijied, and Spirit-fijilled saint” (Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 195).
In doing so, the Oneness Pentecostals held that they were completing the Pentecostal turn
to the original apostolic faith. “The movement has largely adopted the label ‘apostolic’ to
express its claim to have rediscovered the genuine apostolic Christianity that predates the
‘apostasy’ of mainstream Christianity and its ‘fall’ into a form of polytheism” (Dayton,
“Preface,” vii). When, in 1916, the A/G wrote its Statement of Fundamental Truths in order to
oppose Oneness Pentecostalism, a large segment – between one-fourth and one-third – of
its ministers left. After some initial attempts to organize failed, in 1918 Haywood provided the
critical leadership in forming the new Oneness denomination, the Pentecostal Assemblies of
the World (PAW), which was interracial until white ministers withdrew in 1924 to form the
Pentecostal Church, Incorporated. In 1945, the two were reunited under the name The
United Pentecostal Church (Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition, 156–161).
168 Bundy, “G.T. Haywood,” 249–251.
169 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 197–199. Jacobsen categorizes Haywood’s particular
theological concerns as a Oneness pioneer into three thematic areas. First, Haywood dealt
with the nature of God and God’s saving presence in the world. Within this fijirst area, he
especially sought to explain his unitarian understanding of the Godhead and the divinity
and humanity of Jesus in history. Second, he articulated his interpretation of the nature and
drama of humankind’s experience in the world. And third, the Indianapolis pastor also put
forth a view of the history and future of the cosmos (Ibid., 199–200).
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 75

According to Archer, “The Bible Reading Method used from a Pentecostal

point of view enabled Oneness Pentecostalism to come into existence” so
that the crisis in Pentecostal circles caused by its arrival “could not be
resolved by appealing to the correct or incorrect use of an interpretive
method. The Bible Reading Method lent itself to create new theological
mosaics.”170 More specifijically, he claims that “Oneness Pentecostalism came
into existence by harmonizing the Lukan and Matthean baptismal formulas
into a new coherent whole.”171
In his tract “The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles,” Haywood
argues from Scripture that salvation, the baptism in the Holy Spirit with
corresponding tongues, and water baptism are all part of an identical expe-
rience.172 Interpreting Scripture with Scripture, he offfers doctrinal hypoth-
eses which difffer from the usual connections made in orthodox Christian
theology for explaining the relationships of the Scriptural texts to one
another. But, for Haywood, this was merely a matter of reading the text
rightly. “Scripture will interpret scripture if we seek to rightly divide the
word of truth.”173 Therefore, “No man who really reads the Bible will ever say
that a man can be born of God without being baptized with the Holy
Ghost…that is just what the Bible teaches.”174 Archer fijinds that, within the
use of this “Bible Reading Method,” Haywood’s reinterpretation of many key
New Testament passages would “link the passages together by means of a
key word or phrase…and/or similar experiential phenomenon described in
the passage,”175 using a common sense realism which held to a one-to-one
correspondence between words and their referents. Further, as Archer
points out, Scripture must validate and even set a precedent for one’s spiri-
tual experiences; according to Haywood: “if our experiences do not mea-
sure up to the word of God it is up to us to lay aside everything and seek God
till we fijind Him.”176
In one key case, Haywood diffferentiates rather than identifijies terms. In
“Birth of the Spirit,” Haywood makes a key argument for a Oneness under-
standing of the salvifijic experience of baptism in the Spirit by diffferentiating
“begets” from “gives birth” in the Bible. He asserts that, in the Scriptures, a

170 Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 82.

171 Ibid., 83.
172 Garfijield T. Haywood, “The Birth of the Spirit in the Days of the Apostles,” in Dayton et
al, eds., Seven ‘Jesus Only’ Tracts, 1–40.
173 Ibid., 5.
174 Ibid., 8–9.
175 Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutics, 88.
176 Ibid. cites Haywood, “Birth of the Spirit,” foreword.
76 chapter two

male “begets” but a female “gives birth.” For “Everyone with ordinary under-
standing knows that there is a diffference between ‘begettal’ and ‘birth.’ ”177
He utilizes Matt. 1:1–16 as the proof text for this claim. In Matthew’s geneal-
ogy of Jesus, in the King James Version, all the generations of men “begat”
their sons, but in v.16 it was Mary “of whom was born Jesus.” Making a cor-
relation between male and female with Word and Spirit, he concludes that
the Word “begets” while the Spirit “gives birth.” “A child of God is fijirst ‘begot-
ten’ by the Word (1 Cor. 4:15) of the Gospel before he can be born of the
Spirit.”178 It is at Pentecost, though, that one is “born of the Spirit.” Thus, by
adding this distinction in terms, Haywood’s doctrinal hypothesis is able to
account for those who have responded positively to the gospel yet have not
experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit, that is, the birth of the Spirit, as
understood by Oneness Pentecostals. And he is thus able to argue that those
who are the “Unborn” are not necessarily lost. “They shall be given eternal
life in the resurrection if they walked in all the light that was given them
while they lived.”179 So Wesley, Luther, Whitefijield and others “lived up to the
light of their day”; yet, following the Oneness version of the restorationist
narrative, Haywood concludes that “the evening time has come, and the
true light now shineth.”180 He implies that many of his contemporaries are
without excuse.
Jacobsen identifijies Haywood’s theological method as inductive,
creative, speculative and “instinctively systematic,” “not content to leave
bits and pieces of scientifijic truth and theological insight lying
around unconnected to each other.”181 In doing so, his purpose was “com-
municating truth.” He was deeply concerned with correct thinking about
Christian faith. And the great enemy of truth, as was evidenced in history,
was tradition. He saw an addiction to tradition as the root cause of
every theological problem. Like other Pentecostals, he understood the
Reformation as the beginning of the restoration of the Church. But he
understood Pentecost as the location of its full restoration. And it is the
reception of the Spirit in a Pentecost experience which provided the inter-
pretive key for rightly interpreting the Scriptures. Thus one who was “born
of the Spirit” would have the Spirit necessary to rightly read the Scriptures.
This also led to typological or symbolic interpretation of Scriptural

177 Haywood, “Birth of the Spirit,” 10.

178 Ibid.
179 Ibid., 12.
180 Ibid., 12–13.
181 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 197.
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 77

passages, especially those from the Old Testament.182 He considered that

“revelation did not typically provide the believer with totally new truth that
had nothing to do with scripture; instead, the Spirit allowed new light to
shine out of the sometimes obscure language of scripture.”183
The lack of explicit mention in Scripture was also theologically signifiji-
cant, as the Trinitarian term “persons” was thus considered unscriptural
and therefore erroneous.184 Further, the inability of theologians throughout
church history to explicate the mystery of the Godhead shows rational
problems with this doctrine. Now, though, in the fullness of time, the mys-
tery had been comprehended. The revelation of Jesus was found to tran-
scend all other manifestations of God in history. Thus the Father, Son and
Spirit were not cooperatively but identically God. Haywood was well read
enough to even identify his understanding of God with that of the ancient
“heretic” Sabellius. Further, his articulation of the nature of God was based
on his denial of God’s impassibility. The objection to the total identifijication
of the Father and Jesus on account of the Father’s inability to sufffer, which
Jesus did on the cross, was mistaken because God does sufffer with and for
humankind, and such a denial was not based on the Bible.185
Though coming to some distinctly diffferent conclusions than other early
Pentecostal theologians, Haywood still maintained substantial continuity
in his hermeneutic values. Scripture was clearly acknowledged as the
ultimate authority and source of truth. Tradition was anathematized as the
enemy of biblical authority. A version of the restorationist narrative
provided the backdrop for a theological understanding of the world and for

182 Ibid., 197–205.
183 Ibid., 205.
184 For example in “The Victim of the Flaming Sword,” Haywood argues:
“Tradition has so fijilled the religious world that little regard is given to the WORD of
GOD…They are willing to uphold their traditions, at the expense of the WORD of
GOD…Touching the Doctrine of the Trinity, the Apostles knew of no such thing; they
knew nothing about three Spirits; they had no knowledge of three separate Persons in
the Godhead; they had not been informed that the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God, and
the Spirit of Christ were Spirits of three separate Persons. They knew of but One GOD,
One Spirit and One LORD…The word ‘Trinity’ is not found in the Bible from Genesis to
Revelation. The term ‘Three Persons in the Godhead’ has no place there…Tradition has
coined these terms, and thrust them forth into the religious world and that obscured
the glorious vision of the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, in the Person of Jesus
Christ” (Haywood, “The Victim of the Flaming Sword,” in Dayton et al, Seven ‘Jesus Only’
Tracts, 55–56).
185 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 205–211.
78 chapter two

current Pentecostal living.186 And the integration of Christ’s roles as savior,

sanctifijier and baptizer in the Holy Spirit from the “full gospel” were
integrated into a super-experience; other doctrines and theological specu-
lations proceeded from the basis of these key doctrinal assumptions.

3. Conclusion: The Original Classical Pentecostal Hermeneutic

The original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic is an appropriate category

for a set of early Pentecostal hermeneutics which held to some common
principles, themes and methods. I have held that its four core characteris-
tics were that: 1) the Scriptures were the sole ultimate authority for belief
and living, but they functioned dialogically with religious and general expe-
rience in producing Pentecostal beliefs; 2) the restorationist narrative of the
Latter Rain provided it with its overarching historical framework, and its
imminent expectation of eschatological events; 3) the four-/fijive-fold “full
gospel” framework came to serve as the doctrinal grid for the new doctrinal
hypotheses which were used to explain Scripture, as well as spiritual and
general experiences; and 4) the use of a pragmatic but naïve realism pro-
vided logic that was often compelling in this hermeneutical paradigm.
But, as Jacobsen has argued, there was also a signifijicant amount of difffer-
ence, beyond the continuity, among early Pentecostal theologians. Still, I
maintain that there is enough recognizable continuity among early
Pentecostals that the original Classical Hermeneutic is an identifijiable type.
Part of this identifijication involves the content of Pentecostal theology, since
content cannot be separated from form as they mutually inform and rein-
force one another. This hermeneutic reinterpreted Christian faith in light of
a certain openness to charismatic experience, in what was understood as an
imitation of the early church. Yet experience provided these pragmatists
with the impetus to correct implausible beliefs.187 Conversely, many of

186 Haywood’s story of history also linked the presence of the Spirit with truth. He claimed
that Adam and Eve originally enjoyed the fullness of the Spirit as in baptism in the Holy
Spirit. In the fall, they lost this experience. However, he was not a biblical literalist on cre-
ation. He held that each day of creation in Gen. 1 represented a 7,000 year period of divine
creativity, a claim he made based on what he believed he had received as a special insight
from God, also holding to a much longer prehistory of the world’s origins which harmonized
scientifijic and biblical information together. Like many other early Pentecostals, he afffijirmed
the nearness of the millennium with the rapture of Spirit baptized saints before a period of
eschatological tribulation. Yet this historical narrative provided a sense of purpose and a
telos for his theology (Ibid., 225–229).
187 An important case of this in early Pentecostal history that has not already been
mentioned in the examinations of Parham, Seymour, Mason and Haywood is the
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 79

these experiences may not have been possible without the development of
certain new beliefs.
In this original hermeneutic, the Bible was God’s authoritative speech,
and doctrines were held by these Pentecostal interpreters as enlightening
teaching which unlocks and properly explains the biblical text which, in
turn, opens one to right experiences with God. His voice was understood to
speak simply and unambiguously. Early Pentecostals usually made the
implicit assumption of the perspicuity of Scripture for those whose hearts
were right before God. This led to a belief that rightness with God led to
simplicity and certitude in beliefs.
The Scriptures were largely read ahistorically with regard to the context
of both its writing and reading. The Bible was taken at face value, even
though there were historical, typological and doctrinal keys to interpreting
the texts which they considered internal to them. The role of the human
authors was kept to a minimum. With the development of the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic, many Pentecostals would come to a greater
appreciation for the human authors of the text. But in this originating
hermeneutic, early Pentecostal interpreters largely minimized their role.
The biblical authors served more like examples of faith than they did
authors whose role in the composition of the text is essential for determin-
ing what God has spoken through Scripture. The ahistorical approach found
in the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic has been described by
Russell Spittler as treating the Bible as if it has been “dropped from heaven
as a sacred meteor that arrived intact.”188 Because they desired to spiritually
and morally submit themselves to the Bible, they concluded that this
entailed taking the text at face value.
Yet this still required organizing ideas, doctrines. As theories are to facts
in Baconian science, so were doctrines and theological discourse to
Scripture and experience in the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic.

realization that the tongues spoken at Azusa Street and elsewhere were not xenolalia which
could shortcut missionary endeavors:
“Experience had shown that the adherents had not received the miraculous gift of
languages which would efffect world evangelization by supernatural means.
Consequently, they turned toward the traditional methods of missionary activity
through the arduous task of learning the languages of the people whom they sought to
convert” [D. William Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel: The Signifijicance of Eschatology in
the Development of Pentecostal Thought (JPT Supplement 10; Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield
Academic Press, 1996), 228].
188 Russell P. Spittler, “Scripture and the Theological Enterprise: View from a Big Canoe,”
in The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options, Robert K. Johnston, ed. (Atlanta: John
Knox, 1983), 63.
80 chapter two

On this matter, at least, they operated in the waters of modern rationality.

Doctrines acted as explanatory hypotheses which were supported by the
facts, biblical texts, which were thus cited as proofs for the doctrines.
The original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic’s approach to the
Scriptures was coupled with a critique of historic Christianity, based largely
on the claim that its contemporary manifestations lacked vibrant faith. It
was the restorationist story, then, which gave the original Classical
Pentecostal hermeneutic its sense of orientation. There was a longing to
honor the Scriptures and to see life through the lens of the power and purity
of the early Church.189 The formation of new doctrines thus helped the
Church recover this power and purity, especially as modeled by the Church
recounted in Acts.190 But it was still the experiences of early Pentecostals
which informed and confijirmed these theological developments that
showed that they stood in continuity with the apostolic faith.
Early Pentecostals typically did not think of themselves as interpreters
but as readers. They assumed immediacy between themselves and the text
so that they self-consciously considered themselves to have simply just read
the text. As exemplifijied above, early fijigures like Parham, Seymour, Mason
and Haywood had a hard time understanding how others could disagree
with their doctrinal conclusions, except that they were in moral and spiri-
tual error. Having been given God’s Spirit entailed correctly interpreting the
Scriptures, since it was the Spirit who had inspired them.

189 Blumhofer summarizes this yearning: “The church was called to be ahistorical, or at

least to exist untainted by historical currents. Those who influenced early Pentecostals
yearned to discover a spiritual Eden” (Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 13). Blumhofer claims
that the resotrationist impulse served at least four practical functions of signifijicance for
Pentecostalism:
“First, in a nation historically devoted to political and social reform and perfection,
restorationism sounded a call to Christian perfection and religious reform…Second,
restorationists promoted assumptions of Christian unity and simplicity…Third,
American restorationists grappled with eschatological issues…Fourth, restorationist
expectations occasioned and nurtured antidenominationalism” (Ibid., 13–14).
190 Dayton describes this as follows:
“In contrast to magisterial Protestantism which tends to read the New Testament
through Pauline eyes, Pentecostalism reads the rest of the New Testament through
Lukan eyes, especially with the lenses provided by the Book of Acts…But to turn from
the Pauline texts to the Lukan ones is to shift from one genre of literature to another,
from didactic to narrative material. Narrative texts are notoriously difffijicult to interpret
theologically. Pentecostals read the accounts of Pentecost in Acts and insist that the
general pattern of the early church’s reception of the Spirit, especially as it is in some
sense separated in time from the church’s experience of Jesus, must be replicated in
the life of each individual believer” (Dayton, Theological Roots, 23).
 the original classical pentecostal hermeneutic 81

Steven Land helps account for this when he claims that Pentecostal spiri-
tuality is Pentecostal theology.191 He fijinds a “mutual conditioning” between
orthodoxy, orthopraxy and orthopathy.192 While I contend that a distinc-
tion between faith and theology is helpful and necessary (see Chapter
Seven), Land’s claim helps push understanding of Pentecostal thought and
experience toward a greater respect for its humanness and in its embodi-
ment. He fijinds that a more holistic consideration of Pentecostal theological
method, one that accounts for the integration of these three elements,
better accounts for the reality of Pentecostal theology and spirituality than
those which seek to understand it in more rationalistic terms.193 Land
considers Pentecostal theology to be a “discerning reflection” upon “divine-
human relations.”194
But when it came to expressing their theological understanding, these
early Pentecostal theologians still employed a folksy version of common
sense realism. They seemingly did so because it was the default form of
rationality among the American populace, especially among conservative
Protestants. Common sense realism had been engrained into the American
mind during the nineteenth century, and its epistemological, metaphysical
and ontological assumptions were found to be conducive with Arminian
Protestantism.195 It denied, or greatly minimized, the mediatory role of
ideas, categories and contexts for human thought to relate to reality. Rather
than going down the tedious and complex path of modern philosophy’s
project of criticizing knowledge claims based on appearances and fijinding
new grounds for claims to knowledge, it held the conviction that we could
take on good faith the reality of the external world. With the proper
functioning of the human mind the real world could be known. Such an
epistemology allowed a Pentecostal theologian to imply that his categories

191 Land defijines “spirituality” as “the integration of beliefs and practices in the afffections
which are themselves evoked and expressed by those beliefs and practices” (Land, Pentecostal
Spirituality, 13).
192 Ibid.
193 Ibid., 24–29.
194 Ibid., 34. Land fijinds the roots of this spirituality in the convergence of Wesleyan and
African-American spirituality: “In the context of American restoration-revivalism, it was the
‘black spirituality of the former slaves in the United States’ encountering the specifijic Catholic
spirituality of the movement’s ‘grandfather’, John Wesley, that produced Pentecostalism’s
distinctive spirituality. Neither Wesley nor the African-Americans did theology in the tradi-
tional scholastic way. Sermons, pamphlets, hymns, testimonies, conferences, spirituals –
these were the media of this movement” (Ibid., 35).
195 See Henry F. May, The Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford University Press,
1976), 307–362; and Mark A. Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 93–113.
82 chapter two

could account for the realities which he sought to know, and with almost
scientifijic confijidence. The original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic
combined this common sense realism with a strong afffijirmation of the
supernatural. It employed this kind of rationality in regard to the super-
natural as well as the natural so that Pentecostal rationality served as an
alternative to a more complex and naturalistic modern scientifijic rational-
ity. In doing so, Pentecostals rejected the mind of the disenchanted modern
world, implicitly claiming that that mind failed to see spiritual realities and
God’s actions that are present in the world. Still, many of them picked up on
the habits of the scientifijic rationality of the day, as Parham and Haywood
exemplify.
However, as soon as the 1910s, certain issues arose and set the theological
and hermeneutical agenda for Pentecostals. As Pentecostals needed to doc-
trinally articulate themselves in the face of controversy from within and
defend themselves from criticisms from other conservative Christians from
without, very early on in Pentecostal history they turned or, better, returned
to the hermeneutics of American Evangelicalism.
 chapter three

THE EARLY EVANGELICAL-PENTECOSTAL HERMENEUTIC

It is my conviction that if you want your heart to burn after this fashion, you
have to get the fijire of facts into your soul – the fact of Calvary, the death of
Christ, of His resurrection, of His eternal redemption. Get it into your soul…
The gospel is in God and God is in the gospel. You don’t have to climb up into
heaven to bring down the fijire. The fijire is in your heart. What is the trouble
then? Why is it not burning? Well, perhaps there is [sic] a lot of ashes there,
and you need to shake down the ashes of formalism, indiffference, grieving of
the Holy Spirit, indiffference to the Word of God, looking somewhere else for
something instead of going direct [sic] to the Word of God…Stop, shake down
the ashes of your own notions, your theories, and ideas that smother out the
fijire. Open the draft.
– D.W. Kerr, “Facts on Fire” (1925)1

In the previous chapter, I made the case that the originating hermeneutic of
Classical Pentecostalism reinterpreted Scripture, spiritual experiences and
Christian teaching anew around the categories of the “full gospel.” This
hermeneutic involved a dialogical interaction between Scripture, as its
authoritative source for theological truth, and the experiences of its inter-
preters. These interpreters utilized a common sense and supernaturalistic
rationality as they normed their Christian experience. In light of the subse-
quent growth of Pentecostalism, this new hermeneutic ended up beginning
a new Christian tradition, opening up new theological readings of both the
biblical texts and all of life. It provided a new imagination for new forms of
Christian experience.
The common sense rationality and high view of Scripture, already pres-
ent in the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic, made it conducive for
Pentecostal theologians to seek an alliance with the broader conservative
Protestant tradition in America. Protestant Evangelicalism had combined
the beliefs of the Protestant Reformation with the revival practices begun
during the fijirst Great Awakening. Following its Protestant forebears, the
claim that Scripture alone is the sole authority for knowledge of God was at
the core of its theology. And Evangelicalism was very concerned about

1 Daniel W. Kerr, “Facts on Fire,” The Pentecostal Evangel (11 April 1925): 5.
84 chapter three

Scripture guiding everyday living, another matter of convergence with

Pentecostals.2 My claim in this chapter is that Pentecostals began to return
to the habits of grounding and justifying their doctrines as biblical ones
very early on in Pentecostal history, at least by Pentecostalism’s second
decade (the mid-to-late-1910s). Using Scripture’s authority in order to justify
their theological beliefs as well as their religious and moral experiences was
a central characteristic of the early Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic.
While in the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic new doctrines
explained Scripture and life anew, in the Evangelical-Pentecostal herme-
neutic demonstrating that Pentecostal doctrines were the result of the
proper readings of the Bible came to the fore. Doing theology became a
matter of discovering what the Bible taught – biblical doctrines – and
systematically or topically integrating them.
But in turning to the hermeneutics of American Evangelicalism,
Pentecostals were returning to their roots, though after considerable revi-
sions to their beliefs and practices had been made.3 Thus a fijigure like Daniel
W. Kerr (1856–1927) is well characterized in relation to the longer tradition
of American Evangelicalism because he was influenced by the older
Evangelical tradition well before Pentecostals were invited to be a part of its
reemergence in the coalition formed in the early-1940s.4 Pentecostals of his
and the next generation also engaged but should not be defijined by their
relationship to Fundamentalism, itself an offfshoot of the broader Evangelical
coalition. The Pentecostals who came closest to the Fundamentalists were
those who, as will be seen below, tried to integrate Dispensationalism into
their theology and hermeneutics.
Another defijining characteristic of the Evangelical-Pentecostal herme-
neutic was its limitation of the openness of the Classical Pentecostal
hermeneutic to theological innovations. This was done through developing
these communally authoritative interpretations of Scripture to support the
doctrines of Pentecostalism. These early Evangelical-Pentecostal herme-
neuts grounded and justifijied beliefs and experiences in Scripture with more
defijined claims about the nature of Scripture as an authority and with more

2 Douglas A. Sweeney, The American Evangelical Story: A History of the Movement (Grand
Rapids, MI: BakerAcademic, 2005), 17–26.
3 See Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit: Theologies of the Early Pentecostal Movement
(Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press), 10–11. He claims that early Pentecostals
tended to keep the habits and theological convictions of their prior religious backgrounds
even after becoming a Pentecostal.
4 See Chapter Six for more on the development of this alliance with the formation of the
National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in the early-1940s.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 85

of a focus upon correct doctrine.5 The early Evangelical-Pentecostal herme-

neutic adopted the Evangelical understanding of Scripture and many of its
interpretive habits in order to legitimize Pentecostal beliefs and experi-
ences. Still, this hermeneutic is distinguishable from both Evangelical and
Fundamentalist hermeneutics, and it should not be understood as a sub-
type of either. Rather, in developing out of the original Classical Pentecostal
hermeneutic, this hermeneutic, as it was formed primarily in relationship
to the longer tradition of Evangelicalism but also to Fundamentalism, is
best considered as a hybrid.

1. The American Evangelical Tradition and the Authority of Scripture

The contemporary Evangelical theologian Stanley Grenz fijinds that the

American Evangelical view of Scripture has drawn and continues to
draw from two tendencies: the cognitive-doctrinal and the practical-
experiential.6 Luther’s contention for the primacy of Scripture in its attesta-
tion to the gospel and Calvin’s understanding of Scripture as God’s self-
authenticating witness, with the inner witness of the Spirit testifying about
the Word in the believer’s heart, ran through the territory marked out by
Puritans and Pietists before they arrived in the American Evangelical tradi-
tion in the eighteenth century. In seeking to form a “Scriptural church,” the
Puritans looked to the Bible not just for doctrine but for the Spirit to guide
the reader in Christian living. As Grenz puts it, “the Puritans were convinced
that the true signifijicance of Scripture could be understood only by those
whose minds were enlightened by the Spirit.”7 This ended up causing them
to diffferentiate between two levels of meaning in the texts: grammatical
and spiritual. For the Pietists, too, Scripture was transformative only as
the reader allowed the Spirit to work through it. “And this cooperation
includes bathing biblical exegesis with prayer, meditating on the truth the
Bible reveals, and attempting to lead a holy life as delineated in the Bible.”8

5 Grounding beliefs and experiences in Scriptural mandate or precedent and limiting

them in this way could already be seen in the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic. For
example, Seymour denied the practice of “writing in tongues” on the basis of there being no
precedent in Scripture. And Mason pondered if the events at Azusa Street were in line with
Scripture. But a more formal understanding of the nature of Scripture as an authority,
beyond its function, was largely absent in that hermeneutic. And there was not the focus on
developing and justifying proper biblical doctrines.
6 Stanley J. Grenz, Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era, 2nd
ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006), 92.
7 Ibid., 69.
8 Ibid., 71.
86 chapter three

This was a reaction to the Bible’s authority functioning almost ex opera

operato among Lutheran Scholastics.9
Beginning in the 1820s, Evangelicals’ reticence to theologize about the
Bible itself began to wane. Some Evangelical theologians came to insist that
“the truly evangelical approach to Scripture includes the afffijirmation of
verbal inspiration and biblical inerrancy, together with a literalist herme-
neutic. The result was a growing division within the movement.”10 Attitudes
grew apart between Protestant conservatives and liberals in the nineteenth
century until a post-WWI split between them occurred. In the nineteenth
century, the new Protestant challenge had come from the rise of scientifijic
method to Protestant faith: “The theologians of Protestant orthodoxy real-
ized that the growing interest in natural theology required the establish-
ment of a rational foundation for Christian theology, if it was to maintain its
intellectual integrity and appeal.”11 While the quest for a rational founda-
tion led some Evangelicals to their experiential roots, this approach was
often rejected for its potential to slide toward Protestant liberalism.
American Evangelicalism, instead, turned “to the attempts of those theolo-
gians who sought to follow the lead of their scholastic forebears and set
forth an invulnerable foundation for theology in an error-free Bible, viewed
as the storehouse for divine revelation.”12 The Princeton theology of
Charles Hodge, A.A. Hodge, B.B. Warfijield and their colleagues was its most
signifijicant expression.13 The Princeton theologians reasoned from the

 
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid., 74.
11 Ibid., 77.
12 Ibid., 77.
13 Grenz notes the common sense realism undergirding this theology of an error-free
Bible:
“Lying behind the Princeton theology was the Scottish common sense realism devised
by Thomas Reid and imported to Princeton by John Witherspoon…On American soil
this view entailed the principle that knowledge requires the assumption of the basic
reliability of the human senses to perceive objects as they actually exist, together with
the ability of the mind to classify the evidence so gleaned and carefully organize it into
facts about the world…Convinced that theology and science shared a common empiri-
cal and inductive method, Hodge patterned his work after that of the scientist. Just as
the natural scientist uncovers the facts pertaining to the natural world, he asserted, so
the theologian brings to light the theological facts found within the Bible. And these
facts are uncovered through the application of the inductive method to the Scriptures.
Hodge’s appropriation of the reigning scientifijic model also afffected how he viewed the
products of his labors. He assumed that the theological propositions they drew from
the Bible stated universal, even eternal, facts,” (Ibid, 78).
See also Mark A. Noll, The Princeton Theology, 1812–1921: Scripture, Science, Theological Method
from Archibald Alexander to Benjamin Breckinridge Warfijield (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book
House, 1983).
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 87

inspiration of the biblical texts to the “inerrancy” of the original autographs

of Scripture, that because they were God’s Word they were entirely
trustworthy and without any type of error, and not just on matters of salva-
tion or the content of Christian faith. The theological method which
followed was thus “inductive-to-deductive” as it sought to move from read-
ing Scripture “as it is,” inductively, to deductively forming biblical doctrines
and theology.14 The “New Evangelicals,” who emerged in the mid-twentieth
century, followed these Fundamentalist forebears in accepting this basic
orientation for theological method. “In short, the trajectory through funda-
mentalism had the efffect of transforming the ethos of the theological tradi-
tion of the purveyors of conservative piety from that of a gospel-focused
endeavor that viewed the Bible as the vehicle of the Spirit’s working to that
of a Bible-focused task intent on maintaining the gospel of biblical ortho-
doxy.”15 For Grenz, this meant “a partial victory of Protestant scholasticism
over the Puritan-Pietist legacy.”16
In the early Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic, Pentecostals immersed
in the experiential-practical dimensions of conservative Protestant faith
turned toward the cognitive-doctrinal aspects in order to give some struc-
ture to and grounding for their beliefs. Pentecostal theology and hermeneu-
tics fijirst gravitated toward the theological method of the older American
Evangelical tradition during a time of crisis – that of the Fundamentalist-
Modernist controversy – in the years following World War I. This came
before Pentecostals joined in and were, for the fijirst time, accepted in the
new coalescence of Evangelicalism which occurred in the early-1940s with
the emergence of the “New Evangelicalism” and the National Association of
Evangelicals (NAE). However, drawing on their theological method meant it
lost some of the habits of the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic. Of
the A/G in the 1920s, Edith Blumhofer fijinds that “as it mushroomed it shed
its early restorationist and premillenialist fervor and became more like
longer-established denominations.”17 She places the beginning of this move
toward institutionalization early on at the 1916 General Council of the A/G
with the writing of the Statement of Fundamental Truths and its concomi-
tant rejection of Oneness Pentecostalism.18 The Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic is thus also characterized by the reduction in emphasis on the

14 Grenz, Renewing the Center, 84–85.

15 Ibid., 92.
16 Ibid.
17 Edith L. Blumhofer, The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American
Pentecostalism, vol. 2 (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House), 15.
18 Ibid., 14.
88 chapter three

imminence of the parousia, though the “Blessed Hope” of the Second

Coming continued as a cardinal doctrine of the faith. The narrative of the
Latter Rain receded.19

2. Daniel Warren Kerr and the Early (Re)Turn to Evangelical

Theological Method

Daniel Warren Kerr (1856–1927) exemplifijies the early (re)turn toward

Evangelical hermeneutics. Quietly an influential fijigure among early
Pentecostals, he not only exemplifijied but was also, to a certain degree,
productive of this transition.20 Kerr was a Christian and Missionary Alliance
(CMA) pastor in Dayton, Ohio when, in 1907, he was persuaded by Pente-
costal doctrine and experience.21 He had been highly influenced by the
founder of the CMA, A.B. Simpson, and the two had a personal relation-
ship.22 Yet he was reportedly reluctant to join the A/G when it began in
April 1914 because he questioned whether he could fijind spiritual liberty in
a Christian denomination. His fears, however, were assuaged when the A/G
organized as a “voluntary cooperative fellowship” rather than as a denomi-
national institution.23

19 The passion for a Latter Rain outpouring and restorationism would revive for a short
time in the late-1940s. A “New Order of the Latter Rain” movement emerged. Its key hubs
were Detroit’s large Bethesda Missionary Temple (A/G) and a newly formed and indepen-
dent Pentecostal Bible school in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. However, the movement
would be opposed by the A/G and the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada; it signifijicantly
receded in its influence after it was rebuked at the 1949 General Council of the A/G, particu-
larly for fostering spiritual elitism among its adherents (Ibid., 53–67).
20 Scholarship on Kerr, however, has been minimal in relation to his influence on the
formation of Pentecostal doctrine. One reason for this may be that his personal story is unre-
markable and his character meek, especially in relation to other early Pentecostals.
21 This occurred at the Beulah Park campmeeting near Cleveland, Ohio. In 1911, when
Kerr went to the CMA church in Cleveland, Ohio as its pastor, he found a congregation that,
too, was already persuaded by the Pentecostal message. That congregation soon voted to
become the Pentecostal Church of Cleveland, Ohio. Kerr had been a pastor with the CMA for
23 years, which had been preceded by fijive years of pastoral ministry with the Evangelical
Church after his graduation from North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.
22 In Daniel W. Kerr, Waters in the Desert (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House,
1925), the majority of Kerr’s chapters end with a hymn or song written by Simpson. Kerr and
Simpson had sung in a quartet together.
23 See D.W.Kerr, “Cooperation, not Ecclesiasticism,” Word and Witness (20 May 1914): 2;
and “The Basis for our Distinctive Testimony,” The Pentecostal Evangel (9 September 1922): 4.
Kerr contended that church institutions have historically always proven to be in a condition
of decline. It is known that Kerr began involvement with the A/G in late 1914 before he
influentially participated in the third General Council of the A/G in 1916, an important
moment in the fellowship’s early history, as he served as the primary author of its doctrinal
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 89

Kerr’s influence on early A/G doctrine was signifijicant. He was immedi-

ately recognized for his skills in expositing the Scriptures. More than any
other person, he can be credited for the theological rationale that placed
the A/G in the Trinitarian camp during the Oneness controversy and the
events of and surrounding the 1916 General Council and the formation of
the Statement of Fundamental Truths, the A/G’s doctrinal statement.24 He
has been recognized as its primary author, though four others were on the
writing committee with him.25 During the 1918 Council, he played a central
role in the solidifijication and defense of the “distinctive testimony” that
tongues operates as the “initial physical sign” of the “Baptism in the Holy
Ghost.”26 And because of his important role in defijining these doctrines, his
other theological writings have been cited as evidence in interpreting the
original version of the Fundamental Truths.27
Kerr provided only one book-length theological work, a devotional
entitled Waters in the Desert (1925), during his lifetime. But he also left
dozens of articles that appeared in the early Pentecostal periodicals beyond
his primary contribution to the original Fundamental Truths. His teaching
also influenced second generation Pentecostal theologians, including
Pearlman and Boyd.28 Through his articles in the early periodicals, which

statement written in the face of the Oneness controversy. See William W. Menzies, Anointed
to Serve: The Story of the Assemblies of God (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1971),
70; and Lewis Wilson, “The Kerr-Peirce Role in A/G Education,” A/G Heritage (Spring 1990):
6–8, 21–22.
24 William Menzies notes that Kerr:
“had even wavered somewhat at one point on the question of the Oneness issue, but a
visit at the crucial hour from David McDowell helped so stabilize the earnest student
of God’s word. This shy, somewhat retiring individual, hardly the image of a great con-
tender for the faith, had already compiled a quantity of notes, and was well prepared
for his assignment even before he arrived at the Council. Because of his careful prepa-
ration, the committee was enabled to furnish the Council with a statement of faith in
a relatively brief span of time” (William Menzies, Anointed to Serve, 119).
25 They included Thomas K. Leonard, S.A. Jamieson, Stanley H. Frodsham and Eudorus
N. Bell.
26 For analysis of Kerr’s understanding of baptism in the Holy Spirit, see Glen Menzies,
“Tongues as ‘The Initial Physical Sign’ of Spirit Baptism in the Thought of D.W. Kerr,” PNEUMA
20:2 (Fall 1998): 175–189.
27 See Ibid.; and Glen Menzies and Gordon L. Anderson, “D.W. Kerr and Eschatological
Diversity in the Assemblies of God,” Paraclete (Winter 1993): 8–16.
28 Both Pearlman and Boyd came under Kerr’s teaching and general influence while he
was beginning three Bible institutes for the A/G in the early 1920s, see Wilson, “Kerr-Peirce
Role.” These three schools were the Pacifijic Bible Missionary and Training School (now
Bethany University in Santa Clara, CA), Southern California Bible School (now Vanguard
University in Costa Mesa, CA) and Central Bible Institute (now Central Bible College in
Springfijield, MO).
90 chapter three

were often summaries of his sermons, a voice can be heard that wrestled
with the core theological issues in the setting of post-Azusa Street
Pentecostalism. Throughout, a common thread can be found in the manner
in which Scripture functions as the authority which provides models for
Pentecostal experience. That is, the Scriptures provide authoritative exam-
ples for Christian experience. This dynamic between Scripture and Christian
life, one in which the latter is supposed to be an imitation and application
of the former, fijinds Kerr standing in continuity with the original hermeneu-
tic of Classical Pentecostalism identifijied in the previous chapter. Yet Kerr
will turn back to the more traditional Protestant approach of justifying
theological beliefs on the perspicuous teaching of Scripture.
Undoubtedly, then, the authoritative source for Kerr’s theology is the
Bible itself: “The Bible is a supernatural revelation from God to men. It is the
discourse of God concerning Himself.”29 It is rich in its revelation of God in
its very details so that the character of God is revealed in its pages. Perhaps
with the humility acquired from his background in the Holiness movement,
Kerr sees the beauty in the simplicity of God’s self-revelation.30 Yet his influ-
ence on the Pentecostal understanding of the authority of the Bible was
never more important than in the writing of the Fundamental Truths. The
original version of Article 1, “The Scriptures Inspired,” penned by Kerr and
his fellows, holds that: “The Bible is the inspired Word of God, a revelation
from God to man, the infallible rule of faith and conduct, and is superior
to conscience and reason, but not contrary to reason. 2 Tim. 3:16, 17;
I Pet. 2:2.”31 In an article in the fellowship’s offfijicial organ, then known as The
Weekly Evangel, he explains a view of inspiration that infuses the Bible with
supernatural meaning, holding to a distinct understanding of the role of the
human authors of Scripture as passive instruments in the Spirit’s hands.32

29 D.W. Kerr, “Spontaneous Theology,” The Weekly Evangel (17 April 1915): 3.
30 This is reflected in Kerr’s statement that: “The Bible is God Himself speaking to us of
His activities in creation and redemption. He tells the story in the most unassuming and art-
less manner. There is no self-conscious display of eloquence like that of the Scriptures”
(Ibid.).
31 General Council of the Assemblies of God, “Statement of Fundamental Truths,” (2–7
October, 1916).
32 Writing in the offfijicial organ of the A/G, Kerr states that:
“The Bible is the written word of God. Holy men, whom God had made ready, spake
and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. They were not able of
their own wisdom, or power, or holiness, to fijind out by searching the exact truth of all
the things that were taught by men and believed by the people…they were so weak
that they could not, by all their searching, get at the real truth; neither could they
fijind out what God knew about these things; neither were they able to choose the
right kind of words by which to tell us what God told them; nor could they (they were
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 91

Nevertheless, Kerr brought both historical and linguistic tools to the task
of biblical interpretation, including an awareness of aspects of the histori-
cal background, though context mostly internal to the canon, of the
Scriptures as well as knowledge of New Testament Greek which is exhibited
throughout his writings. These factors also influenced his understanding of
the Bible’s inspiration and canonicity.33 The grand thing about the Bible for
Kerr is that it is not man-made. It came from God, and the human role in its
writing approached something along the lines of a dictation theory of inspi-
ration. Yet he approached it not with the rigidity of the Fundamentalist her-
meneutic but with the posture of humility towards God espoused by the
Holiness tradition in which he was rooted.
Humility was a vital characteristic of the biblical interpreter for Kerr. It is
the “poor in spirit” who not only have the right understanding of the nature
of the Bible but are also those who rightly interpret it:
The Bible is used by some men much in the same way as a tailor uses a bolt of
cloth from which to cut as much as will serve him in making a suit of clothes.
But, on the other hand, there are some folks who are so poor in spirit that they
do not have any ideas, or thoughts, or notions, or ways of their own, and so
they too go to the Bible…they are not full of their own power and wisdom like
the others…34
The implication of his approach for one’s posture toward Scripture is that
there are two types of interpreters of Scripture. There are those who project

so very weak), take the words which God gave them and put them together, each word
in its right place, so that we could read them and get the right meaning and thus come
to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, of some of the things
that God knows. But the Holy Ghost began to move these holy men in such a wonder-
ful way, that they were able to do what the other men who wrote books, could not do;
for they became so strong that they could see things just as God sees them, and speak
and write the things that God told them, so exactly that they made no mistake of any
kind, neither did they write anything but what God told them, nor did they miss any-
thing God gave them to speak and write” [D.W. Kerr, “The Bible,” The Weekly Evangel
(16 December 1916): 3].
33 In the same article as the above footnote, Kerr briefly characterizes his understanding
of the history of the composition of Scripture and the formation of the canon:
“Thus it took all the men, about thirty of them, 1600 years to write the sixty-six books
of which our Bible is now made up. God had his eye on all these little books or tracts,
which were scattered in diffferent places. In due time some men brought them all
together in one place and began to look into them to see if they could fijind anything in
them that did not come from God. After a long time and very careful study, they all said
that these books or tracts ‘came not by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost,’ and they bound them all together into one great
book and called it ‘The Bible’ ” (Ibid.).
34 Ibid.
92 chapter three

their own meanings onto Scripture and choose which texts they will obey;
and there are those who humbly submit to all of Scripture and let the Bible’s
meaning simply speak to them. The lack of presuppositions in coming to
the Bible was linked with humility towards the Bible’s authority.
In this, Kerr was like other early Pentecostals such as Parham.35 If the
Scriptures were considered a human document that both has errors and
merely contains the word of God, then sorting out which texts or portions
of texts were the Word of God placed the interpreter over the text rather
than in submission to it. Like other early Pentecostals, Kerr saw less of a
need to defend the infallibility of the Scriptures than did the Fundamentalists.
Because Pentecostals viewed an encounter with the Bible as an encounter
with God, they usually felt that the Bible’s authority and infallibility were
self-evident as a result of leading its readers to experience God. Thus
Pentecostals stopped short of the Fundamentalist position that Scripture is
a static deposit of truth apprehended through one’s rational faculties alone.
In French Arrington’s estimation, they simply based their view of Scripture
on the argument that because God is infallible, the Bible is too because God
inspired it.36
For Kerr, the normativity of the Scriptures was not simply a fact to be
assented to but a life to be lived. The experiences of Moses, Elijah, the pro-
phetic experiences of Ezekiel, the life and teachings of Jesus and, especially,
the life of the apostolic Church, were models to be imitated. The Scriptures
were not simply a source of theological information; they were “facts on
fijire.” They need to burn inside one’s soul and transform one’s life so that the
experiences one has will have the fijire inside that can only come from the
God who “is a consuming fijire.” Without the Scriptures, people may think
that they have the fijire of God, but they only have ashes.37 The draft has to be

35 For example, see Chapter Two for the similar claim made by Parham to confijirm the
rightness of his own interpretation of the Bible.
36 French Arrington, “Hermeneutics,” in DIPCM, 380–382.
37 D.W. Kerr, “Facts on Fire,” 5. He goes on to preach that:
 “It is my conviction that if you want your heart to burn after this fashion, you have
to get the fijire of facts into your soul – the fact of Calvary, the death of Christ, of His
resurrection, of His eternal redemption. Get it into your soul…The gospel is in God
and God is in the gospel. You don’t have to climb up into heaven to bring down the
fijire. The fijire is in your heart. What is the trouble then? Why is it not burning? Well,
perhaps there is [sic] a lot of ashes there, and you need to shake down the ashes of
formalism, indiffference, grieving of the Holy Spirit, indiffference to the Word of God,
looking somewhere else for something instead of going direct [sic] to the Word of
God…Stop, shake down the ashes of your own notions, your theories, and ideas that
smother out the fijire. Open the draft” (Ibid.).
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 93

open so that one’s life conforms to the patterns of life set out in the Scriptures
and is enabled to read the Scriptures accordingly.
And for Kerr, it is in those ecstatic experiences, in line with the Scriptures,
which human beings most closely encounter God. He most strongly
links these ecstatic experiences to the baptism in the Holy Spirit,
placing the interpretation of ecstatic experiences in the Bible and among
Christian saints in the overarching narrative of a Pentecostal eschatology.
Tongues speech is an experience that is an encounter with God.38 With his
knowledge of Greek, he developed his understanding of ecstasy as an eksta-
sis, as being beside one’s self.39 It is the result of constant openness to God
and is the anticipation of the full experience of the presence of God that
will occur when the Church is raptured.40 These ecstatic events blur the
line between the natural and the supernatural to the point where the physi-
cal world is caught up in the supernatural: “Do you know that there is a
sympathetic relationship between the earth and you? Do you know that the
whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain, waiting for the manifesta-
tion of the sons of God?” asked Kerr.41 But the primary way ecstatic experi-
ences are had is through the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The reception of the
Spirit brings about the fijirst fruits of the process that will be fijinally consum-
mated in the rapture of the saints. This reception is the surrendering of the
will to God.42 Hence, this is an experience of heaven on earth, of the super-
natural dwelling among the natural, an anticipation of heavenly glory.43

38 D.W. Kerr, “Do All Speak in Tongues?” The Christian Evangel (11 January 1919): 7. Kerr
considers tongues speech ekstasis, an experience of transcendence: “(T)he believer rises
above the natural into the realm of the supernatural in adoring and worshiping God. ‘New
tongues’ as Jesus calls them, is rather a state into which the believer is suddenly transported
by the Spirit of God. It is a state of ecstasy: a condition which anticipates the rapture” (Ibid.).
39 Idem., “A Foretaste of Translation Glory: Scriptural Examples of Ecstatic Transports,”
The Latter Rain Evangel (June 1914): 15.
40 Kerr fijinds that the Bible relates ecstatic experiences in, for example, the entire
Pentecost event, Stephen’s vision of God’s glory at his martyrdom, Peter’s Joppa experience
where he was presented the unclean foods on the sheet, Enoch and Elijah’s ascents to
heaven, the revelations which Paul recalls, and John’s apocalyptic vision (Ibid., 15–17; and
“Do All Speak in Tongues?,” 7).
41 Idem., “A Foretaste of Translation Glory,” 16.
42 Ibid, 17. Kerr explains how this relates to tongues speech: “I am speaking about talking
in tongues when you are not in yourself, when you do not talk by your own volition; but you
talk simply because you have a well of water that springeth up into everlasting life and the
water you have been drinking flows out of your innermost being to bless others” (Ibid.).
43 Kerr indicates a continuity between earthly things and the heavenly through tongues
speech and other ecstatic experiences:
“We have preparatory experiences. These things are mysteries. They are lying in
between the initial experience, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the ultimate transla-
tion of the saints. Some day we will go into a state of ecstasy and stay there forever.
94 chapter three

But Christian experience is lived successfully in more mundane ways as

well – and this is not only evidenced by Kerr’s words but also in his way of
life as testifijied by those close to him.44
Regarding the possibility of seeing God in the created world through
natural theology, Kerr was doubtful of its potential for discovering
theological truths on which to base one’s life. “GOD IS.” For Kerr, this “fact is
self-evident.” Though “The whole creation in speechless voice” says this, the
Bible does not argue that God is nor should we.45 “Men and devils” both
believe that God is. And he seems to attribute this to a sensus divinitatis,
though he never uses the term. “This capacity or faculty to sense God is
present in all forms of creature [sic] life from the lowest to the highest.”46
But he holds, in classical Protestant form, that this capacity has been nulli-
fijied by the devil’s lie at the Fall so that:
Apart from the Bible and the teachings of the Spirit of God he can never come
to any correct and proper understanding of the Being and character of the
One true God. Hence, both devils and men have imagined God to be every-
thing else but what he really is, and, as a consequence, men have sunken into
every conceivable form of idolatry and demon worship. So that, while sin has

Then mortality will be swallowed up of life. Faith will then be turned to sight; and the
things John saw, we will see. We will walk the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, the
Bride of the Lamb” (Ibid.).
44 See Kerr-Peirce, 17–19; and Wilson, 6–8, 21–22. Kerr did fijind reasons to “have a good
time” together in Christian fellowship. Yet Christians ought not to be like an engine standing
on a track, pufffijing its smoke and building up steam pressure. Christian experience is meant
to go somewhere, to work in God’s world and this especially means to evangelize in the
power of the Spirit. Christian experience is an experience of unity, of heart, mind and doc-
trine [D.W. Kerr, “The Relation of the Holy Spirit to Christ and His People,” The Pentecostal
Evangel (28 June 1924): 2–3. For Kerr, Christian unity is the unity of a moving people: “God is
on the move. Beloved, we are a moving people…We are strangers and pilgrims on the earth;
we have here not a continuing city, for we seek one to come” [idem., “The Practice of the
Presence of God,” The Pentecostal Evangel (14 February 1925): 3]. For now, “living scripturally”
was the end that Kerr had in mind when he considered the goal of Christian life and experi-
ence. And he saw both the Bible school and the local assembly as places where “one may
learn to think, and speak, and live, and work, and die scripturally…where one may learn to
think scripturally, speak scripturally, work scripturally, live scripturally, by rubbing elbows
with your neighbor” (Ibid., 2). Thus he invested so much of his life into Bible schools and
local assemblies.
45 Against feeling obligated to develop philosophical arguments for God’s existence, Kerr
holds that:
“We are therefore relieved from the burdensome task of proving, by a tedious process
of scientifijic reasonings, arguments and long drawn out discussions that there is and
must be somewhere ‘An infijinite, eternal, incomprehensible, inscrutable, First Cause.’
We simply believe that ‘God is,’ while the fool says ‘He is not,’ ” [idem, “The One True
God,” The Weekly Evangel (24 March 1917): 4].
46 Ibid.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 95

not utterly extinguished the power to sense God, yet the faculty has been so
utterly corrupted and perverted that men are naturally disposed to listen to
the devil rather than to God.47
The battle between Satan and God is thus one of mortal combat in which
the enemy of God seeks to deceive humankind about God’s character and
nature, and he does so through natural religion, for “the natural man knows
not God.”48 The temples of the heathen and the practices which take place
there are demonstrations of the fruits of the Devil’s lies about God. The
great eschatological events are on the horizon as Satan seeks to bring
together a united world religion under the auspices of universal peace and
safety. God, on the other hand, is revealing himself through the Bible, a rev-
elation from his very self about his nature and character. For the Bible is not
merely a history of divine-human afffairs, as that is too superfijicial; rather, it
is the revelation of God’s very being and character.49
Still, Kerr recognized this world as God’s world. In making his case for the
Pentecostal interpretation of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, he argues, in
line with Article 1 of the original Fundamental Truths, entitled “The
Scriptures Inspired,” that the “Scriptures are our only rule of faith and prac-
tice, superior to conscience and reason, though not contrary to reason.”50
So he denied that there is a fijissure between reason and God’s self-revela-
tion, despite the noetic efffects of the Fall. It is Scripture which safeguards
reason and conscience, not vice versa. Pentecostals are not at liberty to
make doctrinal determinations based on mere observations. For “we are not
at liberty to avail ourselves of any material outside of the Bible in order
either to establish or to overthrow some cherished opinion…Our declara-
tion excludes all outside evidence pro or con which is derived from mere
observation.”51 The Scriptures themselves are sufffijicient as the authoritative
source for theological truth. Yet, he contends that proper theological con-
clusions are not contrary to reason. They do, however, need to come from
the only proper source of God’s defijinitive self-revelation, the Scriptures.
Kerr held that “theology is defijined as a discourse concerning God.” He
further divided theology into two types: “spontaneous” and “systematic.” He
articulated this vision of theology in an article in the Weekly Evangel in 1915,

47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 Idem., “Paul’s Interpretation of the Baptism in Holy Spirit,” The Christian Evangel
(24 August 1918): 6.
51 Ibid.
96 chapter three

and then again in a slightly revised version, a decade later, in a chapter of

Waters in the Desert.52 Though he offfers some defijinitive statements as to the
nature of these respective types of theology, he mainly identifijies them
through description and example. The clearest, most defijinitive articula-
tions of these types states that:
The knowledge of God derived from the Scriptures has been classifijied and
arranged as “Systematic Theology.” Systematic theology is the product of
much study and labor and is profijitable for the formulation of creeds, and a
correct expression of what the church believes. Spontaneous theology is
“given by inspiration of God, and is profijitable for doctrine, for conviction, for
reproof, for instruction in righteousness.” The former is produced in a similar
manner as the building of a house. The latter grows as a tree from its seed.
Systematic theology is by no means to be despised, or set aside, because it is,
for the most part, written by men whose minds were illuminated by the Spirit
of God. Spontaneous theology should take fijirst place, because it was written
by “holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”53
Through Kerr’s allusions, especially to that of 2 Tim 3:16, it is clear that he
was approaching an identifijication between “spontaneous theology” and
the revelation of God in the Scriptures. He certainly claimed “spontaneous
theology’s” superiority over “systematic theology,” although he defends the
use of the latter. Further, Kerr seems to imply in his analogies that while
“spontaneous theology” is constituted by living and dynamic material, “sys-
tematic theology” builds structures that, while profijitable, do not inherently
grow and have life. Yet his position on “systematic theology” as well as on
creeds, as referenced above, is not entirely negative, contrary to the opin-
ions of many other early Pentecostals.
As the Scriptures are the “supernatural revelation” from the Godhead to
men, they offfer the “upper springs” of the true knowledge about God.54 Kerr
points out in both the Weekly Evangel article and in Waters in the Desert, as
he does elsewhere, that the Triune Godhead is revealed even in the Old
Testament in this manner, which he here identifijies as “spontaneous theol-
ogy,” as God is found speaking and referring to Himself in the plural: “Let
us…” or “…like one of Us.” In describing and illustrating “spontaneous theol-
ogy,” he refers to the revelation of God in Scriptural narratives as examples

52 Idem., “Spontaneous Theology,” 3; and Waters in the Desert, 17–20.

53 Idem., Waters in the Desert, 17; there is a nearly identical version of this passage in
“Spontaneous Theology,” 3.
54 Idem., Waters in the Desert, 17.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 97

of this type.55 On the other hand, he identifijies a few instances in Scripture

such as the prologue to John’s gospel and some of Paul’s didactic reflections
in his epistles, as examples of times where the Scriptures come close to
approaching “systematic theology,” but he gives reasons for seeing them as
stopping short of it.56
The relationship between “spontaneous” and “systematic” theology types
reveals a key to Kerr’s theological method. While theology can be done like
some other art or discipline, it is limited in this systematic project because
it is a natural, and not a supernatural, one. It is the revelation of God in
“spontaneous theology” that allows for any knowledge of God in the fijirst
place. And Kerr implies throughout his writing on this matter that this
“spontaneous” theology requires much less labor or study, on the one hand,
while, on the other, it requires a proper attitude of reception toward the
revelation of God. Anyone can organize God’s revelation in systematic trea-
tises, but it is the one who can hear and understand it in the fijirst place who
is doing what is truly valuable in theology. In “spontaneous theology,” the
life of the believer participates in the revelation of God:
The life of Jesus and the life of the believer is a spontaneous revelation of God,
called forth by contact with various incidents and conditions which enter into

55 For example, Kerr states that:

“The most profound mysteries concerning the Triune God in the relation of the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, are revealed in the discourses and arguments which Jesus had
with the people of His time. The deepest spiritual truths flowed out of personal talks
which Jesus had with His disciples, or with some of those who sought his help…Now
on the surface of the record of the conversation between Jesus and the woman of
Samaria there is not the least sign of Systematic Theology, yet the most profound theo-
logical truths that have ever occupied the minds of great men, come forth from the
Revealer of God like crystal waters gushing from a hidden fountain…And so through-
out the gospels, we see the revelation and unfoldment of theological truths concerning
God, in the discourses of Jesus. But the whole product is a spontaneous revelation of
God through Jesus Christ, as He comes in contact with people and their surroundings”
(idem., “Spontaneous Theology,” 3).
56 The Apostle John, Kerr claims, comes close to writing “systematic theology” but ends
up writing spiritual or “spontaneous theology”:
“It is true that John, in the opening verses of the Gospel, gives us a theological state-
ment of the pre-existence of Jesus as the Word with God through whom all things were
created, but in the development of the doctrine, he puts on record the acts and words
of the Lord Jesus, all of which proceed spontaneously without labor or study, from the
hidden fullness of His divine nature. Paul comes very near at times to the human art of
systematizing his theological utterances; but suddenly he plunges into a rushing tor-
rent of spiritual truths in which he is carried along seemingly without regard to the
laws of grammar, rhetoric, or the usual methods of classifijication or arrangement, with
which we are accustomed to meet in the study of systematic theology” (Ibid.).
98 chapter three

a God-ordered life…The secret of spontaneous theology lies in the word of

Jesus. “He that willeth to do His will shall know of the doctrine whether it be
of God, or whether I speak for myself.” John 7:17.57
The faithful believer thus identifijies the revelation of God through abiding
in Christ; knowledge of God is gained in this manner and not simply through
systematic organization, although Kerr fijinds nothing wrong with it as long
as it does not replace “spontaneous theology.”
Kerr’s understanding of the relationship between these “spontaneous”
and “systematic” theologies was closely related to his convictions on the
nature and use of doctrine within church bodies. His reluctance to place
authority anywhere but in the Scriptures as well as his desire for a spiritual
unity among all true Christian believers was met, on the other hand, with
his acknowledgement that clarifying doctrines is inevitable. This is demon-
strated by his role in the writing of the Fundamental Truths and in his arti-
cles in defense of A/G doctrines. Yet he did not simply see Pentecostal
doctrines as a box into which one fell either in or out. Glen Menzies and
Gordon Anderson point out in reference to Kerr’s eschatology that “he
established a model of commitment to essentials and the unity of the Spirit,
but freedom from denominational oppression in peripherals.”58 He did not
want to go beyond his interpretation of what Scripture had clearly revealed
in the manner of “spontaneous” theology.
The circumstances in which Kerr found himself after joining the A/G
compelled him to apply his skills in biblical interpretation to two emerging
issues within the burgeoning fellowship: the Oneness controversy, and the
delineation of the doctrine of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and its initial
physical sign of tongues. Though Kerr is said to have wavered at one point,
he became the staunch defender of the Trinitarian party among the early
Pentecostals in the face of the Christocentric modalism of the “Jesus only”

57 Ibid.
58 Glen Menzies and Anderson, “D.W. Kerr and Eschatological Diversity,” 13. Kerr himself
somewhat diverged from the normal pretribulational aspects of the premillenial eschato-
logical scheme held by most early Pentecostals. He interpreted Revelation 12 as teaching a
tripartite rapture: portions of the church would be taken up before the tribulation, at its
mid-way point, and at its conclusion [Ibid., 13–16; and D.W. Kerr, “The Two-Fold Aspect of
Church Life: Will the Church Go thro’ the Tribulation?” The Latter Rain Evangel (October
1919): 3]. He thus held, with conviction, an unusual stance on this matter. Glen Menzies and
Anderson suggest that Kerr’s apparent belief that the imminence of the Second Coming was
an essential of faith, yet beliefs on the tribulation were not, seems to have deliberately led to
the vagueness of the references to the rapture of the saints in Articles 13 and 14 of the
Fundamental Truths (“D.W. Kerr and Eschatological Diversity,” 15).
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 99

party’s doctrine of God when the issue erupted in 1916.59 The ten sub-
articles of Article 2 of the Assemblies of God’s Fundamental Truths, entitled
“The One True God,” written by Kerr and his fellows in the face of this con-
troversy, stands as a demonstration of its importance. For none of the other
articles of faith in the original version of the Fundamental Truths contained
such an extended explication. “The One True God” takes up almost a third
of the entire document. And the fourth through tenth sub-articles, “e”
through “j”, are clearly written with the concerns of the Oneness contro-
versy in mind.
Kerr’s defense of the doctrine of the Trinity largely avoided an appeal to
the traditional interpretation of the doctrine of God in Christian history,
though most of the traditional terms are used in Article 2. In the context of
early Pentecostalism, such an attempt would likely have been futile any-
ways, and Kerr himself would not have held tradition as a legitimate source
of authority for theology. What was authoritative for him and others is that
the Bible reveals the doctrine of the Trinity within its pages. And he uses the
Bible’s authority to demonstrate that God is referred to as both a unity and
plurality.
As Kerr cites the use of the fijirst person plural in Genesis, and elsewhere
in the Old Testament, as indicative of the nature of God’s being. He also
turns to the Johannine Prologue to fijind both the identity of the Word of
God, “the Word was God”, and the relation of the Word to the Father, “the
Word was with God.” Always the grammarian, Kerr cites Jesus’ use of the
“indefijinite pronominal adjectives one, and another, and another when
speaking of himself, and the Father, and the Holy Spirit, as distinctly related
Personalities in the One Being.”60 He even interjects a bit of metaphysical
reasoning in making his case: “We all agree without exception, that, accord-
ing to a fijixed law in nature, there can be no image without an object.” Since
Jesus is called “the Image of the invisible God” by Paul in the Scriptures and,
referencing 1 Cor. 3:16–18 where the Lord, who is the Spirit, is transforming
those who turn to him into that image, he comes to a Trinitarian conclu-
sion. It must be that “the invisible God, the Father, answers to the
object: our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the Father answers to the image:
and the Spirit of the Lord answers to the glass in which the image is seen.”

59 The Oneness movement’s arguments were convincing enough that even Eudorus
N. Bell, the fijirst general superintendent of the A/G, wavered on the “New Issue” for a time
(William Menzies, Anointed to Serve, 119).
60 D.W. Kerr, “We All Agree,” The Weekly Evangel (4 March 1916): 6.
100 chapter three

These are, for Kerr, undeniable facts in the Scriptures on which “we all
agree.”61 The Bible teaches that there are three eternally related persons in
the Godhead so that “we are face to face with the great fact of revelation
that ‘God is love.’ ”62
Kerr also felt compelled to address the issue that the terms “Trinity,” “per-
sons,” and “Tripersonality” are not found in Scripture, as this was a strong
objection to the doctrine raised by the proponents of the Oneness position.
Yet he claims that “the doctrine expressed by those terms is taught from the
fijirst verse in Genesis to the last verse in Revelation.”63 This was even
addressed in sub-article “a” of Article 2, “The One True God,” which reads, in
its entirety:
The terms “Trinity” and “persons” as related to the Godhead, while not found
in the Scriptures, are words in harmony with Scripture, whereby we may con-
vey to others our immediate understanding of the doctrine of Christ respect-
ing the Being of God, as distinguished from “gods many and lords many.” We
therefore may speak with propriety of the Lord our God who is One Lord, as a
trinity or as one Being of three persons, and still be absolutely scriptural.64
It was, in that context, the fijirst thing that needed to be addressed when it
came to the doctrine of God. That is, the Pentecostal conception of God still
utilized key terms not found in the Bible despite the necessity for the
Scriptural grounding of all theological claims among Pentecostals. Kerr
offfered the following rationale for this: “as long as we keep in the crystal
stream of Scripture revelation as it flows fresh from under the throne of God
and of the Lamb, we may, without displeasing God, use words and expres-
sions not found in Scripture by which to convey to ourselves, and to others,
our immediate understanding of the truths under consideration.”65 And he
goes on to assert that it is right religious experience that shows that one
lives under the authority of the Scriptures, for all creeds are fallible:
It is of greater importance to us and to others that we keep in that holy free-
dom wherewith Christ had made us free, and thus keep our whole being open
to God, than that we make a rigid law of the exact letter of the Scripture, by
which we bind ourselves and others. We concede that no creed has ever yet
been formulated by any one man or any set of men outside of the writers of

61 Ibid., 7.
62 Idem., “The One True God,” 4.
63 Idem., “Terms Not Found in Scripture,” The Weekly Evangel (3 February 1917): 4.
64 General Council of the A/G, “Fundamental Truths,” Art. 2.
65 Kerr, “Terms Not Found in Scripture,” 4.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 101

the Old and New Testament, that contained “The truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth.”66
It is, rather, when one is in a state of Christian maturity, having experienced
the sanctifying power of the Word of God and having been fijilled with the
Spirit, that one can be illuminated to understand the Scriptures so that “all
things will be as clear and plain to our understanding, as they were to whose
who wrote them,” for it is the same Spirit guiding both the biblical authors
and Spirit-fijilled biblical interpreters.67
Following the triumph of the Trinitarian Pentecostals during the 1916
General Council, Kerr’s articulation and defense of the Pentecostal doctrine
of the baptism in the Holy Spirit came to the forefront of his theological
concerns. Concerning his role in the initial evidence controversy of 1918,
William Menzies fijinds that “the issue was resolved by the wisdom and elo-
quence of D.W. Kerr, perhaps more than any other.”68 Article 6 of the
Fundamental Truths, in its original 1916 version, states:
6. THE FULL CONSUMATION OF THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. The
full consummation of the baptism of believers in the Holy Ghost and fijire, is
indicated by the initial [physical] sign of speaking in tongues, as the Spirit
of God gives utterance. Acts 2:4. This wonderful experience is distinct from
and subsequent to the experience of the new birth. Acts 10:44–46; 11:14–16;
15:8, 9.69

66 Ibid.
67 Ibid., 4–5.
68 William Menzies, Anointed to Serve, 129. William Menzies goes on to cite the account
from Carl Brumback that at the 1918 General Council:
“Kerr not only marshaled all the truths presented by his brethren, but also drove home
again and again that it is the Word of God, not the experiences of famous men, that is
the touchstone for the Pentecostal belief concerning the immediate, outward evidence
of the baptism. The Scriptural record had not been twisted by Pentecostalists [sic]; no
isolated case had been set forth as the sole basis for their belief; but in every case in
which the results of the experience in Acts are recorded, each recipient spoke in
tongues. Kerr also succeeded in answering conclusively Gaston’s query about the dif-
ference between the evidence and the gift” [Ibid. cites Brumback, Suddenly…from
Heaven (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1961), 222–223].
Kerr presented this case in opposition to F.F. Bosworth’s claim that tongues was a sign but
not the sign of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Bosworth graciously excused himself from the
ranks of the A/G and joined the CMA following the A/G’s solidifijication of this doctrine at the
1918 General Council.
69 Cited in Glen Menzies, “Tongues in the Thought of D.W. Kerr,” 178–179. Glen Menzies
offfers an interpretation of Kerr’s intentional meaning in the writing of this and other texts on
the baptism in the Holy Spirit (Ibid, 178–189).
Menzies notes that the word “physical”, bracketed above, was omitted in the original
Statement in 1916 but added in 1917, and that important omission was attributed to a
102 chapter three

Glen Menzies has argued that Kerr, here and elsewhere, intended to articu-
late the relationship between the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking
with other tongues as one of an event (or a series of events) to its physical
sign. That is, there is at least a logical, though perhaps only a very short
chronological, distinction between the event of the baptism in the Holy
Spirit and the appearance of its initial physical sign of tongues. This leaves
room for another distinction as well, one between a physical sign and a
spiritual sign. Kerr seems to have been allowing for spiritual signs as well as
physical ones. And he also leaves a sense of ambiguity to the experience of
this baptism itself, allowing for views of it, at times, as a process and, at oth-
ers, as a crisis experience. Glen Menzies explains this comfort with ambigu-
ity in Kerr’s thought in comparison to later Pentecostal formulations: “Kerr
represents an early stage in the development of Pentecostalism, a period
when there was great fear of creedalism and when theological formulations
were characterized by greater fluidity than is characteristic today.”70
But Kerr’s own emphasis on the doctrine is undeniable. His endorse-
ment, oft-quoted by adherents, to the doctrine, demonstrates this:
As a Pentecostal people, we hold that the Bible evidence of the Baptism with
the Holy Ghost, which is promised by the Lord Jesus Christ to His disciples,
and to all them that are afar offf, and as many as the Lord our God shall call, is
speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance. We have found that
whenever we, as a people, begin to let down on this particular point, the fijire
dies out, the ardor and fervor begin to wane, the glory departs. We have found
where this position is held and wherever it is proclaimed, the Lord is
working.71

clerical error. He also cites an unpublished manuscript housed at the Flower Pentecostal
Heritage Center (Springfijield, MO) of a “Declaration of Fundamental Truths” drafted by Kerr
and presented at the 1925 General Council. It was Kerr’s attempt at developing a more per-
manent doctrinal statement than the one written in 1916. Instead, it was turned down in
favor of the existing statement. The sixth article of the handwritten “Declaration” states:
“Sixth. Baptism by the Spirit. The Baptism by the Spirit, as a present possession
obtained through the obedience of faith (Acts 5:32), is evidenced [indicated] by the
initial physical sign of tongues (Mark 16:17) following the infijilling of the believer with
the Spirit according to (Acts 2:4; 10:44–46; 19:6; Eph. 5:18-20). The essential condition
for the infijilling with the Spirit is the obedience of faith (John 7:37-39) and the conse-
quent inward revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:16; 3:1,2; John 15:13-15). The immediate
purpose of the gift of the Holy Spirit is the revelation of the things of God (I Cor. 2:9-16);
a victorious life (Luke 4:1-13; Rom. 8:1-14; Gal. 2:20); power for service (Luke 4:14-19;
Acts 1:8); and the redemption of the body (Rom. 8:23-25; 2 Cor. 5:4,4; 1 Pet 1:3-5)”
(Ibid., 181–182, cites this unpublished manuscript).
70 Ibid., 189.
71 D.W. Kerr, “The Bible Evidence of the Baptism with the Holy Ghost,” (11 August 1923): 2.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 103

For he was convinced that the Bible simply taught the subsequence of the
baptism in the Holy Spirit to salvation. And this baptism was a Christocentric
work, understood in the framework of the “fijinished work” version of the
four-fold “full gospel.” “We believe,” said Kerr, “that Jesus Christ is the
Baptizer with the Holy Ghost.”72 He makes his argument for the Pentecostal
doctrine from the biblical narratives which, as he interprets them, signify
inward spiritual states through outward physical signs. Signs were what
convinced the apostolic church that this baptism occurred. Kerr sees this
not only in the Acts narratives, but also in John’s gospel, Paul’s epistles, and
in the longer ending of Mark’s gospel.73 Like the other New Testament
authors, of all the physical signs, Luke “uniformly selects the one of speak-
ing in tongues, in connection with the Baptism with His Spirit.”74 And, turn-
ing to a bit of metaphysics for a moment, Kerr adds the premise to his
argument that there is a “fijixed law in the universe so manifest everywhere,
and that is the law of the relation of CAUSE and EFFECT. Like causes pro-
duce like efffects.” Thus, he concludes, “the Holy Ghost was the cause…the
efffect was speaking in tongues.”75 For Kerr, tongues is thus the sign of signs
that physically demonstrates the inward spiritual truth that one has been
baptized in the Spirit, the “silencing sign.”76
Kerr is especially important for assessing the development of Pentecostal
hermeneutics because he serves as a bridge fijigure between the original
Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic and the Evangelical-Pentecostal herme-
neutic. As a fijirst generation Pentecostal he had participated in the develop-
ment of a theological hermeneutic informed by a greater openness to the
power of the Spirit in daily Christian living. Yet he was also an important
codifijier of Pentecostal theology, making certain Pentecostal doctrines nor-
mative, grounding them in the exegesis of Scripture, and asserting the
authority of Scripture over charismatic and all of life’s experiences. Still, he
remained a Classical Pentecostal focused on experiential knowledge of
God, eschewing rationalism as he sought to abide in the “spontaneous the-
ology” spoken in Scripture. He was an Evangelical-Pentecostal.

72 Ibid., 3.
73 Ibid., 2–3; and “Paul’s Interpretation of the Baptism in Holy Spirit,” 6; and “Do All Speak
in Tongues?” 7; and “ ‘The,’ ‘A,’ or ‘An,’ – Which?,” The Pentecostal Evangel (21 January 1922): 7.
74 Idem., “The Bible Evidence of the Baptism with the Holy Ghost,” 2.
75 Ibid., 3.
76 Idem., “ ‘The,’ ‘A,’ o ‘An,’ – Which?,” 7.
104 chapter three

3. Pentecostalism and Fundamentalism

Regarding the period between the founding events of Pentecostalism

and the development of the new Evangelical coalition in the early-1940s
(see Chapter Six), scholars have often identifijied Pentecostals in relation to
Fundamentalists. The two usual options in assessing this relationship
have been to see the Pentecostal movement of this era as a type of
Fundamentalism, or to fijind Pentecostalism to be a substantially diffferent
Christian movement awkwardly relating itself to Fundamentalism. My
assessment favors the latter.

3.1. American Fundamentalism
George Marsden recounts that Fundamentalism arose as a loose
federation of conservative Protestants in America, developing in the late-
nineteenth century and taking shape in the early-twentieth century, united
by their fijierce opposition against modernist attempts to change and to criti-
cize Protestant Christianity. This coalition arose out of revivalist preaching,
dispensational premillennialism (especially through the Scofijield Reference
Bible), the Keswickian “Victorious Life” movement originating in Britain,
conservative Princeton Presbyteriansim and Baptist independence. It was a
struggle of a disestablished religious, socio-cultural and intellectual tradi-
tion making its way as a beleaguered minority.77 Fundamentalism carried
on the traditions of revivalism and pietism, which tended toward “individu-
alistic, culture-denying, soul-rescuing Christianity,” as well as the Reformed
tradition which held more positive views of the intellect, the organized
church, and the ideal of building a Christian civilization.78 There existed a
tension in Fundamentalist thought between trust and distrust of the intel-
lect, though they gained a reputation for being anti-scientifijic and anti-intel-
lectual because of their rejection of the assumptions of recent philosophy
and science. Further, they also reflected anti-intellectual, populist and sen-
timental traits from their heritage in American revivalism. Yet they still
stood in an intellectual tradition that had high regard for human rationality
as they sought to continue the traditions of Baconian science and common

77 This is the overall thesis of George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture:
The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism (1870–1925) (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1980). See also Russell P. Spittler, “Are Pentecostals and Charismatics Fundamentalists?:
A Review of American Use of These Categories,” in Charismatic Christianity as a Global
Culture, Karla Poewe, ed. (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 108–109.
78 Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 7.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 105

sense realist philosophy.79 According to Marsden, the prominence of

Evangelical Protestantism in the nineteenth century led the Fundamentalists
to view themselves as protectors of Christian civilization, thus they felt that
they were waging a battle in defense of that civilization.80 The synthesis of
Baconian method and Scottish common sense realism within an Evangelical
framework led to two fundamental premises concerning knowledge: “God’s
truth was a single unifijied order and that all persons of common sense were
capable of knowing that truth.”81 In the late-nineteenth century it was well
established as the philosophy of American Protestantism. Because all had
the ability to access truth equally, it was a democratic and anti-elitist
philosophy. Both in natural and moral philosophy, the laws of the all-wise
and benevolent creator were available to everyone.82 Yet there was an
inherent tension between this optimistic – though conservative –
Enlightenment anthropology and epistemology and the Calvinist theology
held by many nineteenth century Evangelicals and early-twentieth century

79 An eighteenth and early-nineteenth century philosophical program, Scottish common

sense realism sought to overcome skepticism about the human ability to know and desired
to reestablish a basis for religious and moral beliefs in response to modern philosophers
including Rene Descartes, John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume. It was Scottish in
origin, looked to the sense experiences common to all humans in its theory of perception,
and held to a realist ontology. But it was certainly not monolithic, especially in the nine-
teenth century, nor was it simplistic, as a cursory reading of this school often accuses. Rather,
Scottish common sense realism took issue with the problems created by modern philosophy
when it called deeply held beliefs into question by returning the favor and calling the path
modern philosophy had taken into question. Its key philosophical move was the rejection of
the “ideal system,” that is, the mediation of real things by ideas. Rather, a real mind encoun-
ters a real world which can be known, when the mind functions properly, with accuracy in
relation to how real external objects actually are. Especially at Princeton, where President
John Witherspoon (1768–1792) embedded it deeply into the institution’s curriculum, com-
mon sense realism spread throughout America’s universities so that it became the standard
form of American rationality. This was so that “by the early nineteenth century the infectious
language of theistic common sense was afffecting the languages of traditional theology” so
that when this form of rationality met the standard inherited forms, in its denominational
varieties, “the result could truly be called an American theology, since the reasoning
of theistic common sense had contributed so integrally to the creation of the government of
the new United States and, even more, of the nation’s new intellectual culture” [Mark A. Noll,
America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press, 2002), 113]. See also Sydney E. Ahlstrom, “The Scottish Philosophy and American
Theology,” Church History 24:3 (September 1955): 257–272.
80 Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 12–13.
81 Ibid., 14. This intellectual tradition came to form a conservative form of the
Enlightenment. See Henry F. May, The Enlightenment in America (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1976), 307–362. In late-eighteenth and nineteenth century America, it was found to be
more amenable to Christian theology than it was in Europe, where it was more associated
with heterodoxy than orthodoxy.
82 Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 15.
106 chapter three

Fundamentalists: “Strict Calvinists had maintained that the human mind

was blinded in mankind’s Fall from innocence; in the Common Sense
version, the intellect seemed to sufffer from a slight astigmatism only.”83
Still, nineteenth century Evangelicals followed the natural theology of
Joseph Butler and William Paley in order to demonstrate the truth of
Christianity. It thus held to an evidentialist apologetic style which held that,
given the proper conditions and proper moral status, any objective investi-
gator of truth could and would come to the core doctrines of Fundamentalist
Christianity.

3.2. Pentecostalism and Fundamentalism

Edith Blumhofer fijinds that during the 1920s and 1930s, Pentecostals, and in
particular the A/G, preached the “full gospel” as “fundamentalism with a
diffference.”84 “The question of whether they were fundamentalists did
not preoccupy early Assemblies of God leaders; they simply assumed
they were.”85 She sees the continuity between Fundamentalism and the
Pentecostalism of this era on practical and doctrinal levels. Practically,
Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism both had common assumptions
about the identity of America, had adherents who generally came from like
socio-economic backgrounds, had similar education models in Bible
schools, and were populist movements shaped by the longings of common
people. Doctrinally, both held to the “fundamentals” which shaped the
Fundamentalist position in the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy: the
verbal inspiration of Scripture, the virgin birth, the substitionary atone-
ment, the authenticity of miracles in Scripture, and the bodily resurrection
of Christ. To these Pentecostals added their “diffference,” that healing is “in
the atonement” and the afffijirmation of the charismata, especially of tongues
speech, as identifijied in 1 Cor. 12, 14. This alliance with Fundamentalism,
Blumhofer concludes, was an acknowledgement that Pentecostalism was
less fluid than the fijirst generation had assumed. The second generation of
Pentecostals held that Pentecostal experience was not essential to Christian
faith but “an optional though desirable benefijits package.” This led to the
practical ramifijication that: “An increasing percentage of adherents never
proceeded from afffijirming the fundamentals to experiencing the Pentecostal

83 Ibid., 16.
84 Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 5.
85 Blumhofer, The Assemblies of God, vol. 2, 15.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 107

distinctives.”86 One could be a Pentecostal in belief but not in experience

and, in such a position, one would difffer only slightly from a Fundamentalist.
Key to Blumhofer’s argument that Pentecostals ought to be characterized as
“Fundamentalists with a diffference,” even beyond the explicit claims she
cites from Pentecostals that they were Fundamentalists, was that they
shared in the Fundamentalist antipathy toward modernism and largely
adopted their view of history.87
Kenneth Archer sees the relationship Pentecostals formed with
Fundamentalists during this time as involving a substantial change in their
hermeneutics. On his account, the paramodern approach of the early
Pentecostals was followed by this era in which they, often unwittingly,
adopted modern philosophical assumptions as they attempted to align
themselves with Fundamentalists in the 1920s and 1930s. This caused
Pentecostals to adopt common sense realist assumptions and to intermix
them with their supernatural worldview.88 He sees this as developing a
static view of truth among Pentecostals that rejected the claim that truth is
culturally derived. In this view, truth remains constant, reinforcing in them
the Protestant doctrines of the perspicuity of Scripture and the Western
philosophical tradition’s understanding of the immutability of truth. He
sees common sense realism’s practical and anti-elitist tendencies as appeal-
ing to Pentecostals.89
Though Blumhofer has demonstrated that many Pentecostals, and espe-
cially those in the A/G, considered themselves “Fundamentalists with a
diffference,” their self-assessment can be questioned. My own assessment is
that many Pentecostals were closely relating themselves to Fundamentalism,
especially during the 1920s and 1930s, while still remaining essentially dis-
tinct. It seems that Blumhofer actually implicitly afffijirms this approach in
her historical accounts, even if she takes them at their word. By consistently
showing how Pentecostals were  striving to relate to their conservative
Protestant brethren in the early- to mid-twentieth century – fijirst, to the
coalition of Fundamentalists and, later, to the coalition of Evangelicals –
she is implicitly demonstrating that Pentecostal identity lies primarily as its

86 Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 6.

87 Blumhofer, The Assemblies of God, vol. 2, 18.
88 I fijind these common sense realist tendencies already present in my account of the
original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic in Chapter Two.
89 Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the 21st Century: Spirit, Scripture and Community
(JPT Supplement 28; London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 37–40. Archer clearly sees
turns to Fundamentalist, common sense realist, and Evangelical hermeneutics by
Pentecostals as a mistake (see Chapter Five).
108 chapter three

own emerging tradition of Christian faith and that they were attempting to
prove themselves and adapt to the theological and hermeneutical stan-
dards of their conservative siblings. That Pentecostals were trying to be like
Fundamentalists or Evangelicals shows that they are, fijirst and foremost,
Pentecostals. Thus, it is best to conclude that while Pentecostals tended
toward Fundamentalism in the 1920s and 1930s, they are better interpreted
fijirst on their own terms and secondarily in their relationship to the
Fundamentalists.
In general, the Pentecostal afffijirmation of the “fundamentals” took place
because they allied themselves with the conservatives during the Fun-
damentalist-Modernist debates of the early twentieth century, and not
because the “fundamentals” themselves were the main focus of their own
theological agenda. Rather, Fundamentalism was understood as the default
form of conservative Protestant theology for Pentecostals as they were mak-
ing their fijirst forays into formal theology. Fundamentalism was its key early
dialogue partner, though the polemics of the era’s theology would hardly be
characterized as a friendly dialogue. Because of the rationality adopted by
Fundamentalists and Pentecostals alike, that of the Baconian and common
sense realist tradition, clear and distinct realities were supposed to be iden-
tifijiable and knowable by any seeker who was operating in proper condi-
tions and with the right moral and spiritual attitudes.90 Thus theological
diffference was the result of either being mistaken because of a malfunction
in circumstances producing knowledge, as in an error in logic, or, much
worse, because of a moral or spiritual error in one’s life. While the approach
to diffferences in theological beliefs among Pentecostals was not monolithic,
it generally worked out of the same intellectual milieu that produced
Fundamentalism’s better known intolerance toward theological revisions.
Yet this stands in tension with the original Classical Pentecostal’s herme-
neutic of openness to revision based on a charismatic and restorationist
ethos, even as it also explains Fundamentalist antipathy towards this
ethos. This openness, it turned out, did not mean doctrinal flexibility once

90 Marsden cites the Dispensationalist theologian Arthur T. Pierson’s comment as an

example of how this method was understood in Fundamentalist circles: “I like Biblical theol-
ogy that does not start with the superfijicial Aristotelian method of reason, that does not
begin with an hypothesis, and then warp the facts and the philosophy to fijit the crook of our
dogma, but a Baconian system, which fijirst gathers the teachings of the word of God, and
then seeks to deduce some general law upon which the facts can be arranged,” [Marsden,
Fundamentalism and American Culture, 55, cites Pierson, “The Coming of the Lord: The
Doctrinal Center of the Bible,” Addresses on the Second Coming of the Lord: Delivered at the
Prophetic Conference, Allegheny, Pa., December 3–6, 1895 (Pittsburgh: n.p., 1895), 82.].
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 109

doctrine was revised, since a function of the early Evangelical-Pentecostal

hermeneutic was to constrict this flexibility. Douglas Jacobsen character-
izes this situation as one which instigated the fragmentation of the
Pentecostal community:
In the early years of the movement, pentecostal believers often found it
impossible to separate what now appears to be relatively minor points of dif-
ference from major disagreements. Each new insight seemed to present itself
draped with eternal signifijicance. God was to be found in the smallest details
of the Christian life, and thus every nuance mattered. Even tiny shifts of
emphasis or expression could call forth a fijight (despite the fact that most pen-
tecostal believers also felt called to seek unity with their brothers and sisters
in the faith). Hence, theological creativity led to division, and division slowly
led to the institutionalization of doctrinal and denominational diffferences, so
much so that by the 1920s…pentecostals were no longer talking to each other.91
By accepting this form of rationality and its attendant certainty about their
rightness, Pentecostals were drinking from the same stream that led to
Fundamentalist certainty and, hence, division.
However, there was also continuity between Fundamentalism and
Pentecostalism, like their common afffijirmation of intuitions in their under-
lying epistemologies. Marsden notes that “Even Common Sense Realism,
although surely a foundation for empiricism, was based ultimately on an
appeal to pre-rational intuitions that left room for moral sentiments.”92
Further, there was continuity between the two in the view of Scripture as a
“compendium of facts” which could be known directly. This was substanti-
ated among Fundamentalists by their view of inerrancy where the super-
natural inspiration of Scripture made the natural element “so incidental,
that their view would have been little diffferent had they considered the
authors of Scripture to be simply secretaries.”93 This coincides with Spittler’s
characterization of the traditional Pentecostal view of Scripture as the
“sacred meteor” from heaven theory of inspiration and has led Spittler to
suggest that “If the word fundamentalism gets defijined only by biblical style,
Pentecostals can be labeled fundamentalists without question.” Spittler
goes on to claim that “what divides the two movements, however, outweighs
their similarities – at least in the eyes of each other.”94 I fijind that there is a
key diffference in the dynamic nature of Pentecostal theology in contrast to

91 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 354–355.

92 Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 56.
93 Ibid.
94 Spittler, “Are Pentecostals and Charismatics Fundamentalists?”, 106–107.
110 chapter three

the static nature of Fundamentalist theology, even though Pentecostals

often used the Fundamentalists’ words to articulate, for example, their own
high view of Scripture.
The continuity between Pentecostals and Fundamentalists on matters of
doctrine, biblical inspiration, and rationality is also contrasted by other dif-
ferences. In offfering eight theses as to why Pentecostals and Charismatics
are best identifijied separately from Fundamentalists, Spittler diffferentiates
Pentecostals from Fundamentalists in a manner in line with an understand-
ing of Pentecostalism as its own Christian tradition.95 While not a broad
Christian tradition during the 1920s through 1940s, Pentecostalism showed
signs of holding its own ground and constituting its own essence while still
falling under the influence of Fundamentalism.
And while many Pentecostals may have tried to assume that they were
Fundamentalists, they were not welcomed by them. This rejection was
solidifijied when the World’s Christian Fundamentalist Association offfijicially
offfered the following proclamation during its 1928 convention in Chicago:
WHEREAS, The Present wave of Modern Pentecostalism, often referred to as
the “tongues movement,” and the present wave of fanatical and unscriptural
healing which is sweeping over the country to-day [sic], has become a real
menace in many churches and a real injury to the sane testimony of

95 Ibid. Spittler argues that Pentecostalism was, like Fundamentalism and Neo-orthodoxy,
a response to the religious and cultural state of afffairs at the end of the nineteenth century.
But while Fundamentalism was an intellectual response, Pentecostalism distrusted such an
approach and instead focused on piety and religious experience. They were each a response
to the modernist coalition of scientism, religious liberalism and biblical criticism, the social
gospel and the theories of Darwin, Marx and Freud. “Fundamentalists sought to rectify
theological deviation. Pentecostals urged enhancement of personal religious experience.
Fundamentalists connected directly with the Christian intellectual tradition. Many
early Pentecostals, with restorationist inklings, wrote offf two millennia of Christian history”
(Ibid, 113).
While the Fundamentalists sought a common sense form of intellectual rigor, early
Pentecostals sought the Spirit’s calling and guidance alone for ministry and proclamation of
the gospel. This meant that Pentecostals favored a less trained ministry, usually citing 1 John
2:27: “the anointing which you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that
anyone should teach you.” Further, Spittler afffijirms the early Pentecostal hermeneutic’s
essential openness to revising doctrine, releasing traditional constraints, as “an excessive use
of biblical literalism” which has “yielded some curious theological deviations,” the foremost
being Oneness Pentecostalism. Bizarre theologies, he claims, arose among Pentecostals
because of the combination of this excessive literalism and self-imposed isolation from the
historic tradition of the church (Ibid, 111–113). This freedom for doctrinal innovation and
hermeneutical space both demonstrates the diffference between Pentecostalism and
Fundamentalism and offfers a reason for the former’s attraction to the latter. Pentecostals
sought to constrain their own doctrinal innovations by turning to the hermeneutic of its
conservative allies. This would be an uneasy relationship until a more accepting relationship
was found with Evangelicals in the early-1940s.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 111

Fundamental Christians, BE IT RESOLVED, That this convention go on record

as unreservedly opposed to Modern Pentecostalism, including the speaking in
unknown tongues, and the fanatical healing known as general healing in the
atonement, and the perpetuation of the miraculous sign-healing of Jesus and
His apostles, wherein the claim the only reason the church cannot perform
these miracles is because of unbelief.96
This was a statement that certainly hurt those Pentecostals who wanted to
see a closer alliance between the two movements.
Stanley H. Frodsham, editor of the Pentecostal Evangel, broke this news to
those in the A/G in his article “Disfellowshipped!” in the August 1928 issue.97
After relating to his audience the content of the above proclamation and
noting the commonality both movements had concerning their afffijirmation
of the Bible’s inspiration and “the fundamentals,” he offfered an apologetic
for distinctive Pentecostal beliefs. Healing in the atonement and tongues
are found in Scripture, he argues, just like the other fundamental beliefs. He
offfers an anecdote where a Pentecostal graciously responds to a defijiant
Fundamentalist who challenges the saint’s belief in healing. The Pentecostal
responds “I can only point you out the scriptures on the subject, but it will
have to be the Holy Spirit who will show you this truth.”98 Still, Frodsham
insists, there are Fundamentalists like R.A. Torrey who at least see and expe-
rience some of what we do.99 He then concludes with a call for a graceful
and loving response by Pentecostals.100

 96 “Report of the Tenth Annual Convention of the World’s Christian Fundamentalist

Association: Chicago, 13–20 May 1928,” Christian Fundamentalist 12 (1 June 1928): 3–10 cited in
Spittler, “Are Pentecostals and Charismatics Fundamentalists?” 109.
 
97 Stanley H. Frodsham, “Disfellowshipped!” The Pentecostal Evangel (18 August 1928): 7.
 
98 Ibid.
 
99 Torrey, however, distanced himself from Pentecostals. In another 1928 article in the
Pentecostal Evangel, M.M. McGraw gives a further example of Pentecostal response to their
rejection by the Fundamentalists. He afffijirms that Pentecostals stand with the
Fundamentalists together against the Modernist view of the Bible. Whereas Modernists
believe that “the Bible is only a literature of the time when it was written, and that it contains
many Jewish fables. Fundamentalists…believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible” [M.M.
McGraw, “Fundamentalism,” Pentecostal Evangel (27 October 1928): 3]. But, McGraw
claims, some Fundamentalists – those unlike Dr. Torrey who spoke of a baptism with the
Holy Spirit – hold that we are saved through “intellectual assent” to the essential Christian
doctrines. But, says McGraw, “we do not believe that we can be saved by any mental assent
to a dogmatic statement. There must be something which takes away the sin out of the life”
(Ibid.). Rather, he suggests that even though “a few Fundamentalist brethren have declared
the Pentecostal movement not of God,” we should not worry. Pentecostals are real “God-sent
Fundamentalists,” and this evidenced by holiness of life (Ibid.). McGraw exemplifijies the
Pentecostal desire to be accepted by Fundamentalists, their denial and hurt over rejection by
the Fundamentalists, and an apologetic for Pentecostalism based on experience with God
and holiness of life toward the Fundamentalists.
100 Frodsham recommends avoiding bitterness:
112 chapter three

Jacobsen offfers another set of reasons for rejecting considering Pente-

costalism as a type of Fundamentalism, for this identifijication “misinter-
prets both the genius and genesis of pentecostalism.”101 Still, Jacobsen
acknowledges their similarities and confluences. Both argued against the
devaluing of the supernatural and elevation of natural and human agents.
Both rejected higher criticism and approached the Bible with a literal her-
meneutic. Most from both camps agreed that the physical return of Christ
was near. And both decried the lax morals and hoped for a worldwide
revival of faith and holiness.102
However, Jacobsen fijinds essential diffferences between the two, espe-
cially on hermeneutical matters. First, while Fundamentalists believed in
the supernatural, they relegated supernatural events to the past, often to a
past dispensation. They notably held to cessationist positions. Pentecos-
tals,  on the other hand, afffijirmed present-day miracles, healing in the
atonement, and the contemporary presence of spiritual gifts. Second,
Fundamentalists held to a static and constant view of the God-world rela-
tionship, especially as they understood truth to have been delivered once
and for all in the Bible. Pentecostals, on the other hand, saw this relation-
ship in more dynamic terms. God was active in the world; his character was
constant, but his interactions were not. For Pentecostals, there was more
yet to be revealed beyond the bedrock of the Bible. Third, whereas
Fundamentalists were fervently defending what they saw as their theologi-
cal heritage, the Pentecostal stance toward creeds revealed a rejection of
traditional theology. The Pentecostal restorationist narrative saw their
movement as nearing the pinnacle of God’s end time work to restore

 “Although we Pentecostal people have to be without the camp, we cannot

affford to be bitter against those who do not see as we do. Our instructions
from the Throne are set forth clearly in Holy Writ, ‘This is His commandment, 
that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love
one another as He gave us commandment.’ So our business is to love these
Fundamentalists and unitedly pray, ‘Lord, bless them all,’ ” (Frodsham, “Dis-
fellowshipped!” 7).
According to William Menzies, this response in the Pentecostal Evangel “conveys the
wounded spirit of pentecostals. They allied themselves to the principles for which the funda-
mentalists had fought so ardently, desiring not to retaliate, but to hold out the olive branch
to fundamentalists, yearning for the day when they would no longer be spurned,” [William
Menzies, “The Non-Wesleyan Origins of the Pentecostal Movement,” in Aspects of Pentecostal-
Charismatic Origins, ed. Vinson Synan (Plainfijield, NJ: Logos International, 1975), 85].
101 Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit, 355.
102 Ibid., 355–356.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 113

“His Bride” before the Second Coming. This entailed a rejection of most of
the traditions of the church, even the Protestant tradition.103
The second point of Jacobsen’s characterization of Pentecostalism’s dif-
ference from Fundamentalism, the dynamism of Pentecostal theology, and
the third, its anti-creedalism, became key reasons for the rise of the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. Grounding Pentecostal theology in
individual interpretations of the perspicuous Bible did not keep deviant
and divisive interpretations from arising. Early on, with the writing of the
A/G’s Fundamental Truths, Pentecostals had already begun defijining and
defending their key doctrines, communally afffijirming them as biblical while
rejecting others as unbiblical. Further, they seemed to be looking for theo-
logical allies they could trust. But while Pentecostals found much to afffijirm
in Fundamentalism, they were only able to partially integrate the herme-
neutics of Fundamentalism into their own. The broader Evangelical tradi-
tion which was about to reemerge in a more moderate coalition was more
amenable.

3.3. Dispensationalism and Pentecostal Hermeneutics

Like Fundamentalism in general, the theological movement advocated by
many Fundamentalists known as Dispensationalism came to have an
uneasy relationship with Pentecostalism among second and even third gen-
eration Pentecostals. Dispensationalism held that God dealt with human-
kind diffferently during diffferent dispensations or eras. It was closely linked
to the revival of premillennialism through the Scotsman John Nelson
Darby’s biblical commentaries (beginning in the 1830s), through the publi-
cation of C.I. Scofijield’s Scofijield Reference Bible (1909), and in the prophecy
conferences which took place in New York City and then in Niagara, Ontario
in the latter half of the nineteenth century.104
From the 1930s until the 1980s, peaking in the 1950s, Dispensationalism
gained an audience among American Pentecostals, especially in the
A/G, which came under more of the influence of Fundamentalism than
the other Pentecostal fellowships.105 According to French Arrington, the

103 Ibid., 355–359.
104 See French L. Arrington, “Dispensationalism,” in DIPCM, 247–248.
105 Gerald T. Sheppard, “Pentecostals and the Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism: The
Anatomy of an Uneasy Relationship,” PNEUMA 6 (1984), 5–34. Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith,
180–202.
114 chapter three

hermeneutical importance of Dispensationalism for second and third

generation Pentecostal theology was signifijicant:
Dispensationalism is not simply a theological construct. It is a system that
proposed a hermeneutical model and a system with specifijic interpretative
presuppositions that aid in theological defijinition. Foremost is the presupposi-
tion that revelation is confijined to each age and that the revelation given in
any age has no signifijicance for either prior or antecedent ages…Dispen-
sationalism has influenced Pentecostal theology, but the earliest Pentecostal
teachings were not tied directly to dispenationalism.106
The narrative of the Latter Rain had itself difffered from Dispensationalism.
While they both shared a premillennialist vision and were intensely inter-
ested in eschatology, their narratives diverged in the relation of ecclesiology
to eschatology. A key tenet of Dispensationalism was its clear separation of
biblical texts which were applicable to national Israel and those which con-
cerned the Church. This led Dispensationalists to reject Pentecostals’ appli-
cation of prophetic texts like Joel 2:28–29 to the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit on the Church on the day of Pentecost (“the Early Rain”) and in the
current Pentecostal outpouring (“the Latter Rain”) as a misapplication of
the biblical text. Further, the Pentecostal experience of charismatic gifts
was clearly a fabrication – or worse, demonic – to Dispensationalists since
those gifts were for the apostolic age of the church. As Gerald Sheppard
states, “the practical consequence for this wedding of literal interpretation
and a segregation between earthly and heavenly promises is that [for
Dispensationalism] none of the OT and much of Jesus’ teaching about a
kingdom lacks literal signifijicance for the Church age.”107 Thus Dispen-
sationalism and Pentecostalism were clearly at odds over the relationship
between ecclesiology and eschatology as a result of their diffferences over
the applicability of the biblical texts. Nevertheless, many Pentecostals,
especially in the A/G, were signifijicantly influenced by Dispensationalism.
While Gerald Sheppard has argued that this was motivated by “the attempt
by Pentecostals to fijind acceptance and legitimation from the dispensation-
alist-fundamentalists,”108 French Arrington has suggested that it stemmed
from Pentecostal identifijication as an eschatological people and their inter-
est in a “comprehensive, systematic approach to eschatology.”109 Both
note the problematic ramifijications for Pentecostal hermeneutics and

106 Arrington, “Dispensationalism,” 247.

107 Sheppard, “Pentecostals and the Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism,” 7.
108 Ibid., 5.
109 Arrington, “Hermeneutics,” 385.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 115

ecclesiology. Sheppard has chronicled attempts by Pentecostal theologians

Myer Pearlman, Ralph Riggs, P.C. Nelson, Ernest Swing Williams, and Frank
Boyd, all of whom were A/G leaders, to reconcile aspects of the Dis-
pensational system with Pentecostal beliefs from the 1930s to the 1950s. His
fijindings shows a development from early attempts to integrate Pentecostal
theology and Dispensationalism which failed to reconcile implicit contra-
dictions to later effforts which gave up elements of either Pentecostal doc-
trines or Dispensational categories in order to do so.110

110 Sheppard fijinds Myer Pearlman’s use of Dispensationalist and Pentecostals categories

in Knowing the Doctrines of the Bible (1937) to have been inconsistent. Whereas Pearlman
applied Dispensational categories and hermeneutics to his eschatology, he did not do so in
his ecclesiology (Sheppard, “Pentecostals and the Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism,
12–15).
Ernest Swing Williams, in his Systematic Theology (1953), did likewise, explicitly rejecting
the Dispensationalist distinction between Israel and the Church yet following
Dispensationalism in advocating for a version of a pretributlational premillennial eschatol-
ogy (Ibid., 18–20).
Sheppard sees P.C. Nelson, in his Bible Doctrines (1948), as having perceived only a very
limited set of hermeneutical and eschatological alternatives on account of what he under-
stood as the “plain” reading of these biblical texts. See below for what was Nelson’s apparent
reliance on Eric Lund’s method for interpreting the Bible in a manner such that he consid-
ered it to be its “plain meaning.” While Nelson assumed a number of claims from a
Dispensational premillennialism to be plainly true, he nevertheless argued against, on the
one hand, posttribulational readings of the biblical texts, and, on the other hand,
Dispensational implications on ecclesiology on the basis of what Scripture “plainly taught”
(Ibid., 16–17).
Ralph Riggs progressed from, in an earlier work entitled The Path of Prophecy (1937), fail-
ing to deal with the problematic dichotomy between eschatology and ecclesiology in follow-
ing the Dispensationalist system, to, in Dispensational Studies (1948), moving toward a con-
ventional Dispensational position while rejecting its ecclesiology “in several overt and
crucial ways” (Ibid., 17). Riggs refuses a sharp separation of Israel and the Church in God’s
economy of salvation. Rather, he uses an illustrative analogy to paint this relationship.
Whereas Israel was the national people of God, the Church is the international. This leads
Sheppard to conclude that his “assessment is at variance with the entire nature of a dispen-
sational hermeneutical system” (Ibid., 18). And, like Nelson, Riggs considered his interpreta-
tions as the obvious readings of Scripture (Ibid., 15, 17–18).
Finally, Sheppard analyzes Frank Boyd’s Ages and Dispensations (1955) to be the work
which most closely drew Pentecostal theology into the Dispensationalist system. Boyd came
to compartmentalize the Bible, distinguishing between sections which applied to Israel and
others to the Church. In doing so, he rejected “ultra-dispensational” teaching which left only
limited New Testament passages in application for the Church and, instead, more generously
appropriated texts to the current dispensation. Boyd worked out some of the problems
latent in these other texts by more carefully delineating which biblical texts referred to Israel
and to the Church so that he could defend his position as both a Dispensationalist and a
Pentecostal (Ibid., 20–22).
Sheppard summarizes his assessment of the use of Dispensationalist hermeneutics by
Pentecostals:
“This reading of Scripture lacked investment in the ‘system’ considered essential
for dispensationalists and remained a pragmatic and intuitive interpretation within
116 chapter three

Doctrinally, Dispensationalism’s influence on Pentecostalism was thus

largely limited to aspects of its eschatology. The consequences of
Dispensational hermeneutics were not allowed to permeate other loci of
Pentecostal theology, though its logic undoubtedly afffected the narratives
of history among the Pentecostal theologians who tried to embrace it
for their eschatologies. Instead of letting Dispensational hermeneutics
permeate their theologies, Pentecostal theologians tended to choose
which aspects of the system they were willing to adopt and to reject those
which contradicted Pentecostal doctrines. These Pentecostal theologians,
with the exception of Boyd, relied more heavily on their Pentecostal doctri-
nal stances than they did on the assumptions of the Dispensational system;
otherwise, they would have corrected the inconsistencies between the two
by adapting their doctrine to Dispensational hermeneutics rather than the
other way around. Further, interest in Dispensationalism was primarily in
the predominately white and Baptistic realm of the A/G and not in the
Holiness or African-American wings of American Pentecostalism. And even
in the A/G, the late-1940s and 1950s saw the revival of the Latter Rain motif
as a “remnant” sought to reinvigorate the urgency of early Pentecostalism
against the stabilization and institutionalization of the movement, although
by that time the eschatological urgency focused on the outpouring of
prophetic and charismatic gifts rather than missionary tongues.111 These
factors may have contributed to the inability of a modifijied form of Dispen-
sationalism to come to dominance in Pentecostal theology, even if its efffects
were lasting enough that Sheppard’s motivations in his 1984 article appear
to be, in part, to argue against the influence Dispensationalism still had on
the contemporary Pentecostal theological scene.

4. The Emergence of “Pentecostal Scholasticism”

Beyond the influence of Fundamentalism on second generation

Pentecostals, Jacobsen has claimed that a number of Pentecostal theolo-
gians of that generation should be considered “Pentecostal Scholastics” on
account of their utilization of the models of nineteenth century orthodox

the poverty of popular theological perspectives regarding the future hope of spirit-
fijilled believers. With the exception of some later, more consistently dispensational
exposition, like that of F.M. Boyd, these Pentecostal readings remain problematic
because they depend primarily on an intuitive-contextual defense of a doctrine which
was only necessitated by a particular system for interpreting Scripture” (Ibid., 22).
111 See Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 203–221.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 117

and conservative American Protestant Scholastic theology.112 Figures he

points to include Pearlman and Ernest Swing Williams, the two most prom-
inent, along with Boyd, Carl Brumback, Nelson, and Riggs.113 Both Williams
and Riggs served as the general superintendent of the A/G, the fellowship’s
highest offfijice, Williams for the length of two decades, 1929–1949.
According to Jacobsen, the years 1930 to 1955 form “a distinct period in
the history of Pentecostal theology in general and especially within the his-
tory of the Assemblies of God church.”114 Pentecostals provided their initial
attempts at systematically articulating the entirety of Christian doctrines
during these years. These theologies were written as textbooks to instruct
second-generation Pentecostals who were strong on knowing God’s prom-
ises and commands but weak on doctrine.115 It also coincided with the rise
of Bible institutes for the training of ministers in the Pentecostal
movement:116
As the Pentecostal movement softened the millennial immediacy of its early
leaders and settled into an expectation of continued life on this planet, sec-
ond-generation Pentecostal leaders sought to domesticate, codify, and com-
plete (and, in the process, also modify) the creative, but also varied and
sometimes strange, theological legacy handed down by the movement’s
founders.117
Jacobsen, more generally, though, places the rise of this methodological
school in the larger pattern among new religious movements where an ini-
tial period of creativity is followed by a period of consolidation. However,
he fijinds at least one key diffference in the case of Pentecostal Scholastics’
consolidation of the new Pentecostal insights. Rather than, as in the usual
pattern, narrowing and rigidifying the founding insights of a religious move-
ment, these second generation Pentecostals “sought to temper the more

112 Douglas Jacobsen, “Knowing the Doctrines of Pentecostals: The Scholastic Theology of

the Assemblies of God, 1930–1955,” in Pentecostal Currents in American Protestantism, Edith
L. Blumhofer, Russell P. Spittler and Grant A. Wacker, eds. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois
Press, 1999), 90–107.
113 Ibid., 91.
114 Ibid., 90.
115 Ibid., 92. Jacobsen recalls the Canadian Pentecostal evangelist A.G. Ward on this delin-
eation of Pentecostal fervency toward God’s promises and commands and laxity on doctrine
[Ibid. cites Ward, The Whirlwind Prophet and Other Sermons (Springfijield, MO: Gospel
Publishing House, 1927), 81–82].
116 For background on the rise of Bible institutes, then Bible colleges and liberal arts col-
leges and universities among Pentecostals, see L.F. Wilson, “Bible Institutes, Colleges,
Universities,” in DIPCM, 57–65.
117 Jacobsen, “Knowing the Doctrines of Pentecostals,” 90.
118 chapter three

radical claims of the movement’s varied ‘founders’ and to reframe the dis-
tinctive beliefs of Pentecostals in the light of their compatibility with and
place in the longer, larger, and broader ‘catholic’ Christian tradition. The
resultant theology was surprisingly moderate in tone and content.”118 Thus
some of what Jacobsen labeled “Pentecostal Scholasticism,” especially in
Williams’ Systematic Theology, also provided an early impetus for more
irenic and ecumenical values which would provide the thrust for the
ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic (see Chapter Six). These Pentecostal
Scholastics were, on the whole, quite influential in forming the mid-century
Pentecostal manner of theological interpretation. Pearlman, in particular,
was of profound influence. This is so to the degree that Russell Spittler has
noted that “through the later 1930s and into the 1950s – much longer in
many places – Pearlman’s Knowing the Doctrines and a well-marked copy of
the Scofijield Reference Bible in the King James Version were the twin staples
for serious Pentecostal students, lay or clergy.”119 However, before examin-
ing Pearlman’s hermeneutics, an important textbook on hermeneutics used
in Pentecostal circles will be examined which, despite having been written
by a Pietist, drew Pentecostal theological hermeneutics toward a more for-
mal Protestant hermeneutic.

4.1. P.C. Nelson’s Translation of Eric Lund’s Hermeneutics: Common Sense

Grammatical Biblical Hermeneutics
P.C. Nelson’s translation from Spanish to English of a textbook on herme-
neutics produced by Eric Lund, a Swedish Pietist missionary to Spain,
became a commonly used textbook on biblical interpretation in the
Pentecostal Bible schools of the 1930s and following. This translation was
published by the Southwestern Press, an afffijiliate of an A/G Bible school
then in Edin, Oklahoma, and came to influence the understanding of a
segment of second generation Pentecostals.120
In Lund’s method, interpretation was a matter of discovering the mean-
ing of individual Scriptural texts in order to prepare for their systematic
organization and application. Despite his assumption that the meaning of

118 Ibid., 91.
119 Russell P. Spittler, “Theological Style Among Pentecostals and Charismatics,” in Doing
Theology in Today’s World, ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991), 297.
120 Gary B. McGee, “The Pentecostal Movement and Assemblies of God Theology:
Development and Preservation Since 1914,” A/G Heritage (Spring 1994), 25.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 119

the biblical texts was plain when understood in proper context, his philo-
sophical, historical and systematic judgments can readily be seen to influ-
ence the exegesis and organization of texts in his own examples. He
considered hermeneutics as important because it produced exegetical the-
ology and guarded against theological errors.121 And the dangers of failing
to learn the proper principles of hermeneutics were serious:
Those who are unlearned in hermeneutical knowledge present themselves as
learned, twisting the Scriptures to prove their errors, dragging others with
them to perdition… Such unlearned men, pretending to be learned, have
always developed into heresiarchs, or errorists, from the false prophets of
ancient times to the Papists of the Christian era, and the Eddyists and
Russelites of today.122
Rather, proper interpretation comes from understanding the contexts in
which the Scriptures were written. This includes the recognition of difffer-
ent authors and genres, the diffferent eras in which they were written, and
the diffferent locales and their attendant expressions, customs and sym-
bols.123 Yet proper interpretation also necessitates a disposition profijitable
for Scripture study. This includes a respectful and teachable spirit, a love for
the truth, patience in study, and the prudence to begin with the simpler
things and then move on to the more difffijicult.124
Beyond preparing the student’s spirit for biblical interpretation, Lund
focuses most of the rest of his effforts on teaching the student to properly
understand the “biblical language,” that is, the meaning of the words in
Scripture.125 So he advocates the investigation of the meaning of a text
grammatically, through the proper understanding of individual words, as

121 Eric Lund, Hermeneutics: Or the Science and Art of Interpreting the Bible, 2nd ed., trans.
P.C. Nelson, (Enid, OK: Southwestern Press, 1938). The fijirst edition of Nelson’s translation of
Lund’s Hermeneutics was published in 1934.
122 Ibid., 11.
123 Ibid., 14.
124 Ibid., 18–23.
125 Lund thus puts forth nine general observations about that language. First, it is divinely
inspired. Second, as a result, “we may expect with reason that the Bible will speak with sim-
plicity and clearness” (Ibid., 25). Third, in all parts of it, God’s salvation is spoken. Fourth, like
other books, certain parts are only able to be understood with explanation. Fifth, only in
these difffijicult cases, and not in the simpler and clear ones, are the “counsels of Hermeneutics”
needed to produce fruitful studies and correct interpretations. Sixth, as in any complex
document, if possible, we would desire to ask the author for clarifijications. Seventh, if the
meaning of the word is still not understood, then we need to look at the other words imme-
diately surrounding it in the text and to their relations. Eighth, if it is still not understood,
then the surrounding narration should be investigated. And fijinally, if still not, then it should
be looked at in light of other portions of the document (Ibid., 25–29).
120 chapter three

they clearly refer to their common sense referents, then as they relate to one
another, all the way to the entirety of the text itself. In doing so, he claims
that this makes the document its own interpreter: “In short and by all means
we would labor in such a way that the document would be its own inter-
preter…the procedure indicated apart from being the most natural and
simple is the most proper and sure.”126 Beyond his giving attention to the
spiritual disposition of the interpreter, Lund does not account for the read-
er’s situation in interpreting the text.127
In order to safeguard against the forming of improper doctrines, and so
that Scripture is not interpreted for the establishing of our own whims, “a
doctrine cannot be considered entirely biblical before we include and
embrace all that the Scriptures say about it.”128 This is the principle for theo-
logical method with which all other hermeneutical rules are to fall in line.129

126 Ibid., 28. This is Lund’s “Fundamental Rule” for hermeneutics: “In any document of
importance in which obscure points are found we should try to let the same be its own inter-
preter. In relation to the Bible the procedure indicated is not only convenient and very easy,
but absolutely necessary and indispensable” (Ibid, 30). We ought to, he claims, seek to under-
stand, as far as it is possible, “Scripture explained by Scripture, that is the Bible its own inter-
preter” (Ibid.).
127 Recalling that the devil was the fijirst interpreter of Scripture, Lund warns that we
ought to be careful not to stumble in falsifying the sense of God’s word as the devil had done
in the garden (Ibid., 31.).
128 Ibid., 33.
129 Lund’s fijive other rules are, fijirst, “it is necessary, so far as possible, to take the words in
their usual and ordinary sense” (Ibid., 35). He claims that this ought to constitute the fijirst
care in interpretation, for allegorical interpretations lead to errors. But the ordinary sense is
not always equivalent to the literal sense, as he understands it. And he seems to understand
the literal sense in terms of the non-fijigurative or non-metaphorical usage of a word. Rather,
it is the interpreter’s duty to take these words and phrases in their “ordinary and natural
sense (which) does not signify that they must always be taken in a literal way” (Ibid., 36).
Instead, the use of idioms, fijigurative language, similes, parables and other symbolic expres-
sions – a number of which he comes to call “Hebraisms” – do not legitimize a spiritual sense
to Scripture. Only the “ordinary and natural sense” is valid. The second through fijifth rules
move from the simple unit of a single word further out to wider contexts in the Scriptural
text.
The second states that “it is very necessary to take the words in the sense which the setting
of the phrase indicates” (Ibid., 40). The third fijinds that it is necessary to take the words in the
context of the verses which precede and follow the text at hand. This stage of context, he
teaches, is often determinative of whether an expression is to be taken in a literal or fijigura-
tive sense (Ibid., 49). The fourth rule holds that “it is necessary to take into consideration the
object or design of the book or passage in which obscure words or expressions occur”
(Ibid., 53). Thus, rather than beginning with an understanding of a biblical book and work
toward understanding the meaning of a specifijic passage or specifijic words, he prescribes
beginning with the units of individual words and then moving out to the meaning of books.
Fifth and fijinally, “it is necessary to consult parallel passages”(Ibid., 61). Parallel passages, for
Lund, are those which reference another whether in regard to a specifijic situation or to sub-
ject matter. “It is necessary to appeal to such parallels not only to clear up specifijic obscure
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 121

Lund does not seem to contemplate that he might be implicitly conceding

that previous judgments about the meaning of other biblical texts do
influence the exegesis of the text at hand. Sheppard has well described this
textbook as a “ ‘pre-critical’ primer on contextual interpretation, aided by
some detailed attention to the use of rhetorical devices within Scripture.”130
As such, its reception and use among Pentecostals exemplifijies the move-
ment toward more formally justifying their doctrines as “biblical,” through
Scriptural exegesis and organization in the methodology of Protestant
Scholasticism, although with the devotional, practical and pre-critical ori-
entation shared by Pietists and early- to mid-twentieth century Pentecostals.

4.2. Myer Pearlman: Organizing and Delineating Pentecostal Doctrine

Myer Pearlman (1898–1943), a Scottish Jew who converted to Pentecost-
alism, was the most influential Pentecostal theologian of this second gen-
eration.131 He came under the influence of Kerr at several Bible schools.132
He became a prolifijic writer and teacher over the next two decades, publish-
ing three book-length works: Seeing the Story of the Bible (1930), Through the
Bible Book by Book, 4 vols. (1935), and, most importantly, Knowing the
Doctrines of the Bible (1937). He also wrote an extensive amount of materials
for use in A/G Sunday Schools, and over 200 articles in the denominational

passages, but also to attempt to acquire exact biblical knowledge in regard to Christian doc-
trines and practices”( Ibid.). Because of the importance that parallel passages bring about for
corroborating interpretations, he spends time illustrating for his students these parallels in
three categories: parallels in words, in ideas and in general teachings, (Ibid., 61–80). The rest
of Lund’s Hermeneutics is a study guide for the identifijication of various symbolic uses of
language in Scripture in various classifijications such as “rhetorical fijigures,” “Hebraisms,” and
“symbolic words” (Ibid., 77–136).
130 Sheppard, “Pentecostals and the Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism,” 17. Sheppard
notes that Lund uses and recommends numerous Lutheran, Reformed and even modernistic
sources on biblical interpretation, yet he ignores Dispensationalism and makes no mention
of the widely read Scofijield Reference Bible.
131 Born in Edinburgh, Pearlman immigrated to the United States in his youth, fijirst to
New York City and then to San Francisco. He was converted at a Pentecostal mission in San
Francisco as the culmination of a spiritual quest [Myer Pearlman, “My Journey to the
Unknown Sanctuary,” The Pentecostal Evangel (31 July 1943), 1, 7].
132 Pearlman followed Kerr, who had been instrumental in starting Pacifijic Bible
Missionary and Training School in San Francisco (soon to become Bethany Bible College),
which he attended for a time, to Southern California as Kerr started another Bible institute
there, before eventually following Kerr to Central Bible Institute in Springfijield, MO. Upon
completing his course of study there he was asked by Boyd in 1925, who was leading the
faculty at the time, to begin teaching there. He did so until his death in 1943 (Wilson, “Kerr-
Peirce Role,” 21).
122 chapter three

publication, The Pentecostal Evangel.133 Knowing the Doctrines would

become the major theological text for the A/G in this era, and the leading
textbook at Pentecostal Bible schools. His theological contribution might
have been larger had he not died abruptly at the height of his abilities and
influence.134
Pearlman was enthusiastically received as a teacher in the Pentecostal
world. His articulation of Pentecostal doctrines became standard in the
A/G, and he became the theological authority for the fellowship’s Christian
education ministry. While somewhat knowledgeable of other theological
views, Pearlman spoke the language of Pentecostals. And even though he
defended the term “theology,” he saw his task as teaching proper “doctrine,”
a term with which Pentecostals were considerably more comfortable. This
was because doctrine was considered to reflect that which was simply
drawn out from the Bible’s meaning rather than (as theology was) the result
of “man-made” systems. In the manner of good Pentecostal sermons, his
writings are fijilled with quotes and anecdotes to illustrate his points, though
it is questionable whether the use of many of these, if taken in their wider
context, manifested the likely meaning of their authors.135 While he
repeated various insightful quotes and interesting anecdotes to illustrate
his points, he did not seem to often have been aware of their exact origin or
context, fijinding meaning in these words that fijit his own doctrinal or apolo-
getic agenda.
A subtle but important move in Pearlman’s hermeneutic was
the change made in the Pentecostal narrative of history. Rather than
following the motif of the Latter Rain, he allowed a broader narrative to

133 The electronic archive of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC) shows 216
articles written by Pearlman in The Pentecostal Evangel beginning in 1925, including a score
of articles which were summaries of his teaching published posthumously into the 1960s
(www.ipfhc.org; accessed 22 March 2007). Pearlman published elsewhere in Pentecostal
periodicals, especially also in The Latter Rain Evangel. The vast majority of articles by
Pearlman are expositions of biblical texts, usually focusing on the Hebrew Scriptures since
he was valued by other Pentecostals for the Jewish background he could provide to them.
134 Pearlman died from a streptococcus infection which followed a nervous breakdown,
probably the result of exhaustion, at the conclusion of the 1942–1943 school year [“Myer
Pearlman is with Christ,” The Pentecostal Evangel (31 July 1943): 1]. See also the note attached
to Pearlman, “Message and Power of the Old Testament Prophets,” The Pentecostal Evangel (5
February 1944): 2–3.
135 For instance, Pearlman quotes Kant and gives an anecdote about Hegel in support of
his own understanding of the Bible’s role as a revelation of God beyond human reason,
[Pearlman, Knowing the Doctrines of the Bible (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House,
1937), 17–18]. It is doubtful that Kant and Hegel could have meant what Pearlman interpreted
them to have meant.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 123

develop which informed his interpretation of the biblical texts, the world,
and his own life experiences. In Seeing the Story of the Bible, he provides an
explanation of the overarching narrative in the Scriptures – the redemption
of humankind through a divinely appointed savior:136
It appears to be a library rather than one book…But as we read the Bible
repeatedly and study it carefully, and as we penetrate below the surface
and observe the unifying forces there, we discover that through the many
stories and variegated subject matter of the Scriptures there runs one
outstanding story and one predominant theme – The Redemption of Mankind
Through a Divinely Appointed Saviour; and that all the human authors were

136 Pearlman, Seeing the Story of the Bible (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House,
1930), is an overview of biblical history in which Pearlman provides historical outlines of
periods of history to aid teachers and students in understanding biblical texts. His biblical
history is formulated along the traditional lines of interpretation in regard to authorship,
dating, and authenticity of the biblical texts. Little to no attention is given to arguing these
historical claims. Though he occasionally does draw moral points from the biblical narra-
tives, he is quick to point to and argue for the primacy of the great narrative of redemption
that is the story of the Bible. For instance, he seeks to persuade his readers of the secondary
nature of the moral lessons from the life of the Patriarch Joseph and that the primary
purpose of this story is the preservation of the chosen people who bear Abraham’s seed:
“the beautiful story of Joseph was not written to entertain, nor even primarily to impart the
moral lessons which it contains, but to indicate the part Joseph played in God’s plan of
redemption – to preserve the chosen family from which the chosen nation was to come”
(Ibid., 32).
Pearlman’s ability to connect the Hebrew Scriptures and all of history to Pentecostal
thought was a signifijicant aspect of his contribution to Pentecostal hermeneutics, turning
attention to the historical context of the Old Testament. He also sees the context for the his-
tory of the New Testament around the theme of redemption so that these events came about
“in the fullness of time.” Conditions provided a readiness for the reception of the gospel. The
moderation of Pentecostal and revivalist themes in order to emphasize traditional Protestant
concerns can be seen in his approach to Acts. Though he devotes an entire chapter of Seeing
the Story to Acts (the two other books which receive an entire chapter to themselves are
Genesis and Revelation), he offfers no articulation of the doctrine of the baptism in the Holy
Spirit in it, nor does it appear at all in this entire book, though Pearlman does quote the usual
proof text of Acts 1:8 in full and, in a fijigure illustrating this verse, show the sun shining down
and pouring out upon Jews (Acts 2:4), Samaritans (Acts 8:14-17), and Gentiles (Acts 10:44-48)
for world evangelization, building a bridge (as the fijigure illustrates) between the Jewish and
Gentile churches (Ibid., 98–99).
He is also quick to historically ground the Book of Revelation. Rather than immediately
apply the book to futuristic eschatology – which he does shortly – he fijirst reminds his read-
ers of the book’s immediate context, the context of persecution: “The books of the New
Testament were written fijirst of all to meet an immediate need of people living in the fijirst age
of Christianity, and also to convey a message to Christians of all time…In order fully to appre-
ciate and understand the message of Revelation let us see what crisis in the experience of the
early church called forth the inspired prophecy” (Ibid., 113–114). Yet Pearlman’s interpreta-
tion of Revelation was not primarily preterist but futurist, providing a pretribulational,
premillennial interpretation of it. Though he makes no efffort to argue for his interpretations,
it is clear in his tone and citation of Scriptural texts that, throughout, he considers them to
be the proper ones.
124 chapter three

under the direction of one Author – the Holy Spirit…Here we have a feature
that makes the Bible so diffferent from the sacred books of other religions: it
has one predominant theme and a consistent plan running through it from
the fijirst to the last book.137
Pearlman attests, then, that the salvation of the race “does not depend upon
a cold, formal system of ethics or philosophy, the product of careful, calcu-
lating reasonings of scholars.” It is, rather, this “gripping story that has never
failed.”138 This overarching narrative is the guiding hermeneutical key
which the interpretation of Scripture is built around in his theology. In the
writing of Scripture, the human authors did not apprehend the full purpose
and details of this great narrative, nor did the human actors involved in
these dramas understand their roles, yet the great Author did. Thus all
Scripture points to Christ and his redemptive work; like an electro-magnet,
it draws all Scripture to himself as the center of their unity.139
In Knowing the Doctrines, he argues that since experience cannot deter-
mine God’s purposes in the world because history proves that this results in
a variety of conclusions or no conclusion at all, then Scripture is the place
to start for knowledge of God. Through philosophy, one cannot arrive at
truth about God. Instead, God must provide a revelation. “Truths that tell
man how to pass from earth to heaven, must be sent down from heaven to
earth,” he argues.140 Yet, in line with the Protestant heritage of considering
God’s “two books,” he afffijirms that “Nature” is in fact “a revelation of God
that may be grasped by reason”:141
Nature indeed reveals His existence, power and wisdom, but it tells of no way
of pardon, provides no escape from sin and its consequences, supplies no
incentive to holiness and contains no revelation of the future. We leave God’s

137 Ibid., 9–10.
138 Ibid., 10.
139 Ibid., 13–14.
140 Pearlman, Knowing the Doctrines, 17.
141 Ibid. Pearlman offfered his readers fijive arguments for the existence of God from natu-
ral theology: cosmological, teleological, anthropological/moral, from providence in history,
and from the universality of the religious impulse. In most of these arguments he used the
standard logic of natural theology as it was commonly articulated in post-Enlightenment
Christian theology. Though it is unclear as to how directly or indirectly he heard these argu-
ments from the works of Joseph Butler, William Paley or other advocates of natural theology,
the forms in which he expresses these arguments are in general harmony with them. His
articulation of the teleological argument, for example, specifijically uses the analogy of a
watch, in line with Paley’s famous analogy (Ibid., 33–46).
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 125

fijirst book – Nature – and go to God’s other Book – the Bible, where we fijind
God’s revelation concerning these matters.142
So he upholds the “inspiration” of Scripture as the supernatural influence of
the Holy Spirit on the authors of the biblical texts so that they wrote divine
truth without error, going to pains to diffferentiate “inspiration” from “illu-
mination.” While the Bible is the “inspired” revelation of God, Bible doc-
trines – and even creeds, though he sympathizes with criticisms of their
often cumbersome nature – are the result of “illumination,” that is, “the
influence of the Holy Spirit, common to all Christians, which influence
helps them to grasp the things of God.”143 “Inspiration” is then a unique and
intermittent state where a human is used of the Holy Spirit. “Illumination”
is, at least possibly, a permanent state where one may have understanding
and insight into the things of God but it generally has greater or lesser
degrees. “Inspiration” is an all or nothing afffair.
Pearlman was also concerned to defend his view of “inspiration” from the
view that it means something mechanical like passive dictation.144 The
inner workings of this divine and human cooperation is, on his view, beyond
observation and knowledge, though this blending of divine and human
authorships ends up being heavy on the divine. While the Bible has many
authors and actors, in a more important sense there is but one Author and
Actor in Scripture. Thus he afffijirmed both the original context of the
Scriptures, as he understood biblical history, and a role for it as the timeless
Word of God which explains God’s plan of redemption for all times.
Pearlman’s view of Scripture also considered the plenary inspiration of
Scripture to entail that the Bible does not merely contain the Word of God
but is the Word of God. This is true to the extent that the Bible is preserved
from error in history, science or chronology – in all matters. The problem,
he suggests, with holding to anything short of the “complete inspiration” of
Scripture is that it plunges one into uncertainty as to judgments about what
is essential to salvation and thus part of the Word of God in Scripture, and
what is not. Further, he argues that the doctrines of the Bible cannot be true

142 Ibid., 12.
143 Ibid., 21.
144 Pearlman explains that, “God did not speak through man as one would speak through
a megaphone; His Divine Spirit used their faculties, so producing a perfectly Divine message
which bore the marks of their individuality. It is the word of the Lord and yet in a sense, the
word of Moses, or of Isaiah, or of Paul” (Ibid., 23).
126 chapter three

if biblical history is not also true. So plenary inspiration then means that
the Bible is, “verbally,” and not just “conceptually,” inspired. The actual indi-
vidual words are essential in revealing God. One cannot separate concepts
from words, he argues, and single words are, in actuality, the basis for
weighty doctrines.145
Pearlman sees his theological method as moving from proper interpreta-
tion of Scriptural texts to organizing them in a topical or systematic manner
in order to produce doctrine, that is, right “biblical” teaching. This approach
to methodology is at the essence of what constitutes the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic. In Knowing the Doctrines, he articulates his
understanding of this process to his students:
Christian doctrine (the word “doctrine” means literally “teaching” or “instruc-
tion”) may be defijined as the fundamental truths of the Bible arranged in sys-
tematic form. This study is also commonly called theology, which means
literally “a treatise or reasoned discourse about God.” (The two terms will be
used interchangeably in this section.) Theology or doctrine may be described
as the science which deals with our knowledge of God and His relations to
man. It treats all things in so far as they are related to God and the Divine
purposes. Why do we describe theology or doctrine as a “science”? Science is
the systematic and logical arrangement of certifijied facts. Theology is called a
science because it consists of facts relating to God and Divine things, pre-
sented in an orderly and logical manner.146

145 Ibid., 17–25. Pearlman gives the following reasons for his belief in the Bible’s inspira-
tion, providing his readers with an apologetic for it: First, they claim to be inspired. Second,
they “appear” to be inspired on account of the integrity of their authors, the sublimity of
their contents, the lasting power of their influence, and the authoritative role even other
religions and cults have ascribed to them. He goes on to give a litany of afffijirmations of the
biblical text, including those of their accuracy, unity, depth of wisdom, the Bible’s circulation
and numerous translations throughout history, its timelessness, its preservation despite per-
secution, and its many fulfijilled prophecies. Third, the Scriptures are “felt” to be inspired. By
this, Pearlman seems to mean something more inner and afffective than the second reason
which seems to be predominantly external and observable. He rejects what he takes to be
the Roman Catholic position that the Scriptures depend on the testimony of the Church. He
turns, instead, to John Calvin, quoting him to say that it is the inner witness of the Spirit
which is the only adequate witness. Scripture is its own evidence as the Holy Spirit gives the
believer confijidence in God’s Word (Ibid., 25–28). Finally, he suggests that “the best argument
is the practical one. The Bible has worked. It has influenced civilization, transformed lives,
brought light, inspiration and comfort to millions. And its work continues” (Ibid., 29).
146 Pearlman, Knowing the Doctrines, 8. Pearlman’s use of this method and identifijication
of theology as a “science” is reminiscent of Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology (1872). He
defijines theology as a “science” which “consists of facts relating to God and Divine things,
presented in an orderly and logical manner” (Ibid., 8). However, I suggest below that his
theology is better considered primarily as sapientia rather than scientia.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 127

Thus Pearlman justifijies the project of systematic theology as a topical clas-

sifijication of exegetical truths in order to relate these various truths to the
Bible’s central theme of redemption.147 In this process, he diffferentiates
between exposition and interpretation. Exposition answers the question:
“What do the Scriptures say?” whereas interpretation answers: “What do
the Scriptures mean?”148 While he does not clarify the diffference between
“say” and “mean,” exposition likely refers to the specifijic illocutions of the
human authors, whereas the interpretation is of the divine illocution of the
text, the meaning of the text as God’s word spoken to the hearer in light of
the overarching plan of redemption.
Unlike Kerr, Pearlman also turns, in the tradition of Protestant
Scholasticism, to “God’s fijirst book – Nature” which “reveals His existence,
power and wisdom, but it tells of no way of pardon, provides no escape from
sin and its consequences, supplies no incentive to holiness and contains no
revelation of the future.”149 He makes an argument from human religiosity
itself. Though he never indicates any knowledge of Schleiermacher, he cites
this “feeling of dependence” as evidence of God’s existence: “this feeling of
dependence being awakened by thought of his own weakness and littleness
and the mightiness of the universe.”150 In this discussion, Pearlman displays
knowledge of the common terminology and concepts surrounding these
debates, but engages them with the tone and depth of a populist rather
than a scholar. A theme predominant in the common sense tradition con-
tinually reappears in his arguments – that complexity in thought should
not be equated with its truth. He especially argues against a materialist phi-
losophy with common sense observations about reality. “An ounce of com-
mon sense is worth more than a load of philosophy…error does not become
truth by being stated in fijive-syllable words.”151
Pearlman is perhaps most complex in his theological hermeneutics in his
discussion of theology proper.152 He repeatedly and explicitly appeals to all

147 Ibid., 9–14.
148 Ibid., 12.
149 Ibid.
150 Ibid., 46.
151 Ibid., 55–56.
152 The chapter in Knowing the Doctrines on theology proper also demonstrates how
Pearlman utilizes God’s “two books” in order to speak of knowledge of God. He starts by
afffijirming that the Bible nowhere attempts to prove God’s existence. The reason for belief in
God is that the reality of God is manifest among humankind. However, he justifijies argu-
ments for God’s existence in order to convince genuine seekers, strengthen the faith of
believers, and to enrich knowledge of the nature of God, citing anecdotes to help
convince his readers of the truth of these arguments as he uses forms of the cosmological,
128 chapter three

four sources of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral – Scripture, experience, reason

and tradition – in order to substantiate his doctrine of God. There is noth-
ing surprising, unorthodox or abnormal about it, but the breadth of texts
cited in his biblical justifijication and support for his positions give evidence
to why his writings were so well received. His reflections likely came across
as simple yet profound, providing answers the common Pentecostal wanted
on theological issues. For example, while Pearlman used proof texts in sub-
stantiating his doctrine of God, he did not merely excerpt phrases from bib-
lical texts; rather, he placed them in the larger narrative of the biblical text
and its narrative of redemption. He speaks of the testimony of Deut. 6:4, the
Shema, as “Israel’s distinctive message to a world that worshipped many
false gods.”153 He recounts the inner tension within classical theism and the
Christian doctrine of God over the problem of evil, dealing with it by using
an Arminian form of the free will defense. He attempts to carefully defijine
what God’s omnipresence means, diffferentiating between God’s ability to
be present everywhere but not to dwell everywhere. He argues that God’s
holiness and love are among his chief characteristics. In defending the doc-
trine of the Trinity, he even identifijies God’s being as love, coming very near
Augustine’s relational understanding of the Trinity, speaking of the Holy
Spirit as “the eternal Bond outflowing of that love.”154 And he had at least
begun to develop a more complex understanding of the nature of theologi-
cal language as he claimed that all language of God was, ultimately,
analogical:
But there is a method whereby truths far above human reason may yet, in a
measure, be made intelligible to reason. We refer to the use of illustration or
analogy. But these should be used with caution, and not pressed too far. “Every
comparision limps,” said a wise man of Ancient Greece. At best they
are imperfect and inadequate. They may be compared to tiny flashlights
that help us glimpse the reasonableness of truths too vast for perfect
comprehension.155
Pearlman thus showed tendencies toward more complex theological
reflection.

teleological and anthropological/moral arguments as well as arguments from God’s provi-

dence in human history and the universal religious impulse of humankind. He also warns of
the moral consequences of atheism in a form of moral argument (Ibid., 33–50).
153 Ibid., 59–60.
154 Ibid., 77.
155 Ibid., 76.
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 129

Though Pearlman claims that he is doing theology as a “science,” it may

be better to assess his approach to doing theology as sapientia – a knowing
of God that happens on the level of one’s individual character, noting how
it shapes the community of believers, and how it communicates the
Christian gospel to the world.156 Knowledge of God is personal and rela-
tional knowledge. While Pearlman explicitly claims to be doing theology as
a science, his practice often betrays him. In his theology, sapientia is put
into Scholastic forms, which formalized it.157 Even though Pearlman defends
this more formal task, it is a means, albeit an essential one, to an end:
“Certainly it is more important to live the Christian life than to merely know
Christian doctrine, but there would be no Christian experience if there
were no Christian doctrine.”158 While he borrowed the methodology of
Protestant Scholasticism, a “Saul’s Armor” for him, in practice his actual
theological hermeneutic drew upon Scripture and other wisdom he had
garnered, and he interpreted these things in the context of God’s narrative
of redemption in human history.
Pearlman played a signifijicant role in reshaping Pentecostal hermeneu-
tics in at least two ways. First, he trended Pentecostal hermeneutics toward
a classical Protestant Scholastic theological method, self-consciously
understanding this approach as moving from the exposition of Scripture to
topical and systematic articulations of doctrines, even though his own the-
ologizing was much more personal and anecdotal. And second, he replaced
the urgency of the Latter Rain narrative with the wider and more sustaining
narrative of the redemption of humankind in God’s plan. This second point
is buttressed by the space and emphasis he allots to futuristic eschatology
in Knowing the Doctrines.159 Through Knowing the Doctrines and his

156 For an explanation of theology as sapientia, see David K. Clark, To Know and Love God:
Method for Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 208–212.
157 In an article he wrote on the role of the Scriptures, Pearlman draws on Ps. 19:7-14 and
2 Tim. 3:14-17 to teach his readers to use them for personal spiritual formation, that the
Scriptures do things like making one wise, awakening the conscience, producing a confijident
heart, giving pleasure, disciplining and perfecting. There is no sign in this article that
Pearlman was treating the Bible as a book of “facts” for doing a type of “science,” though he,
again, afffijirms, in line with Ps. 19, that the “Book of Nature” magnifijies “His revelation in the
written Word” [Myer Pearlman, “The Holy Scriptures,” The Pentecostal Evangel (20 April
1935): 8, 13].
158 Pearlman, Knowing the Doctrines, 10.
159 Though Pearlman articulates and defends the imminent Second Coming of Christ and
a pretribulational premillennial framework, he never mentions the term “Latter Rain” in the
mere seven pages in which he covers these eschatological matters. Prior to this, he spent
eighteen pages covering eschatological topics such as the resurrection of the dead, heaven,
hell, purgatory, universalism and annihilationism (Ibid., 367–394).
130 chapter three

other writings, he pushed Pentecostalism back toward its roots in conser-

vative Protestant faith and to more conventional methodology. He thus
serves as a signifijicant representative of the early Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic.

5. Conclusion: The Early (Re)Turn to Evangelical Hermeneutics

With a fijirst generation Pentecostal like Kerr, the turn to Evangelical herme-
neutics had already begun. As he sought to articulate Pentecostal doctrines
by grounding and justifying them in the biblical text, even forming argu-
ments based on their grammatical details and their literary function, a turn
toward a more mainstream and conservative Protestant hermeneutic was
under way. Yet this was still counterbalanced by a strong emphasis on spiri-
tual experiences in continuity with the original Classical Pentecostal
hermeneutic. This tendency continued as Pentecostals turned to Funda-
mentalists as a theological dialogue partner and ally. Though they were
turned away, Pentecostals borrowed from theological systems – especially
Dispensationalism – and philosophical assumptions, reinvesting in the
common sense realism which was already present in the original Classical
Pentecostal hermeneutic.
Nevertheless, Pentecostals were sufffijiciently diffferent from Funda-
mentalists that, though many claimed to simply be “Fundamentalists with
a diffference,” it is more helpful to recognize Pentecostals as being part of
an emerging tradition in their own right, and not as a sub-type of Funda-
mentalists. They had basic diffferences in their understanding of the con-
tinuation of God’s work in the world and thus of God’s character and nature,
with implications for their respective understandings of the Scriptures and
the proper manner in which to practice Christian living and experience
God. In all of these, the Pentecostal understanding was dynamic while
the Fundamentalist was static. The rejection of Pentecostals by most
Fundamentalists also requires us to recognize an ecclesial and social fijissure
between these groups.
The turn to other conservative Protestants during this era also brought
about the methodology exemplifijied in Nelson’s translation of the Pietist
Lund’s Hermeneutics and Pearlman’s expositions of “Bible doctrines.” The
use of Lund’s Hermeneutics in Pentecostal Bible schools shows
the need Pentecostals had for grammatical study in understanding the
biblical texts. The Bible was to be understood, then, not as the “sacred
meteor” whose verses could be plucked out of their context and applied as
 the early evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 131

the reader saw fijit, but in the larger contexts of the meaning of words,
sentences, narratives and books. Pearlman’s Knowing the Doctrines and
other works provided Pentecostals with a greater philosophical, theological
and historical context in understanding the Bible as God’s Word, as many
Pentecostals were likely starved of because of the lack of education among
their preachers. These works also provided wisdom for interpreting
this world as God’s world as they sought to organize the doctrines of the
Bible.
While the turn to the hermeneutics of Evangelicalism had begun as early
as Kerr, this is not to claim that the early turn to Evangelicalism was univer-
sal among the Pentecostals of the mid-to-late-1910s-1930s, nor of the follow-
ing era. Kerr and Pearlman were both part of the more Baptistic stream of
Pentecostalism in the A/G. They represent a prolepsis of the hermeneutical
needs of Pentecostalism as it approached the middle part of the twentieth
century as similar needs arose. In doing so, they provided a trajectory for
Pentecostal theology that stood in continuity with nineteenth century
American Evangelicalism and thus provide common ground for the coming
connection with twentieth century Evangelicalism.160 A key distinction
between the early version of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic and
the later, now contemporary version, is that, generally, while the former
hermeneuts began to account for the internal context and history found in
the biblical texts, they only minimally handled the external context behind
the text, while with the latter the external context of the texts has played a
much larger role.

160 This can also be seen in the theological method of Ernest Swing Williams, but his
ecumenical orientation led me to situate him as a representative of ecumenical-Pentecostal
hermeneutics (see Chapter Six).
 chapter four

THE CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICAL-PENTECOSTAL HERMENEUTIC

Our knowledge must come from above. We further believe that God has so
revealed himself: by deeds, in a Person, and through a book that both reports
and interprets those deeds and that Person. Because ultimately we know the
Person, or hear the gospel, through the book, we take the book to be our pri-
mary penultimate authority. That is, we believe that this is the way God chose
to reveal and to communicate. The other forms of authority (tradition, reason,
experience) in various ways authenticate, verify, or support, but all must
themselves fijinally be authenticated by Scripture.1
– Gordon Fee, Gospel and Spirit (1991)

Our Pentecostal feet are fijirmly planted in mainstream evangelicalism: our

theology is essentially the same [as it was in early Pentecostalism]; but our
approach to Scripture – the hermeneutic which supports our theology – has
been signifijicantly altered. The hermeneutic of evangelicalism has become our
hermeneutic.
– Robert P. Menzies, “The Essence of Pentecostalism,” (1992)2

From the mid-twentieth century and into the twenty-fijirst, advocates of the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic have developed a greater apprecia-
tion for historical-critical methods and their usefulness for interpreting bib-
lical texts in light of their original composition and contexts. Instead of
rejecting biblical criticism as itself an act of skepticism, these Pentecostal
biblical scholars and theologians began utilizing historical-critical methods
in biblical interpretation. They have done so with the attitude of “believing
criticism” where the historicity and veracity of the biblical texts are defended
alongside the employment of various types of biblical criticism.3

1 Gordon D. Fee, Gospel and Spirit: Issues in New Testament Hermeneutics (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 1991), 29.
2 Robert P. Menzies quoted in “The Essence of Pentecostalism: Forum Conducted at the
Asia Pacifijic Theological Seminary Chapel,” ed. and intr. Robert Menzies, Paraclete 26:3
(Summer 1992): 1.
3 The Evangelical biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall defijines this “believing criticism” as
“an approach that recognizes that the manner of the human composition of the biblical
books is a proper subject for investigation for scholars who also believe in their divine origin
and inspiration.” This “believing criticism” stands in contrast to historical-critical methods
134 chapter four

These theologians have also come to explicitly employ author-centered

hermeneutic theory. Their theological method has largely been constituted
by exegesis of biblical texts and the formation of biblical theologies
followed by a thematic arrangement of these in a systematic theology. The
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic has thus sought to move from
Scriptural exegesis through biblical and systematic theologies to doctrinal
formation, and then to move from doctrinal formation to religious, moral
and general experience. Some advocates of this approach have prescribed a
unidirectional movement from Scripture to experience with only little
regard for experiential presuppositions. Others have endeavored to account
for the role of experience and experiential presuppositions in biblical inter-
pretation. The latter have tended to focus on the issues surrounding those
hermeneutical presuppositions which relate to the formation of those doc-
trines which distinguish Pentecostals from other orthodox Christians, par-
ticularly in relation to Evangelicals.
The Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic is thus a coalition of theologi-
cal hermeneutics in which its advocates primarily interpret God, God’s
revelation, the human self and the world fijirst and foremost on the basis of
an Evangelical afffijirmation of the role and authority of Scripture. The thrust
of these hermeneutics is to carefully discover what the Bible says in its
original context in order to properly understand reality in light of Scripture
before contemporary application. This basis then grounds beliefs, practices
and ethics.
As argued in the previous chapter, Pentecostals could come to an alliance
with Evangelicals because they afffijirmed the authority of the Scriptures for
theological knowledge in a similar manner to their conservative Protestant
siblings. The adoption of Evangelical theological hermeneutics by these
earlier Pentecostals formed this hybrid hermeneutic which I have labeled
the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic.4 This alliance would move
Pentecostal theological hermeneutics more thoroughly toward that of
the Evangelical approach of going to the original meaning of the biblical

which do not afffijirm the Scripture’s inspiration or attempt to withhold judgment on such a
question. See I. Howard Marshall with Kevin J. Vanhoozer and Stanley E. Porter, Beyond the
Bible: Moving from Scripture to Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 20.
4 This alliance was one that could trace its genealogy back to common ancestry in nine-
teenth century American revivalistic Protestantism. They shared common roots in stressing
religious experience, reverence for the Bible, and a commitment to moral action.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 135

text and then toward topical and thematic organization of these

truths in systematic theology. With the formation of the National Associ-
ation of Evangelicals (NAE) in the early-1940s and the NAE’s acceptance
of Pentecostals, this alliance formed a social bond which further
engendered the formation of an already present bond in hermeneutical
method.
According to Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, this alliance was and is especially
forged by Pentecostal theologians in the academy and is a hermeneutic
which has stood in contrast to the use of the more traditional Pentecostal
hermeneutic in Pentecostal congregations:5
Pentecostals within the academy have tended to align themselves with
Evangelicals in their move toward adopting the methods of historical
criticism while maintaining a commitment to the reliability of the biblical
narrative. As a result, Pentecostal biblical scholars have increasingly empha-
sized the historical contexts of biblical narratives and reduced their focus on
the intent of the inspired authors. These and other developments have, of
course, meant either denying or downplaying the earlier emphasis on the
immediacy of the text, its multiple meanings and relevance “here and now.”
This has led to a growing divergence in the practice of biblical interpretation
between Pentecostals in the parish and in the academy.6
In what follows, I will disagree with Kärkkäinen’s judgment that   Pente-
costal scholars in general have “reduced their focus on the intent of the
inspired authors”7 as I will consider his assessment a conflation of a
certain tendency found in the contemporary Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic with another found in the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneu-
tic (see Chapter Five). I contend that these tendencies are better difffer-
entiated and identifijied within two types of Pentecostal theological
hermeneutics.

5 See Chapter Six for a short recounting of Pentecostals’ inclusion in the NAE.
6 Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Hermeneutics: From Fundamentalism to Postmodernism” in
Toward a Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on Ecclesiology,
Soteriology, and Theology of Mission, ed. Amos Yong (Lanham, MD: University Press of
America, 2002), 8. A case could be made that Pentecostals who have turned toward
Evangelical hermeneutics, as opposed to those who have not, have most often done so
because they have been educated at either an Evangelical institution or at a Pentecostal
institution which has embraced this hybrid hermeneutic.
7 Ibid.
136 chapter four

1. Contemporary Evangelical Theological Hermeneutics:

The Penultimate Authority of Scripture

The Evangelical statesman J.I. Packer claims that the unifying center of
Evangelicalism and its theology is found in its view of the nature and func-
tion of Scripture.8 Evangelicalism’s center is in:
The practice of seeking biblical warrant and control for all aspects of personal
and corporate living. This is the central, heart-of-the-matter focus of evangeli-
cal identity and of evangelical unity. Evangelicals maintain that as God has
enthroned his Son, the living Word, as Lord of the universe, so he has
enthroned the Bible, his written word, as the means of Christ’s rule over the
consciences of his disciples. The 66-book Protestant canon is held to be
divinely inspired and authoritative, true and trustworthy, informative and
imperative, life-imparting and strength-supplying to the human heart, and to
be given to the church to be preached, taught, expounded, applied, absorbed,
digested and appealed to as arbiter whenever questions of faith and life, belief
and behavior, spiritual wisdom and spiritual warfare, break surface among the
saints. Of the unifying bonds of evangelicalism, this view and use of Scripture
is the strongest of all.9
Packer sees this Evangelical view of Scripture and the practical devotion to
the Bible which ensues from such a view as assuming several things: the
essential clarity of Scripture, that the Holy Spirit who gave Scripture is able
to guide one in interpreting it, and that the thoughts and words
of the biblical writers are “demonstrably in line with the credal confes-
sional, and catechetical dogmas of the evangelical communions.”10 Further,
Packer, who understands Evangelicalism as originating in the magisterial
Reformation and its Puritan successors,11 holds that “Reformational exe-
getes believe that the way into the mind of God is through the mind of the
human writer, and hence labor to draw out the didactic content of each

      8 J.I. Packer, “The Bible in Use: Evangelicals Seeking Truth from Holy Scripture,” in Your
Word is Truth: A Project of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, ed. Charles Colson and Richard
John Neuhaus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 59–78.
     9 Ibid., 62.
10 Ibid., 68.
11 Ibid., 59–60, 63–64. Packer sees the Wesleyan and revivalistic strain of Evangelicalism
as building upon this heritage. He also considers the, by his count, 450 million Pentecostal or
Charismatics among the 500 million Evangelicals around the world as “a mutation of evan-
gelicalism, though it is not always recognized as such” (Ibid., 59). It is interesting to note that
he simply seems to assume throughout this essay that the, by his own estimate, ten percent
(non-charismatic Evangelicals) are in some sense representative of mainstream and norma-
tive Evangelicalism as opposed to the ninety percent that may be considered charismatic.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 137

book with pastoral and apologetic application, rating the end-product in

each case as a message from God himself.”12
Packer thus describes a key principle of mainstream Evangelical theo-
logical method. Exegesis of the biblical texts is sought in order to discover
propositional content for forming topical, and thus systematic, theological
claims. The original text is considered not only inspired but also inerrant.
But, unlike a Fundamentalist understanding of Scripture as a static deposit
of truth, he speaks of biblical interpretation among Evangelicals as “charac-
teristically christocentric, covenantal, doxological, and devotional.”13 Thus
a classic Evangelical tension emerges between the perfection and authority
of the Bible, on the one hand, and personal and communal readings and
applications of the texts which often results in various readings and appli-
cations, on the other. In response, Packer offfers a key principle found in this
typical Evangelical hermeneutic: the literal meaning of the texts according
to the original human author’s probable intention and the original context
constrains biblical interpretation. This entails approaching Scripture in its
discernible units, usually as biblical books.
In seeking to discover the probable intention of the human authors,
this methodological approach seeks to discover how God acts, and this
knowledge is, in general, based on how God acted and spoke in a particular
situation witnessed by Scripture. It then seeks to fijind the biblical principles
which lay behind a particular biblical text. In this search, “God guides
by rational discernment of how principles apply, not by giving biblical
sentences that their biblical context will not support. The Bible should not
be handled as if it were written in code.”14 Where in Packer’s account of
Evangelical theological method – or what is here considered a theological
hermeneutic – is there space for coming to any knowledge about God, our-
selves and our world beyond God’s self-revelation in the Scriptures?
According to Packer, Evangelicals continue the Protestant heritage of
sola scriptura. While it does mean that the Bible alone is “the raw
material” for doctrinal construction and spiritual nurture, and thus that
all doctrines must be considered “biblical,” it does not imply that what
is not in the Bible is unimportant or not real. He suggests, for instance, that
scientifijic and biblical accounts of reality be considered complementary

12 Ibid., 69.
13 Ibid., 71.
14 Ibid., 72.
138 chapter four

rather than contradictory.15 In Packer’s Evangelical method, then, evidence

from the world as creation or human experience in tune with God’s will
would have to be judged in light of its coherence with Scripture; if it should
be found coherent, it ought to be considered valuable and good.
Yet there is not unanimity here among Evangelicals on the ability to
discover biblical principles. The self-evidential nature of this search among
Evangelicals is questioned by another Evangelical statesman, the biblical
scholar I. Howard Marshall. Marshall suggests that discussions of interpre-
tation among Evangelicals must acknowledge three steps in the process: a
philosophical understanding of general hermeneutics, the use of exegetical
methods, and the exposition or application of the text to a contemporary
audience.16 Kevin Vanhoozer more succinctly articulates Marshall’s critique
of Packer and like forms of Evangelical hermeneutics when he remarks that
they collapse the fijirst and third of Marshall’s steps into the second alone.17
Marshall, instead, claims a broader space for Evangelical theological herme-
neutics when he suggests that his own prescription for Evangelical theologi-
cal method fijits within the boundaries of Evangelicalism. He considers that
there is a trajectory found within the biblical texts themselves in the ongo-
ing development of theological understanding. The early Church’s develop-
ment of doctrine is in fact consonant with this so that the “apostolic deposit”
in the kerygma found in the New Testament comes to form “the criterion for
the evaluation of whatever is put forward as Christian teaching.” Spiritual
Christians combine this “apostolic deposit” with “a mind nurtured on the
Gospel” in order to “develop or go beyond Scripture at certain points.”18
Based on such a deposit and such a forming of the mind, Marshall suggests
that one must develop a theological hermeneutics for “going beyond

15 Ibid., 76–78. “Scientifijic accounts of realities are based on analytical observation and
experiment, and declare what things are there and how they work. Biblical accounts of reali-
ties declare why those things exist at all, and what their signifijicance is for the God-mankind
relationship” (Ibid, 77).
16 I. Howard Marshall, “Evangelicals and Hermeneutics,” in Marshall with essays by Kevin
J. Vanhoozer and Stanley E. Porter, Beyond the Bible: Moving from Scripture to Theology
(Grand Rapids, MI: BakerAcademic, 2004), 13–15.
17 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Into the Great ‘Beyond’: A Theologian’s Response to the Marshall
Plan,” in Marshall with Vanhoozer and Porter, Beyond the Bible, 83.
18 Marshall, “The Search for Biblical Principles,” in Marshall with Vanhoozer and Porter,
Beyond the Bible, 69–72.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 139

Scripture,” and yet remain within the biblical trajectory. The orthodox artic-
ulation of the doctrine of the Trinity is a case in point.19
Another account of Scripture as the authoritative source for theological
truth among Evangelicals that difffers from Packer’s can be found in David K.
Clark’s analysis.20 Clark claims that Scripture is not the ultimate authority
among Evangelicals. For Evangelicals, as in all orthodox Christian tradi-
tions, ultimate authority belongs to the Triune God alone. The authority of
Scripture is thus derived from God. Jesus is the highest revelation of God
and thus reasoning about him must submit to apostolic teaching. Clark
considers that Evangelicals have developed their current position in the
face of Catholic theology, on the one hand, and liberal theology, on the
other. Evangelicals claim that too much authority has been assigned to the
Church and tradition in patristic and medieval theology; in contrast,
Evangelicals afffijirm their commitment to Scripture as their sole authority in
the tradition of the Reformation. And, in an apologetic stance towards lib-
eral theology, Evangelicals have stood against modernist approaches to
their afffijirmation of Scripture’s authority which came in forms like
Schleiermacher’s grounding of theology in religious experience and the
general modernist rejection of biblical authority as a proper foundation for
knowledge. Against these alternatives and objections, Evangelicals such as
Carl F.H. Henry have afffijirmed the Bible as “the capstone of revelation. It
alone is the unique, written revelation of God, a permanent, meaningful,
and authoritative self-expression by God of his nature and will.”21 This
approach to the Bible holds a view of the Bible’s inspiration in which the
Holy Spirit guided its writing and guided the Church in identifying these
texts as inspired in forming the canon.22

19 Vanhoozer, “Into the Great ‘Beyond,’ ” 90–91, sees problems with Marshall’s approach,
most importantly that the one who claims to interpret within this trajectory must, in fact,
assume that s/he is currently standing further along that trajectory. Vanhoozer is concerned
that Marshall’s plan means the lording of one’s own trajectory over the text as the biblical
trajectory. Vanhoozer briefly develops his own “canonical-linguistic” approach as an alterna-
tive in this essay. But he does so more extensively in The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-
Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005).
20 David K. Clark, To Know and Love God: Method for Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway,
2003), 59–98.
21 Ibid., 61. Clark is summarizing the Evangelical understanding of revelation exemplifijied
in Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 6 vols. (Waco, TX: Word, 1976–1983; repr.
Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1999).
22 Clark, To Know and Love God, 60–61.
140 chapter four

According to Clark then, Evangelicals hold that in the Bible, and it alone,
“God communicates intelligibly to humans the divine nature, ways, and will
such that the Bible is binding on our thoughts and lives.”23 Because of
the veracity of the communicator – God – Evangelicals are rational and
justifijied in accepting the biblical message as true. This means that, accord-
ing to the noted Evangelical theologian Bernard Ramm, “in Christianity the
authority-principle is the Triune God in self-revelation.”24 From this ratio-
nale concerning the ontological grounding of the authority of Scripture in
the Triune God Clark concludes that while the medium, Scripture, is fijinite,
its source, the Triune God, is not. Thus he claims that the authority princi-
ple at the epistemic center of Evangelical theology is actually based on an
ontological reality. The Evangelical appeal to the authority of Scripture
is actually a key aspect of a more intricate “mosaic of authority” in
Evangelicalism which includes “hermeneutical principles and patterns of
analysis that seek the meanings and implications of sources that are identi-
fijied as revelatory.”25 Further, he is quick to point out that for Evangelicals
the authority of the Bible is not found merely in the Church’s recognition of
its authority – on account of its value to the community – but in the Bible’s
inherent possession of authority because the Triune God speaks through
these texts. Thus the Evangelical recognition of the authority of Scripture is
not simply a community’s acceptance of a text as authoritative for them-
selves; rather, it is an afffijirmation of ontological grounding for the Bible’s
authority for all of God’s creation.26
Marshall and Clark’s accounts of Scripture as authority for Evangelical
theology provide alternatives to Packer’s description of and prescription for
Evangelical hermeneutics, though neither is starkly diffferent from his. One
would be mistaken to see Evangelical theological hermeneutics as a homo-
geneous approach to theological knowledge. There is legitimate debate
over what Evangelical theological hermeneutics is and what it should be.
Still, a core theological method remains. In the words of Douglas Jacobsen:
“for evangelicals, the Bible alone is the source of all theological truth.
Because this is so, all theology must ultimately be biblical theology (even if
it is written in systematic form) and biblical hermeneutics thus becomes

23 Ibid., 61.
24 Ibid., 62, cites Bernard Ramm, The Pattern of Religious Authority, 5th ed. (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 1968), 21.
25 Clark, To Know and Love God, 62–63.
26 Ibid., 64–65.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 141

the evangelical method of theologizing.”27 As Jacobsen puts it: “Evangelical

theology distinguishes itself from other theological movements within the
Christian community by accepting as axiomatic the Bible’s inherent author-
ity.”28 Or as Robert K. Johnston puts it, there is “a commitment to ask the
question, ‘Where is it written?’ ”29 It is thus best to conclude that Evangelicals
consider Scripture their penultimate authority. Further, the divine inspira-
tion of the Bible has often been considered to imply that the meanings of
the biblical texts are defijined by the single intention of the human author in
a divine-human hypostatic unity with the Holy Spirit. However, recent
movements in philosophical and general hermeneutics have caused some
Evangelical theologians to move away from this solely monistic logic for
very similar reasons to those we will fijind Pentecostals doing so in the emer-
gence of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic.30

2. The Contemporary Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic

The contemporary version of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic

includes a range of approaches. First, there are approaches which strongly,
and more simply, afffijirm the inerrancy of the Scriptures as the starting point
for interpreting God, self and world. This afffijirmation of inerrancy continues
a belief in the singularity of the voice of God in Scripture. Second, there are
approaches which, while afffijirming the authority of the Scriptures and
operating with, broadly, a similar afffijirmation of Scriptural inerrancy or
infallibility, are more philosophically engaged in the hermeneutical debates
over meaning in the biblical text. Third, there are approaches which fijind a
crucial place for the presence of the Spirit for the proper interpretation of
biblical texts. Each of these emphasizes a constituency in hermeneutic
theory. The fijirst looks to the texts as the Word of God, the second to the
authors (and editors) of the biblical texts for their intention, and the third
to the reader’s relationship to the Spirit in interpretation. I will also note the
employment of a version of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic by the
Oneness Pentecostal theologian David Bernard. However, most of these

27 Douglas Jacobsen, “The Rise of Evangelical Hermeneutical Pluralism,” Christian

Scholar’s Review 16:4 (July 1987): 327.
28 Ibid.
29 Robert K. Johnston, “Pentecostalism and Theological Hermeneutics: Evangelical
Options,” PNEUMA 6:1 (Spring 1984): 58. Johnston argues from an Evangelical perspective
that Pentecostals ought to continue their turn to Evangelical theological method in order to
be “theologically responsible” in authorizing their beliefs (Ibid., 51–66).
30 See Jacobsen, “Evangelical Hermeneutical Pluralism,” 325–335.
142 chapter four

hermeneuts actually include elements of the other sub-types of the

Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic I just typifijied. Beyond this, the emer-
gence of a contextual hermeneutic in both Pentecostal and Evangelical the-
ology in recent years has largely been a reaction to and a modifijication of
this Evangelical method.31 The Pentecostal modifijication will be examined
in Chapter Five.

2.1. The Hermeneutics of Inerrancy in the Evangelical-Pentecostal

Hermeneutic
The 1970 statement on “The Inerrancy of Scripture” from the General
Presbytery of the A/G well represents an approach largely in line with
Packer’s role for the Bible as an authority for theological knowledge.32 This
document clarifijies the A/G’s understanding of the role of Scripture as the
authoritative source of knowledge of God. The fijirst of the fellowship’s
Fundamental Truths, “The Scriptures Inspired,” which had been somewhat
modifijied from Daniel Kerr and his fellows’ original statement, states: “The
Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of
God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule
of faith and conduct.” The document, “The Inerrancy of Scripture,” then
comes to identify the fijirst Fundamental Truth with the notion of inerrancy,
fijinding infallibility to be “a near synonym” with the only diffference in mean-
ing between the two terms a matter of emphasis. Whereas inerrancy

31 Jacobsen, “The Rise of Evangelical Hermeneutical Pluralism,” 325–335. Jacobsen argues

that recent developments in hermeneutics in the Evangelical world share the characteristics
of “the period immediately preceding a revolution in scientifijic paradigms,” in line with
Thomas Kuhn’s description of paradigm shifts in natural science (Ibid., 329–330). The fur-
ther development of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic in the two decades since
Jacobsen made this claim is evidence in favor of it. See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of
Scientifijic Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).
32 General Presbytery of the Assemblies of God, “The Inerrancy of Scripture,” in Where We
Stand: The Offfijicial Position Papers of the Assemblies of God (Springfijield, MO: Gospel
Publishing House, 1994), 7–13. It is indicative of its importance that this was the fijirst of the
position papers both in date and place in Where We Stand which represents the ethos of a
generation of the A/G. The offfijicial statements of the General Presbytery of the A/G over
almost a quarter century (1970–1993) published in Where We Stand exhibit the values and
methods of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. Though these documents do not hold
the compulsory weight of any statement approved by the General Council of the A/G (the
biannual gathering of all its ministers in the United States) these documents are important
for the policies and practices of the A/G.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 143

emphasizes the truthfulness of Scripture, infallibility is held to emphasize

its trustworthiness.33
Inerrancy and infallibility are thus applied to both concept and
language. In doing so, the General Presbytery argues for the verbal,
plenary inspiration of the Scriptures. The plenary nature of this inspiration
is understood to pertain to concepts and specifijic words, though in coordi-
nation with the biblical authors’ personalities with the utmost precision:
The uniform witness of the Scriptures themselves is clear: God spoke the con-
cept (revelation) to the mind of the writer; the Holy Spirit guided the trans-
mission (inspiration) of that concept into the objective form of words; and,
through the continual guidance of the Holy Spirit (illumination), we receive
the original revelation as we read the Scriptures…We hold that God, by the
superintendency of the Holy Spirit, so prepared the authors of His Word that
they were able to write precisely what He intended to have written. The total
personality of each author was utilized by the Holy Spirit in the conveyance of
the divine message, thus allowing for variety and individuality, yet not destroy-
ing the message God desired to entrust to man (2 Peter 1:21).34
While not a textbook on non-religious matters, the inerrancy of Scripture
pertains to all matters of science, history, morality and the like, “both sci-
ence and time tend to vindicate the Scriptures.”35
This view of Scripture’s function and authority was justifijied on both his-
torical and exegetical grounds. First, the General Presbytery argued that,
though “the doctrine of inerrancy is primarily a phenomenon of recent
years, a survey of Church history suggests that the Church has long held to
a high view of inspiration, with the doctrine of inerrancy implicit in that
view.”36 The “age of rationalism,” however, attacked the inspiration of the
Bible by citing supposed errors in minutia. The document argues that

33 General Presbytery of the Assemblies of God, “The Inerrancy of Scripture,” Where We

Stand: The Offfijicial Position Papers of the Assemblies of God (Springfijield, MO: Gospel
Publishing House, 1994), 7–8.
34 Ibid., 12.
35 Ibid., “The Doctrine of Creation,” in Where We Stand (101–106) states that “though the
Bible is not primarily a book of science, it is as trustworthy in the area of science as when it
speaks to any other subject” (p. 101).
36 Idem., “The Inerrancy of Scripture,” 8. The last phrase in this statement is a key premise
for this historical justifijication. The Presbytery argues that in the works of Church Fathers,
specifijically mentioning Clement of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzus, Justin Martyr and
Irenaeus, there is an afffijirmation of a high view of inspiration which reaches even to the
minutiae of Scripture. Zwingli, Calvin and Luther are cited in a more positive tone than
Abelard and Aquinas, as each are recalled as considering the Scriptures as above error.
144 chapter four

“orthodoxy” also appealed to a rational defense of the text. The implication

is that trying to prove the truth of the details of the Bible will not work. It is
unhelpful because “our appeal must arise from the claims of Scripture
alone. The Scriptures are inerrant because they are inspired of God – not
inspired because they are inerrant.”37
Secondly, it is in exegesis that the inerrancy of the Scriptures is properly
grounded: “The starting point for a correct understanding of the doctrine of
inerrancy is the self-witness of the Bible.”38 This is especially grounded in
Jesus’ witness to the Scriptures. Citing Matt. 5:18, “The Inerrancy of Scripture”
holds that Jesus’ claim that “not one jot or tittle shall pass,” whether inter-
preted literally or fijiguratively, entails that the Scriptures are “consequential”
even in their slightest detail.39 The thrust of this document is to correlate
inspiration with inerrancy. It reasons that “It is difffijicult to imagine that
the Bible writers thought of the Scriptures as being anything other than
infallible and without error.”40 Because God is free from error, thus the
Scriptures – His Word – would be clear from error, and Scripture itself testi-
fijies to this truth. The Bible, as the sole source of God’s authoritative revela-
tion, is thus afffijirmed in the terms of Packer’s Evangelicalism, in terms of
inerrancy. This understanding secures the Bible’s role as an authority over
humans, and not vice versa. For “to reject the doctrine of inerrancy transfers
the question of truth from the objective into the realm of the subjective…
The Scriptures’ claim to divine authority is lost when we subject them to the
rationalistic, subjective appraisals of men.”41
“The Inerrancy of Scripture” shows itself to be foundational to the other
documents in Where We Stand. The twenty-one other documents written by
the General Presbytery in this time period continually utilize Scripture
as the inerrant revelation of God to humankind. In correcting what it saw as
the excesses of a radically egalitarian application of the Church as the “Body
of Christ,” the General Presbytery prefaced its correction with a reminder

37 Ibid., 9.
38 Ibid., 10.
39 Ibid., 10–13, fijinds that Jesus’ statements are used to afffijirm the inspiration of every part
of Scripture (John 10:34–35) and the importance of even the tense and meaning of a single
word in Scripture (Matt. 22:32, 43–45). Paul’s epistles, too, at times, depend on grammatical
details (e.g., Gal. 3:16). Further, Scripture is spoken of as “God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16).
Old Testament writers were ascribed as “moved by the Holy Ghost” in the New Testament
(2 Peter 1:21). And the Old Testament identifijies the Scriptures with the Word of God, equat-
ing the messages spoken by prophets with divine authorship.
40 Ibid., 13.
41 Ibid., 12.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 145

of the role of Scripture as inerrant.42 Thus the inerrant Word of God is

clearly to be authoritative over experience. Yet the role of experience and
context in coming to the text is not mentioned. And it seems implicit that,
if it was, it would be more as a matter to be overcome than anything else.
Sitting as quiet but powerful presuppositions in this hermeneutic are
dual premises. First is the premise that the meaning of the Bible can be
plainly understood by its readers if they are in tune with the Holy Spirit
(and, presumably, have competent mental faculties). Thus diffference in
interpretation is likely a matter of spiritual or moral error. The second is
that the relationship of the biblical texts to one another is a matter of self-
evident harmony. The greater supposition underlying both is the unity and
harmony of God’s voice. And thus the role of Scripture in this hermeneutic
is as much reflective of its doctrine of God as of its understanding of
Scripture itself.
Philosophically, this version of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic
is driven by the popular forms of common sense realism which have
informed much of the Anglo-American Protestant mind.43 It stands in con-
tinuity with the theological method of the Princeton school of Reformed
orthodoxy from the late-nineteenth century.44 The late-nineteenth century
Presbyterian Charles Hodge, whose impact upon conservative American
theology was far reaching, gave a clear explication of this method at the
beginning of his Systematic Theology. The fijirst chapter, “On Method,” claims
that theology is a science in which the Bible, in a manner analogous to
nature, contains facts which a theologian may know through induction.
These facts are then deductively arranged and systematized.45 The induc-
tive method, according to Hodge, opposes the “speculative method” in

42 “Any church or individual who holds to this principle is on safe ground. Whenever
there is a deviation from it, the result is failure. While everyone should regard the Scriptures
as an authoritative rule of faith and conduct, it is especially important that revival move-
ments hold unswervingly to God’s Word” (idem., “The Ministry of the Body of Christ,” in
Where We Stand, 39).
43 See also Chapters Two and Three of this dissertation.
44 See Mark A. Noll, ed., The Princeton Theology,1812–1921: Scripture, Science, Theological
Method from Archibald Alexander to Benjamin Breckinridge Warfijield (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Book House, 1983).
45 “We fijind in nature the facts which the chemist or the mechanical philosopher has to
examine, and from them to ascertain the laws by which they are determined. So the Bible
contains the truths which the theologian has to collect, authenticate, arrange, and exhibit in
their internal relation to each other. This constitutes the diffference between biblical and
systematic theology” [Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (London: James Clarke &
Co., 1960), 1].
146 chapter four

which a priori assumptions provide a philosophical idealism that sustains

theological deductions and the “mystical method” in which feeling is the
avenue to religious truth. The inductive method trusts, following common
sense realism, the reliability of human mental operations to bring about
religious knowledge. The “facts” of theology are thus collected from
Scripture and from them truths are deduced. The Spirit’s role in interpreta-
tion is thus to serve as “an invaluable guide” for discernment in this pro-
cess.46 “The Inerrancy of Scripture” represents a hermeneutic largely in line
with Hodge’s method – considerably more so, at least methodologically,
than it is with the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic.
James Railey and Benny Aker provide an example of this form of the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic in an essay on theological method
found in a collection of essays formed into a systematic theology which was
written for use in A/G Bible colleges.47 After examining the possibility of
authority for theological beliefs resting in the canon of Scripture, doctrinal
confessions or creeds, an ecclesiastical authority or human experience and
reason, they conclude that it is the biblical revelation in the canon of
Scripture which “sets the outer limits of belief; theology must afffijirm as
required belief only what the Bible either explicitly or implicitly teaches.”48
While they see value in each of the other candidates, and especially in expe-
rience, none ought to be elevated above Scripture. Since “experiences” vary
and their causation is not always clearly discernible, they are not reliable as
an authority for beliefs, though they can do well at verifying Scriptural man-
dates.49 Reason, too, must stand in subjection to revelation: “it is a good
servant of the revelation of God but it is not a good master over that
revelation.”50
William Menzies and Stanley Horton, though they are categorized within
other sub-types of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic below, simi-
larly consider the options for authority. After examining human reason and

46 Ibid., 1–17.
47 James H. Railey, Jr. and Benny C. Aker, “Theological Foundations,” in Systematic
Theology, rev. ed., ed. Stanley M. Horton (Springfijield, MO: Logion Press, 1995), 39–60.
The question if this volume is actually a systematic theology is debatable since it has been
composed by a number of authors (twenty) and thus could not have been the integrated
and coherent system of theological beliefs of a single mind. See Christopher A. Stephenson,
“Epistemology and Pentecostal Systematic Theology: Myer Pearlman, E.S. Williams
and French Arrington,” Annual Meeting Papers of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, 2007
(8–10 March 2007; Cleveland, TN: Lee University).
48 Railey and Aker, “Theological Foundations,” 46.
49 Ibid., 44–45, 51.
50 Ibid., 45.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 147

“the Church” as options for one’s basic religious authority, they too conclude
that the proper alternative is “to trust implicitly in the authority of the Word
of God.” Rather than attempting to offfer proofs for the veracity of the bibli-
cal witness, however, they base this view “squarely on the conviction that
God by nature is self-disclosing.”51 Still, they fijind a place for general revela-
tion as God is self-revealing through creation and conscience as well as
through Scripture, as this is testifijied to in Scripture (Ps. 19; Rom. 1-2). This is
especially related by them to an Arminian soteriology: “there is sufffijicient
light so that none can claim that God has been unjust.”52 However, general
revelation is inadequate on its own and thus the disclosure that takes place
in Scripture is needed.53
Railey and Aker, in defending this theological method based on Scriptural
inerrancy, fijind themselves and Pentecostals “well within the bounds of the
evangelical system,” though they hold that Pentecostals take the work of the
Holy Spirit in verifying Scriptural truths more seriously than other Christians
generally do.54 This methodological system is constituted by three steps:
“(1) exegesis and interpretation of individual texts, (2) synthesis of these
interpretations, according to some system of biblical theology, and (3) the
presentation of these teachings in the systematician’s own language and for
his own needs and the needs of his people.”55 They then make a move remi-
niscent of Charles Hodge’s theological method when they strongly claim
that:
To maintain biblical authority in the process of systematic theology, it is
imperative that the person doing the theology avoid deduction. By this
we mean that theologians should not begin with a general theological state-
ment and impose it on the biblical text to make the Bible mean
what they want it to mean at the expense of the text’s real intention. Rather,
careful exegetical study of the biblical text should lead to a theological
statement.56
While they say little else about the second and third steps noted above, they
further claim that “The goal of exegesis is to let the Scripture say what the
Spirit intended it to mean in its original context.”57 Following this, however,

51 William W. Menzies and Stanley M. Horton, Bible Doctrines: A Pentecostal Perspective

(Springfijield, MO: Logion Press, 1993), 19.
52 Ibid., 21.
53 Ibid., 17–21.
54 Railey and Aker, “Theological Foundations,” 51.
55 Ibid., 52.
56 Ibid., 53.
57 Ibid.
148 chapter four

they make the Spirit’s intent with the original human author’s equivocal,
leaving the implication that they are identical without explicitly saying or
arguing so.

2.2. The Author-Centered Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic

William Menzies, Robert Menzies and Gordon Anderson represent a sub-
type within the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic that is more explicitly
informed by philosophical hermeneutics. While the legacy of common
sense realism continues to inform this version of the Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic, it is more heavily influenced by E.D. Hirsch and Anglo-
American analytic author-centered hermeneutic theory. In this sub-type,
the focus is on safeguarding the meaning of Scripture from manipulative or
ideological interpretation by its identifijication with the intention of the
human author working under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Hirsch’s literary theory provides a way of constraining interpretation and
declaring some interpretations invalid by carefully distinguishing a text’s
“meaning” from its “signifijicance.” “Verbal meaning is whatever someone
has willed to convey by a particular sequence of linguistic signs and which
can be conveyed (shared) by means of those linguistic signs.”58 On the other
hand, in Hirsch’s delineation, “signifijicance” is the appropriation of the
“meaning” to the interpreter’s context. Thus the interpreter must fijirst
understand what the text means, that is, understand what the original
author(s) willed to convey by such an act on its own terms, before the inter-
preter can make any judgments about its importance or application to the
interpreter’s context. He qualifijies his approach with a fallibilistic episte-
mology in which the meaning of a sentence is only ideally attainable,
though a communal consensus from well-informed groups (e.g., scholarly
guilds) are able to come close.59 Thus the meaning/signifijicance distinction
is an essential part of the inductive, author-centered approach.

58 E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 31.
Validity in Interpretation and The Aims of Interpretation (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1976) serve as Hirsch’s major works on hermeneutics.
59 The Evangelical theologian Kevin Vanhoozer has notably built upon this distinction
between meaning and signifijicance with some modifijication. Rather than following Edmund
Husserl’s idealism, as Hirsch does, Vanhoozer denies the ability of the interpreter to recon-
struct the mental state of the author. Using Jürgen Habermas’ notion of communicative
action, Vanhoozer argues that intention is enacted and embodied in the text so that “the
meaning of a text is what the author attended to in tending to his words.” The purpose of this
distinction is to distinguish what is the author’s and what is the reader’s. Vanhoozer argues
that “the author’s authority partakes of the authority of the past, or better, of the authority of
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 149

The alliance between Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutics and author-

centered hermeneutic theory is well exhibited in William and Robert
Menzies’ Spirit and Power, an efffort they characterize as “a call to Evangelical
dialogue.”60 The dialogue is about the doctrinal issues on which Pente-
costals difffer from Evangelicals. Their contention is that these disagree-
ments are a result of a methodological error by Evangelicals, but only after
generally agreeing with them on more basic matters of theological method.61
According to Menzies and Menzies, Evangelicals have often argued that
Pentecostals wrongly believe that spiritual gifts are currently available
(though, for many Evangelicals, this has changed signifijicantly with the rise
of the Charismatic Movement), that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is an act
of grace subsequent to salvation (at least logically, if not chronologically),
and that glossolalia is its initial, physical evidence because Evangelicals
have created a “canon within the canon.” That is, for Evangelicals, Paul’s
writings are used to interpret all other Scriptural texts including Luke’s nar-
ratives, and furthermore they have privileged the didactic portions of
Scripture over narratives such as Acts.62 However, there is no disagreement
that the author’s intent serves as the location of the meaning of the text.
Nor is their disagreement that the theological method to be employed is to
work from a biblical theology (i.e., to understand the theology of each of the
biblical texts and authors) towards a systematic theology (i.e., to arrange
the various biblical theologies into a coherent belief system and to establish
central doctrines).63

the reality of the past, which is in turn the authority of truth (e.g., Matthew did this,
not that). Without the basic distinction between meaning and signifijicance, subsequent
distinctions – between exegesis and eisegesis, understanding and overstanding, commen-
tary and criticism – will be difffijicult, if not impossible, to maintain” [Kevin J. Vanhoozer,
Is There a Meaning in This Text?: The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 262–63].
While Vanhoozer is currently one of, if not the, most signifijicant hermeneutic theorist
among Evangelicals, so far he has not particularly influenced any of the primary fijigures here
representing the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. It is likely that his influence will be
felt in the near future. On Habermas’ notion of communicative action, see Habermas, Moral
Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber
Nicholson, intr. Thomas McCarthy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).
60 William W. Menzies and Robert P. Menzies, Spirit and Power: Foundations of Pentecostal
Experience: A Call to Evangelical Dialogue (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000).
61 The discussion below of the debate between Gordon Fee and Robert Menzies (as well
as Roger Stronstad) will draw out the more specifijic hermeneutical diffferences between
them. However, for the time being, the point here is that they are in general agreement on
the issue of author-centered hermeneutic theory and the afffijirmation of the meaning/signifiji-
cance distinction.
62 Ibid., 37–106.
63 Again, however, the manner in which such an integration occurs is a point of difffer-
ence for Fee and Robert Menzies and will be further delineated below.
150 chapter four

The contours of this approach were expressed by William Menzies in an

essay in which he argued for a three-part task for theology.64 He defijines
theology as “the attempt of men to arrange the resources of God’s revelation
in such a fashion as to respond to questions urgent in a given age.”65
This means that “theology is an ongoing enterprise” and not simply a set of
doctrinal principles that, when discovered, have fijinished this quest for
knowledge.66 His three steps for doing theology occur at, fijirst, the “induc-
tive,” then, the “deductive” levels before arriving at the stage he labels “veri-
fijication.” With the fijirst step, he articulates three types of “inductive
listening.” There are unambiguous declarative statements in Scripture
(e.g., John 3:16), implicational truths (e.g., the Trinity), and the most prob-
lematic type – the descriptive – in which a debate ensues as to what type of
theological lesson is to be learned from the narrative (e.g., Acts on the
baptism in the Holy Spirit).67 Genre is important to all three categories of
induction but is most critical to the last. However, he does not endorse a
simple one-way directionality of moving from induction to deduction in
the task of theology. Rather, he recognizes a more complex reciprocity in
this “two-way street”:
One inductively investigates the meaning of particular passages. This becomes
the basic grist for a biblical theology. At the same time, the broad themes and
the general teaching of Scripture come to bear on how any particular passage
is to be interpreted, particularly if the passage is not itself altogether lucid.
Deduction and induction are interrelated; neither can be seen in total
isolation.68
Through the last step, “verifijication,” he defends Pentecostals against the
accusation of importing experiences into Scripture and then justifying
those experiences with Scripture. Rather, he appeals to the legitimacy of
allowing human experiences to inform one’s interpretation of Scripture,
but qualifijies this with the claim that what occurs is not origination of
theological truths but verifijication or demonstration of them. In a holistic
theology, “truth and experience,” he contends, “are harmonized.”69

64 William W. Menzies, “The Methodology of Pentecostal Theology: An Essay on

Hermeneutics,” in Essays on Apostolic Themes: Studies in Honor of Howard M. Ervin, ed. Paul
Elbert (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1985), 1–14.
65 Ibid., 3.
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid., 5–6.
68 Ibid., 11.
69 Ibid., 13–14.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 151

It is at the point of the role of experience in their theological hermeneu-

tics which Pentecostals have been often criticized by their Evangelical
brethren. Gordon Fee’s quote – though I will still consider him as an insider
to the Classical Pentecostal tradition below – has served as the paradig-
matic criticism of Pentecostals on this matter: “The Pentecostal tends to
exegete his own experience.”70 Roger Stronstad has responded to this criti-
cism by working to level the playing fijield. He afffijirms Rudolph Bultmann’s
negative response to the famous question: “is exegesis without presupposi-
tions possible?”71 The question is not if but what presuppositions will be
used in the exegesis of Scripture. “Presuppositions have as integral a place
in the theory and practice of hermeneutics as they do in exegesis. This is
true for all kinds of presuppositions, including appropriate experiential
presuppositions.”72 Further, Stronstad argues that the experiential presup-
positions of the Pentecostal place the Pentecostal interpreter in a better
position to interpret the biblical texts than the usual Protestant Evangelical
who has not had charismatic experiences:
Charismatic experience in particular and spiritual experience in general give
the interpreter of relevant biblical texts an experiential presupposition which
transcends the rational or cognitive presuppositions of scientifijic exegesis.
Furthermore, this charismatic experience results in an understanding, empa-
thy and sensitivity to the text, and priorities in relation to the text which other
interpreters do not and cannot have.73
Other Protestants, he points out, regularly suppose that another key spir-
itual presupposition is essential to properly understand and interpret the
biblical texts: saving faith.74 While some non-Pentecostals “bring negative
and hostile experiential presuppositions to the interpretation of the
biblical data on the charismatic activity of the Holy Spirit…Pentecostals
bring positive and sympathetic experiential presuppositions” to them.75
He argues that the charismatic presuppositions of the Pentecostal are
clearly more in tune with the biblical horizon on account of examples

70 This statement appeared in Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent,” in

Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism, ed. Russell P. Spittler (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book
House, 1976), 122.
71 Roger Stronstad, “Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics,” Paraclete 26:1 (Winter
1992): 17, 29 n11, cites Rudolph Bultmann, “Is Exegesis without Presuppositions Possible?” in
Existence and Faith, ed. and trans. S.M. Ogden (London: Hodder and Stoughton), 289.
72 Stronstad, “Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics,” 17.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid., 17–18.
75 Ibid., 20–21.
152 chapter four

from the New Testament.76 However, he clarifijies that he is not claiming that
charismatic presuppositions will guarantee sound interpretation: “This is
because experiential presuppositions do not stand alone, do not stand in
independence from either cognitive presuppositions or historico-gram-
matico principles.”77
Gordon Anderson develops an Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic in
several articles which takes a diffferent approach to dealing with presuppo-
sitions.78 He follows Hirsch’s meaning/signifijicance distinction, explicitly
citing him on it, although he, at one point, begins to refer to Hirsch’s “mean-
ing” as “meaning (sense one)” and Hirsch’s “signifijicance” as “meaning (sense
two)” on account of the colloquial usage of the term “meaningfulness” in
relation to readers.79 Anderson also occasionally nods to certain aspects of
the “new hermeneutic” – that is, a reader-oriented approach – while reject-
ing its core claims. In contrast to the “new hermeneutic,” he follows Hirsch
in advocating for the process of biblical interpretation as striving to under-
stand a fijixed, objective meaning arrived at through “diffferent (but legiti-
mate) methodological, historical, and theological presuppositions in its
interpretive work.”80 Anderson concurs with the tension Hirsch recom-
mends in both granting an objective meaning to a text yet denying that a
methodology can reliably ascertain it. Says Hirsch:
The notion that a reliable methodology of interpretation can be built
upon a set of canons is thus a mirage…No possible set of rules or rites
of preparation can generate or compel an insight into what an author means.
The act of understanding is at fijirst a genial (or mistaken) guess, and there are
no methods for making guesses, no rules for generating insights.81
Yet, in practice, Anderson ends up difffering from Hirsch by offfering a pro-
gram for what a “good” Pentecostal hermeneutical method is and is not.82

76 Ibid., 21–26.
77 Ibid., 25.
78 Gordon L. Anderson, “Why Interpreters Disagree,” Paraclete 24:1 (Winter 1990): 1–10;
and “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part I,” Paraclete 28:1 (Winter 1994): 1–11; and “Pentecostal
Hermeneutics: Part II,” Paraclete 28:2 (Spring 1994): 13–22.
79 Anderson, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part II,” 15.
80 Anderson, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part I,” 11.
81 Hirsch, Validity in Interpretaion, 203.
82 Though Anderson, in the above noted articles, speaks in a descriptive voice concerning
a “good Pentecostal hermeneutic,” it is clear that this description is actually a prescription for
what he understands to be the best available hermeneutic. Though Anderson often speaks of
Pentecostals as implementing his more sophisticated hermeneutic, it is doubtful that many
in fact are; instead, this seems to be a constructive program which would appeal to
Pentecostals who are closely allied with Evangelicals.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 153

It is clear that the centerpiece of Anderson’s hermeneutic theory is the

claim that exegesis, which is “the efffort to discover what the author intended
the text to mean to the original audience and to fijind out what the original
hearers understood,” is the foundational task of the process of interpreta-
tion of texts.83 This is true to the point that “all interpreters take the same
approach,” that is, to afffijirm the centrality of exegesis, “when they do their
work correctly.”84 In light of this axiom, Anderson rejects approaches to
determining the meaning of the biblical texts which he labels as “allegori-
cal” (fijinding hidden meanings in the text), “culturally relative” (the biblical
message is “lost amid the determining elements of culture”), and “extrabib-
lical” (the Bible is one source of truth among many).85 Instead, he considers
two other options as legitimate: a “propositional” approach and a “proposi-
tional/historical” approach. The former sees the propositions found in
Scripture as timeless and unchanging and thus establishing absolute truth
which is not modifijied by history or culture. The meanings of the biblical
narratives are thus subordinated to the propositional content of the didac-
tic texts. The latter, which Anderson favors, takes the narrative passages and
cultural contexts as well into account in interpreting the meaning of didac-
tic portions of Scripture. He argues that there are absolutes, both in relation
to historical events and eternal truths; however, they are couched within
the historical and cultural contexts of the writing of Scripture.86
The meaning of the text is thus ascertained through various critical
methods. In the earliest of his articles, Anderson sees the following as essen-
tial to the exegetical process: (1) determining whether didactic or narrative
passages are primary, (2) choosing certain verses to govern the interpreta-
tion of others, (3) selecting certain lexical defijinitions and rejecting others,
(4) incorporating or rejecting extrabiblical ideas, including personal experi-
ence, as shedding light on a text, and (5) following a theological school of
thought in applying a schema to a position on the text.87 He thus seeks to
account for the interpreter’s presuppositions that go into exegesis despite
the goal being overcoming these presuppositions in order to ascertain the
original author’s intention.
In the principles he formulates, the fijirst steps of interpretation deal
with identifying the interpreter’s own biases and theoretical methodology:

83 Anderson, “Why Interpreters Disagree,” 2.

84 Anderson, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part II,” 13.
85 Anderson, “Why Interpreters Disagree,” 3–4.
86 Ibid.
87 Ibid., 5.
154 chapter four

“An unwillingness to identify personal biases or to admit that they exist

does not mean they have no influence. It only means the interpreter does
not yet have a clear picture of his/her own biases. If this is in fact the case, it
is unavoidable that those biases will influence the conclusions drawn, with-
out the interpreter being aware of their influence.”88 Thus Anderson consid-
ers biases as inevitable, yet they should be identifijied so that, to the degree
that it is possible, they might be overcome. His prescription for bias may be
summarized as a knowing of the self in order that the reader may distin-
guish what the meaning of the text is from his own ideas, context or agenda
as much as possible. Upon the identifijication of biases, exegesis can then
commence. But though exegesis grounds Anderson’s theological herme-
neutics, it is not its goal. The goal is to move from exegesis to the forming of
theological beliefs. “After the exegetical work is done all the relevant pas-
sages must be studied to determine what kind of a synthetic or systematic
doctrine emerges.”89 For Anderson, the goal is to identify one’s own biases
and do exegesis so that theological doctrines might emerge from the canon
rather than be imposed upon it. Yet this does not mean that he expects
agreement among honest and competent interpreters; in fact, his approach
is a justifijication for legitimate disagreements in interpretation:
There is too much room for decisions to be made in the process of interpreta-
tion to screen out those elements that result in varied conclusions. What can
be hoped for, and ardently urged, is that interpreters will approach their work
aware of what they are doing and how they ought to do it. It is not too much
to expect those who interpret the Bible should diligently follow the basic prin-
ciples of hermeneutics. As this is done the church will be better able to avoid
heretical extremes and to discover the sound doctrines the Bible seeks to
impart.90
He is thus a leading exemplar of a Hirschian form of the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic.
In a pair of articles which appear a few years later than his “Why
Interpreters Disagree,” Anderson argues that there are a set of necessary
elements in every biblical hermeneutic.91 The fijirst and foremost is the exe-
getical method discussed above. However, he goes beyond his earlier article
when he states that “a good Pentecostal hermeneutic argues for the unifor-
mity of language and logic. Pentecostals reject the pluralism that ensues

88 Ibid., 8.
89 Ibid.
90 Ibid., 9.
91 Idem., “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part I”; and “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part II.”
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 155

when the language and logic of the Bible are taken to be culture specifijic.”92
He does not unpack, nor does he explicitly justify these claims concerning
logic and language, but an argument subtly runs throughout his articles
that the meanings of the texts are fijixed and objective and, at least ideally,
are thus knowable to a sufffijicient degree. Yet “in some real sense we can
never totally penetrate the mind of the original author.”93 Though largely
undeveloped here, he welds the defense of the objective meaning of texts in
the author’s intent to a univocal account of language.
The second necessary element is the role of the Holy Spirit. Here
Anderson disagrees with other Pentecostals who argue that there is a
special “pneumatic” approach to interpretation that allows for special
insight into the text, and he further suggests that this approach leads to a
type of spiritual elitism. On this matter, Anderson argues that the “meaning
(sense one)” is public and available to believer and unbeliever alike, but
that the “meaning” (sense two) is truly only accessible to believers who, by
virtue of life situation, experience its signifijicance and emotional impact.
Similarly, he argues against the “meaning (sense one)” of biblical texts hav-
ing a sensus plenior, of their containing additional meaning than the
author’s intention, on the grounds that this interpretive program imports
systematic theology into biblical theology rather than vice versa. By making
this claim, he seems to advocate for a unidirectional process. He does, how-
ever, cite exceptions to this rule.94
The third necessary element is genre. By this, Anderson means the debate
in Pentecostal and Evangelical circles around the roles of didactic and nar-
rative portions of Scripture. On behalf of the legitimacy of the claim of the
narrative’s equal (or, even, greater) worth, he argues that the proclivity for
the propositional is a tendency of Western culture for the analytic while
most of the rest of the cultures of the world have taught religious and other
values primarily through narratives. Thus the favoring of the didactic is a
problematic bias. To this he adds that Pentecostals have properly held to a
principle of continuity – as God will continue to act as God acted in self-
revelation in the Scriptures. “The burden of proof lies with those who argue

92 Ibid., 14.
93 Idem. “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part I,” 10.
94 The three legitimate uses of the sensus plenior occur when a fuller meaning is inherent
in some passages (e.g., Is. 7:14), cases where later biblical authors go beyond what the original
author seemed to or could have intended or known, and instances of futuristic prophecy
(idem., “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part I,” 5–9; and “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part II,”
14–16).
156 chapter four

that God no longer acts in the ways He did in the past.”95 Beyond this,
Anderson argues that Robert Menzies and Stronstad have overstated their
cases in arguing for a charismatic interpretation of Luke’s narratives by bas-
ing them on Luke’s intentionality. He maintains that the biblical narratives
provide historical documentation about how God has worked in the world
so that: “The interpretation of the narratives is done by interpreters and
theologians. It overstates the case to insist that the authors of the narratives
must have intended to establish theology when they wrote their descrip-
tions for their descriptions to have theological merit.”96 Though he has
operated with a primarily author-centered approach, here he comes out in
favor of an approach with a greater emphasis on the texts of Scriptural nar-
ratives. The historical events themselves produce the narratives found in
the texts as much or more than the biblical authors who offfer “descriptions”
of them. Thus these historical events have didactic value in and of them-
selves before the biblical authors intend to teach anything theological
through them.
The fourth necessary element is his understanding of the role of
personal experience which has already been described above.97 The fijifth
element is historical experience, or the assessment of history, especially as
it regards God’s work in history. Anderson positively cites the history of the
role of women preachers among Pentecostals as properly influencing
Pentecostal interpretation of biblical passages pertaining to women’s roles
in the Church.98 Finally, he argues that theological presuppositions “have a
formative efffect on the interpretation of Scripture.”99 This cannot be, in
actuality, avoided. So Anderson suggests that they, instead, be acknowl-
edged so that they might not “uncritically… dominate the interpretation
process.”100

     95 Ibid., 17.
    96 Ibid., 18.
    97 Anderson fijinds that personal experience does, in part, form the interpreter’s under-
standing of Scripture, yet he strongly denies the claim of the “new hermeneutic” that since
the original meaning is unknowable, one ought to be free to “impose human subjectivity on
the text.” While he argues that experience should not elevate itself above the text in the
interpretive process, the interpreter’s shared attitudes, assumptions and experiences with
the original situation can provide a better understanding of it (idem, “Pentecostal
Hermeneutics: Part I,” 10; idem, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part II,” 18–19).
    98 Ibid., 20.
    99 Ibid., 21–22.
100 Idem., “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Part I,” 11. More recently, Anderson has suggested
that Pentecostals offfer a unique blend of afffijirmation of Scriptural authority, the use of
human rationality, and a place for experience in the interpretive process. Idem, “Pentecost,
Scholarship, and Learning in a Postmodern World,” PNEUMA 27:1 (Spring 2005): 115–123.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 157

Anderson’s work on the act of interpretation seeks to develop a herme-

neutic which begins to deal with many of the philosophical complexities
and problems that hermeneutic theorists face. He does so in line with the
values and methodology of mainstream Evangelical hermeneutics and
theological method along with the values and principles of author-centered
hermeneutic theory, especially as it is articulated by Hirsch. Yet, in doing so,
Anderson does not entirely throw out the insight that the interpreter’s con-
text inevitably influences her interpretation while still rejecting the claim
that context itself actually produces a text’s meaning.

2.3. Pneumatic Interpretation in the Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic

Other Pentecostal hermeneutical theorists, while continuing to stand in the
tradition of Evangelical hermeneutics, have focused on the work of the Holy
Spirit in biblical interpretation. The interpreter’s enlightenment by the
Spirit is usually described as “illumination.” For these hermeneuts, the
Spirit’s presence is necessary for proper interpretation of the biblical
texts. A theological axiom thus exists here which holds that the Word as
Scripture and the Spirit as the one who inspired Scripture and provides
illumination for its interpretation cannot be properly separated in biblical
interpretation.
Stanley Horton, a Pentecostal biblical scholar and theologian whose
influence has spanned most of the second half of the twentieth century, has
developed the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic in a direction which
has sought to ground the less radical Evangelical-Pentecostal restorationist
narrative – in comparison to that of the Latter Rain – and a supernatural
outlook in the biblical witness.101 In What the Bible Says about the Holy

Though he only minimally develops this update to his proposal for a Pentecostal hermeneu-
tic, he wonders if a supernatural form of intuition that widens what one can apprehend
phenomenologically might in fact offfer an account of “revelation.” How he intends to work
this out is not altogether clear. However, he does demonstrate that this includes, at least,
re-reading some biblical texts. Again, he cites the texts related to women in ministry. In light
of experiential evidence, it is legitimate to conclude “that God wants women to preach and
teach, namely, that many do so under a powerful anointing and have been efffective evange-
lists, missionaries, and pastors” (Ibid., 121). Here he advocates that experience, too, must be
interpreted and discerned as it informs one’s reading of the biblical texts. While Anderson is
concerned about “a lurking liberalism in all this, there are more dangerous proclivities at
hand when one tries to get to God’s meaning in a text exclusively through the limited meth-
ods of strict rationalism” (Ibid.).
101 Horton’s influence has primarily come through his roles as a Pentecostal educator,
author of popular and devotional material, and as an editor for theological curriculum to be
used in educating A/G ministers.
158 chapter four

Spirit, he develops an overarching biblical theology of the Holy Spirit by

working out biblical theologies about the Holy Spirit as he works through
the Scriptural canon in thematic sections.102 He fijinds that a “consciousness
of the reality of the Holy Spirit pervades the entire Bible from Genesis to
Revelation,” and that “men and women who were moved by the Spirit knew
Him in a defijinite, personal way.”103 It is the presence of the Spirit, then, that
is essential to the ongoing life of the Church: “This personal experience with
the Holy Spirit is still one of the distinguishing marks of Christianity.”104 The
example for this is in the life of the early Church, as witnessed to in
the Scriptures, and especially in Acts. It was the Holy Spirit who provided
the proper approach to theological knowledge, alongside proper searching
of Scripture and reasoning in general:
The Holy Spirit provided the warmth, the dynamic, and the joy that character-
ized the whole movement of the gospel in the fijirst century. Every part of the
daily life of the believers, including their work and worship, was dedicated to
Christ Jesus as Lord and was under the direction of the Holy Spirit. This does
not mean, of course, that their own minds or intelligence had no place, or that
they were moved by emotion only. Emotion did have “a vital place, which the
exaggerated intellectual emphasis of many Protestants today does not
adequately value.” But they were expected to search the Scriptures, accept rea-
sonable proofs, and in understanding (thinking) be men (become mature).
(See I Corinthians 14:20; Acts 17:11; 28:23).
 Nevertheless, the whole of their Christian life and worship transcended the
merely natural and human. The supernatural was a part of all experience. In
their daily lives they did not try to carry out some things on the human level
and some on the level of the Spirit…They did not claim external miracles
every day, but every day was a miracle as they lived and walked in the Spirit.105
Horton considers that dependence on the Holy Spirit is necessary for proper
experience of and thus proper understanding of God. Though human rea-
son has its place in God’s order, it is often held above God as an authority
and thus operates in continued rebellion against God. Submission to God
has been the reason Pentecostals have provided such a powerful witness:
The recognition that we are not self-sufffijicient, but totally dependent on Christ
and the Holy Spirit to do anything that pleases God, and the willingness to do

102 Stanley Horton, What the Bible Says about the Holy Spirit (Springfijield, MO: Gospel
Publishing House, 1976).
103 Ibid., 10.
104 Ibid., 12.
105 Ibid., 11–12. Horton quotes Floyd V. Filson, The New Testament Against Its Environment
(London: SCM Press, 1950), 79.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 159

anything that pleases God, and the willingness to give Him all the praise, is the
secret of the success of the Pentecostal Movement today. More than that, the
Pentecostals stand fijirm at the point that marks offf Bible-believers from so-
called liberals. The line of demarcation is not the acceptance simply of the
Virgin Birth, the Cross, or the Resurrection. It is rather the supernatural itself.
Those who oppose the simple gospel of Christ, those who try to strip the Bible
of its miracles, those who cut up the New Testament and make Jesus an empty
fijigure – a pale, mistaken teacher – all build their theories on an antisuper-
naturalistic bias.106
Modern rationalism and its attendant bias against the miraculous in the
Bible, understood here by Horton in terms of natural-supernatural opposi-
tion, denies correct understanding of the realities of God and God’s world.
Instead, experience with the Holy Spirit provides the proper experiential
standpoint for understanding God’s work in the world and the Holy Spirit
himself.107
Horton further exemplifijies key aspects of the Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic when he both decries “destructive criticism of the Bible” and
utilizes a signifijicant amount of biblical scholarship in developing his points
about the Holy Spirit.108 He thus employs a form of “believing criticism” in
developing biblical theologies in order to, in turn, provide an overarching
view of the identity of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s continued work today.
Bringing a supernatural presupposition to the biblical text and biblical his-
tory allows him to read it in this light, the same light in which he believes
the biblical authors and models in Scripture did. This allows them to
serve as exemplars for contemporary believers. However, he does not show
much indication that diffferent philosophical and theological categories for
understanding the biblical text might still be faithful to the text. Rather,
there is a simple link between the presence of the Spirit in one’s life and the

106 Ibid., 13–14.
107 Ibid., 14–15.
108 Ibid., 14. Horton uses a variety of approaches to biblical scholarship positively in What
the Bible Says about the Holy Spirit. His usual sources are conservative modern biblical
scholars. He also cites several popular Pentecostal theologians including Donald Gee and
Ralph M. Riggs. He consistently cites George Eldon Ladd, especially Ladd’s The Pattern
of New Testament Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1968); and A Theology of the
New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1974). His positive engagement
with Ladd – and Ladd’s “already/not yet” thesis on the Kingdom of God – is indicative of his
ecclesiological and eschatological stance in the face of Dispensationalism. On a handful of
occasions, Horton cites the work of Rudolf Bultmann and Hans Conzelmann to buttress his
claims, gleaning positive insights from them in spite of his signifijicant methodological and
theological diffferences with them. See especially Horton, What the Bible Says about the Holy
Spirit, 285–295.
160 chapter four

ability to have proper knowledge as to “what the Bible says” about a parti-
cular issue. Horton’s pneumatology holds that “in this age the Holy Spirit is
the only One who can minister the life, power, and person of Jesus to us…He
is always the same Holy Spirit who makes Jesus real and continues His
work.”109 The Spirit serves as the mediator of experiential knowledge of
Jesus. Thus, beyond operating with a certain restorationist narrative of his-
tory and a supernaturalistic presupposition, Horton’s theological herme-
neutic is pneumatic in that it emphasizes the necessary presence of
the Spirit in the theological interpreter in order to rightly understand the
biblical text.
Roger Stronstad’s brief and modest constructive proposal for Pentecostal
hermeneutics also stresses the pneumatic. It includes engagement with fijive
elements: (1) experiential presuppositions, (2) a pneumatic aspect, (3) the
identifijication of literary genres, (4) the use of human rationality in exegesis,
and (5) experiential verifijication. He holds that experience acts both as a
presupposition for interpretation and as something that certifijies beliefs.
Similar to other forms of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic, the
third and fourth elements afffijirm the use of believing criticism, including a
theological justifijication for the task of exegesis in human rationality’s
grounding in the human as the image of God.110
The second element, the pneumatic, is the place where Stronstad makes
his most signifijicant theological claims about the interpretation of the Bible
in the Church. Pneumatologically and ecclesiologically, he claims that the
Spirit has not simply abandoned the Scriptures to the custody of the Church
since inspiring these texts in the Apostolic Age. While the Church is the
custodian of “God’s Word” it also remains “God’s Word” because of its origin
in God and its spiritual nature.111 This leads him to draw the conclusion that:
Because Scripture is spiritual, and because it must be spiritually appraised, it
can only be understood with the contemporary help of the Spirit. This ever-
present and immanent Spirit bridges the temporal gap between inspiration
(in the past) and interpretation (in the present)…Therefore, there is no revela-
tion worthy of the name which does not bear the imprint of the living Spirit

109 Ibid., 255.
110 Stronstad, “Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics,” 25–28. Also see his The
Prophethood of All Believers: A Study in Luke’s Charismatic Theology (JPT Supplement 16;
Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 1999), 13–34, esp. 18–19, for an example of self-
conscious application of portions of this method.
111 Stronstad, “Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics,” 26, cites 2 Tim. 3:15, Rom. 7:14
and 1 Co. 2:10–16 in support of these claims.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 161

upon it. In other words, just as Scripture, in terms of its inspiration, is

self-authenticating, that is, it commends itself as the Word of God, so biblical
interpretation, in spite of the fijinitude of the interpreter, should also be
self-authenticating, that is, it should commend itself as sound, not simply
because interpreters share similar methodology, but because it is spiritually
appraised.112
This means that proper interpretation of Scripture can only occur in
the Spirit. Done in this manner – and “in spite of the fijinitude of the
interpreter” – it “necessarily transcends the human; it transcends creature-
liness and fijinitude of human experience, intellect, and knowledge.”113
Along with Horton and Stronstad, French Arrington and Howard Ervin
have been signifijicant advocates of a pneumatic approach to Pentecostal
hermeneutics. Ervin, however, will be dealt with in Chapter Six as I will
categorize his hermeneutic in light of its ecumenical orientation.114 But
Arrington is fijirmly planted in the tradition of Evangelical hermeneutics,
grounding and justifying his claims in Scripture. He links illuminative inter-
pretation of the Scriptures as the Word of God with their inspiration by the
Spirit:
Pentecostals have been called “people of the Spirit,” but they are also charac-
teristically “people of the Book.” From their beginning, Pentecostals have had a
biblical focus and have been led by the Scriptures as well as by the Spirit. For
Pentecostals divine truth may come in song, testimony, sermon, or through
spiritual gifts, but all such means lead back to the Scriptures. Pentecostals see
the Bible as more than a book of religious truths or a book that records God’s
works among ancient people. The Bible is a witness to God, but it is also the
voice of God speaking across the ages. An encounter with the Scriptures is an
encounter with the living God.115
Arrington fijinds Spirit and Word to be working together in close concert.
While he is critical of the early Pentecostal hermeneutic which “regarded
the writers of Scripture as mere pens in the hands of the Holy Spirit,” he
afffijirms that it is the “creative work of the Holy Spirit.”116

112 Ibid., 26.
113 Ibid.
114 See Howard M. Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” PNEUMA 3:2 (Fall 1984):
11–25.
115 French L. Arrington, Christian Doctrine: A Pentecostal Perspective, vol. 1 (Cleveland, TN:
Pathway, 1992), 25.
116 Ibid., 51–52. Arrington prefers to use the term “infallibility” concerning the original
manuscripts of the Bible. Its inspiration entails its complete reliability in conveying the
exact truths the Spirit wanted to convey. This extends to both words and ideas (Ibid., 56–60).
That Arrington considers himself an Evangelical and a Pentecostal is demonstrated when he
162 chapter four

Arrington has a place for general revelation in God’s creation and in the
human conscience as the human is made in spiritual likeness to God. But
only eyes enlightened by faith can properly estimate the truth of creation,
and only a redeemed conscience can have full confijidence as given by the
Spirit. General revelation does not provide a witness which is salvifijic.117
Special revelation, on the other hand, comes through providence, miracles,
direct communication and manifestations, through Christ, and through the
Bible. Both general and special revelation are “supernatural,” as there is
nothing that is simply natural.118 The latter, however, “embodies God’s rev-
elation to us.” It is the witness of God’s self-revelation and the standard by
which all claims to general revelation are measured.119 The Bible serves as
the norm for the life of the Church and believers so that “every word and
experience is to be measured by the teaching of Holy Scripture.”120 The
Bible is a progressive revelation of God – not one in which primitive ideas
are rejected for more advanced ones, but where later revelation builds upon
the earlier.121
There is a tension in Arrington’s method on the matter of harmonizing
biblical doctrine. On the one hand, the Bible sets the limits on Christian
doctrine. On the other, because of the Bible’s diversity, those who take the
Bible seriously do not necessarily come up with the same results.122 The
grounding of Scripture for Arrington is in its historicity. Not just the events
but the words of the biblical writers “proclaim the signifijicance of the events
and clarify the mystery contained in them. Therefore the Bible is both the
inspired record of the events and the inspired interpretation of their signifiji-
cance woven into one account.”123 While the nature of the Scriptures
implies a signifijicant measure of clarity so that “all the teachings that are laid

states that, “like their fellow Evangelicals, Pentecostals have struggled with the defijinitions
of infallibility and inerrancy as they apply to the biblical text” (idem., “Hermeneutics,” in
DPCM, 381). He denies any type of proof for establishing the Bible’s infallibility, “while bibli-
cal infallibility is an assumption on which Pentecostals build their hermeneutic, they recog-
nize that they have neither the ability nor the responsibility to demonstrate this infallibility.
Because the Bible is inspired by an infallible God, it is infallible. No further demonstration of
its infallibility is either necessary or possible” (Ibid., 382).
117 Arrington, Christian Doctrine, 37–44.
118 Ibid., 31, 39.
119 Ibid., 44–49.
120 Ibid., 31.
121 Arrington states that, “for the Christian, particular statements in Scripture must be
interpreted in light of the total biblical revelation. Earlier teachings must be explained in
light of later teachings” (Ibid., 39).
122 Ibid., 29–30.
123 Ibid., 49.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 163

down in Scripture are accessible to the average reader,” an attempt to overly

harmonize that which is unclear is unhelpful.124 One should be patient and
trust the Bible as many of these issues have been resolved over time.125
Instead of positing constructs, “the Scriptures should be interpreted the
way the prophets and apostles intended them to be understood.”126 For
Arrington, the intent of the biblical authors is the point of gravity for bibli-
cal hermeneutics.127 But he considers that the unity of the Scriptures is a
biblical unity, that is, a unity in the Spirit’s inspiration of the text, and not
artifijicial human constructs.128
Arrington combines this view of Scripture and authorial intent with a
strong pneumatic emphasis for biblical interpretation. With obvious pre-
scriptive aims, he holds that:
The Holy Spirit is the author, preserver, and interpreter of the Scriptures. The
Spirit has inspired the Scriptures and guided the church in collecting and
placing the 66 books in our Bible. But more than this, the supreme authority
for illuminating (shedding light upon) and interpreting Scripture belongs to
the Holy Spirit. Convinced of this truth, Pentecostals rely on the Holy Spirit for
understanding of the Scriptures. They see the Scriptures as the sword of the
Spirit and believe that only through the Spirit can the heart of the biblical
message be penetrated. By the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds,
the truth spoken by the prophets and apostles can be personally understood
and appropriated.129
The Spirit then is faithful to provide illumination on the Scriptures which
he inspired. The Word of God is the “sword of the Spirit” (Eph. 6:17), thus it
is the instrument of the Spirit, “efffective only as the Holy Spirit wields it.”130
It is further inappropriate, then, to attempt to sever the operations of the
Word and Spirit from one another.131 Only through the Spirit can one “truly

124 Ibid., 33.
125 Ibid., 59–60.
126 Ibid., 60.
127 Arrington rejects “spiritual” or “allegorical” interpretations of Scripture (idem.,
Christian Doctrine, 79. His use of “believing criticism” and a grammatical-historical method-
ological approach is evidenced in his four principles for correct interpretation of Scripture:
“First, interpret the passage historically…Second, interpret the passage grammatically…
Third, interpret the immediate passage in light of the wider context…Fourth, consult the
commentaries and expositions of learned interpreters who support the authority of Scripture
and who are marked by spiritual depth and personal integrity” (Ibid., 82).
128 Idem., “Hermeneutics, 382.
129 Ibid., 73.
130 Ibid., 74.
131 Ibid., 74. “There is no conflict or discrepancy between the witness of the Holy Spirit
and the Word of God” (Ibid., 76).
164 chapter four

comprehend” the truth of the written and preached Word. “Only the divine
light of the Spirit can drive away the darkness of spiritual ignorance and
reveal to us the deep things of God. This is precisely the teaching of
Scripture.”132
Arrington’s “basic principle of interpretation is that what has been writ-
ten down by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit must be interpreted by the
guidance of the same Spirit.”133 This occurs through a spiritual kinship
between the ancient author and the modern reader, in their common faith
in Christ, and walking in the Spirit and apostolic experience.134 Arrington’s
great example of how to pneumatically interpret is found in the Jerusalem
Council in Acts 15 when the apostles concluded: “For it seemed good to the
Holy Spirit, and to us (Acts 15:28).”135 “When the modern reader’s experi-
ence of the Holy Spirit reenacts the apostolic experience of the Spirit, the
Spirit serves as the common context in which reader and author can meet
to bridge the historical and cultural gulf between them.”136
Arrington also considers experience to play a proper place in the herme-
neutical process. He rejects a linear relationship between Scripture and
experience in theological hermeneutics as a faulty theoretical assumption:

Instead, the relationship of personal experience and Scripture interpretation

is dialogical. At every point, experience informs the process of interpretation,
and the fruit of interpretation informs experience. It is certainly true that God
communicates revelation through personal experience as well as Scripture,
and it may be justifijiable to recognize further that such experiential revelation
can unlock previously undiscovered scriptural truths. The problem is not
necessarily that personal experience ‘precedes’ the hermeneutical task; the
problem is that personal experience can displace Scripture as the ‘norm’
against which all proposed revelation is to be tested.137
He rejects a methodology which would try to make Scripture or experience
chronologically or even logically prior to the other. They are always in
dialogue with one another. Rather, Scripture is prior in a normative manner.
He considers experience to be improperly used in Pentecostal hermeneu-
tics in two main ways. First, the Pentecostal interpreter can wrongly

132 Ibid., 75.
133 Ibid., 77.
134 Ibid.
135 Ibid., 80–82. Arrington seeks to demonstrate that, in Acts 15, the diffferent speakers at
the Council appealed to each aspect of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral – Scripture, experience,
tradition and reason – in making their points (Ibid.).
136 Idem., “Hermeneutics,” 382.
137 Idem., “Hermeneutics,” 384.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 165

confuse her own spirit with the Holy Spirit. So the Scriptures and the com-
munity of faith properly hold pneumatic interpretation accountable.
Second, while experience rightly plays a part in interpreting Scripture, it
cannot be the basis for theology, even though it has its proper place in one’s
presuppositions and in confijirming theological conclusions.138
Arrington’s emphasis on the pneumatic and experiential aspects of
interpretation stands in contrast to what he sees as the overly rationalistic
methodology that results when only critical, historical and literary methods
are employed. Instead, faith and the reality of the Spirit are properly
employed in hermeneutics as opposed to those approaches which do not
require faith:
The message of Scripture must reach past the shields of reason and into the
depth of human life, creating self-despair and trust in Christ alone.
Accordingly, Pentecostals see the full purpose of biblical interpretation as not
only to uncover truth but to apply that truth to one’s life and to the commu-
nity of faith, and to communicate that truth to others so that their hearts are
moved toward God. The ability to communicate the truths of Scripture origi-
nates from our prior commitment to hear them in their power through the
Holy Spirit; that is, to study, read, inwardly digest and allow them to wash and
transform us.139
Interpretation is thus a spiritual task, intimately connected to one’s spiri-
tual and moral relationship with God.

2.4. David Bernard’s Apostolic Interpretation

Through the work of David Bernard, Oneness Pentecostalism has also
embraced Evangelical hermeneutics. Bernard’s Understanding God’s Word:
An Apostolic Approach to Interpreting the Bible serves as a major recent con-
tribution to Oneness Pentecostal hermeneutics.140 It stands within the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic as it, along with like hermeneutics,

138 Idem., Christian Doctrine, 76–80. For the future, Arrington suggests that Pentecostals
must: (1) determine the present relationship of their personal experience to their hermeneu-
tic, (2) demonstrate that this relationship is justifijiable, and (3) determine how best to limit
the undeniable potential for misinterpretation that arises in this dialogue between experi-
ence and Scripture (idem., “Hermeneutics,” 384).
139 Idem., “The Use of the Bible by Pentecostals,” PNEUMA 16:1 (Spring 1994): 107.
140 David K. Bernard, Understanding God’s Word: An Apostolic Approach to Interpreting
the Bible (Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame, 2005); Bernard also addresses the nature of
Scripture in God’s Infallible Word (Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame, 1992). Bernard serves as a
leading theologian for the United Pentecostal Church (UPC) and has published over two
dozen books and booklets on Oneness theology.
166 chapter four

functions by seeking to found every theological statement biblically.141

The apologetic thrust of this work is evident throughout as it seeks to
demonstrate that Oneness doctrines are proper biblical doctrines.142
Further, it seeks to defend the objectivity of the truths of Scripture apart
from any meaning ascribed to it by the reader, based upon what he consid-
ers the self-defeating nature of hermeneutics which fail to account for
the intentional communication of authors.143
However, Bernard acknowledges that it is important to recognize the dif-
fijiculties in obtaining a text’s objective meaning, that every interpreter
approaches texts with presuppositions, that a text has a history of
appropriation, and that a text can have multiple applications of its mean-
ing.144 But his method starts fijirst with an endorsement of the grammatical-
historical method as he encourages his readers to approach a passage by
fijirst asking: “What does the text say? What did the authors intend to
communicate to the original audience? What did God intend by inspiring
these words?”145 It thus begins with exegesis. Secondly, and crucially,

141 Bernard considers the Bible’s authority on the basis of its very nature as God’s inspired
Word. The type of plenary inspiration he advocates includes the details of the texts so that
every word, concept, detail or even lack of detail is signifijicant. See Understanding God’s
Word, 13–23. Bernard argues for a consistent systematic theology, but he also forthrightly
claims that “We must limit our doctrinal teaching to the biblical record” (Ibid., 217). Kenneth
Archer fijinds a deep-seated modernism in Bernard’s approach as it “unitizes strong rational-
istic judicial arguments that are philosophically grounded in an uncritical commonsense
realism.” See his “Review of David K. Bernard, Understanding God’s Word: An Apostolic
Approach to Interpreting the Bible,” PNEUMA 29:1 (Spring 2007): 131.
142 A prime example of this is Bernard’s argument for a Oneness interpretation of the
traditional ascription of Matt. 28:19 as a Trinitarian baptismal formula. He does so on the
basis of a grammatical and contextual interpretation of the passage (Bernard, Understanding
God’s Word, 158–159). His argument is strong if one accepts his previous interpretations of
other Scriptures along with his methodology.
143 Bernard argues that “taken to its logical conclusion, postmodernist interpretation is
self-defeating. Since it rejects all truth claims, it cannot make any truth claim for itself. Since
postmodernists depend primarily on the reader for the creation of meaning, they cannot
reasonably hope to communicate concepts of their own to the reader” (Ibid., 32).
144 Ibid., 31–38.
145 Ibid., 41. In employing such a method to Scripture, Bernard offfers a number of other
principles of interpretation. They are as follows: “The Scriptures are basically plain and
meant to be understood” (Ibid., 53); “The Bible is adapted to the human mind” (Ibid., 54);
“God reveals truth progressively from the Old Testament to the New Testament” (Ibid., 57);
“Scripture interprets Scripture” (Ibid., 59); “The Bible is unifijied, and its central focus is Jesus
Christ” (Ibid., 61); “Truth has several witnesses,” that is, truth must be established along the
lines of the Old Testament evidentiary rule that required two or more witnesses (Ibid., 64);
“Each passage has one primary meaning but can have manifold signifijicance and applica-
tions” (Ibid., 66); and “We should use sound rules of logic in interpreting Scripture” (Ibid.,
67). For his primer on utilizing what he understands as the grammatical-historical method
on contextual, linguistic, literary, historical-critical, typological and symbolic levels, see Ibid,
107–211.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 167

“the illumination of the Spirit is necessary for us to fully understand the

meaning of Scripture.”146 Only such an illuminative pneumatic encounter
can open one up to a full grasp of the meaning of a biblical text – this only
can occur as one turns to God and thus is fully committed to God’s Word by
experiencing it personally. Yet the illumination of the Spirit is always in line
with the biblical texts – it “is based on and harmonizes with the objective
Word and will of God and with the teachings of Jesus on earth.”147
Additionally, he offfers principles based on the theological assumptions of
the Apostolic, Oneness Pentecostal tradition. Interpretation of Scripture is
done in light of the extension of apostolic experience to the present day,
that there is one God in Jesus Christ, and that historically we now live in the
days of the great latter-day outpouring of the Spirit just before the coming
of the Lord.148 Further, he holds that every biblical passage is relevant and
applicable to the present and offfers several rules for their application.149
Bernard thus moves Oneness Pentecostalism in the direction of
Evangelical hermeneutics, as he accepts the core tenets of this approach
while he adapts them to the theological assumptions of his tradition. By
doing so, he justifijies Oneness doctrines biblically and methodologically to
his own community and to the wider Christian community. And he does so
with a pneumatic emphasis.

3. Gordon Fee and the Debate over the Hermeneutics

of Pentecostal Doctrines

A key debate over hermeneutics among Pentecostals occurred when Roger

Stronstad and Robert Menzies took issue with aspects of Gordon Fee’s her-
meneutical method.150 The importance of this debate was that it brought to

146 Ibid., 48.
147 Ibid., 50.
148 Ibid., 78–99.
149 Ibid., 99–100. These principles seek to discern the enduring from the cultural on the
basis of their being enduring as opposed to specifijic to that situation. Most of what is not
enduring seems to come from the Old Testament, whereas from the New Testament “we
would expect to fijind very little in it that would not apply directly” (Ibid., 100). He gives a
number of examples of how he employs these principles (Ibid., 101–106). Practically, his fijind-
ings support traditional Apostolic holiness standards including short hair for men and long
hair for women as well as modesty in women’s dress and adornment.
150 This debate has also been initiated from those outside the Pentecostal tradition who
have been, in general, allied with Gordon Fee’s position. Two key works that have engaged
Pentecostal hermeneutics on the matters of the baptism in the Holy Spirit are James D.G.
Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-examination of the New Testament Teaching on the Gift
168 chapter four

the surface several important issues for Pentecostal theological hermeneu-

tics, especially in relation to Evangelical hermeneutics. A leading reason for
this debate was, in fact, the high degree of agreement between them. The
concern on the side of Stronstad and Robert Menzies has been that to enter
into wholehearted hermeneutical agreement with Gordon Fee would imply
a denial of core Pentecostal doctrines. The key adjustments to hermeneuti-
cal method they have made, along with some difffering judgments concern-
ing the content of certain biblical texts, have biblically justifijied these core
Pentecostal doctrines, employing historical-critical methods, particularly
redaction criticism, in doing so.151

3.1. Gordon Fee’s Hermeneutics and Pentecostal Theology

Gordon Fee is a preeminent Pentecostal and Evangelical New Testament
scholar whose commentaries are widely read and respected in the
Evangelical and wider scholarly worlds.152 He is a noted Pauline scholar
and textual critic.153 More importantly for this project, he is also a

of the Spirit in Relation to Pentecostalism Today (Naperville, IL: A.R. Allenson, 1970), and Max
Turner, Power from on High: The Spirit in Israel’s Restoration and Witness in Luke-Acts
(Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 1996).
151 For a summary of the history of this debate, see Bradley Truman Noel, “Gordon Fee
and the Challenge to Pentecostal Hermeneutics: Thirty Years Later,” PNEUMA 26:1 (Spring
2004): 60–80.
152 If Pentecostal theology is to be understood as always holding to the doctrine that the
Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a work subsequent to salvation and evidenced by speaking in
tongues, then Fee could not be included here. However, my criteria for including one’s
theological hermeneutic as a Pentecostal theological hermeneutic has been that one stands
within the stream of Christianity that is Classical Pentecostalism and that the hermeneut
self-identifijies as a Pentecostal. Thus I include Fee here.
For Fee, being a Pentecostal is not a matter of adhering to the subsequence of the baptism
of the Holy Spirit or tongues as its evidence but the Pentecostal experience of charismatic
life in the Spirit. See Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 110.
153 Fee’s commentaries are The First Epistle to the Corinthians (New International
Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987); I and II Timothy,
Titus (New International Biblical Commentary; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988); Paul’s
Letter to the Philippians (New International Commentary on the New Testament; Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995); and Philippians (InterVarsity Press New Testament Commentary
Series 11; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999). Among dozens of articles and book
chapters, his scholarship on Paul includes several monographs as well: God’s Empowering
Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994); Paul, the
Spirit, and the People of God (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996); and Pauline Christology
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007). And his work as a text critic can be found in Papyrus
Bodmer p66: Its Textual Relationships and Scribal Characteristics (Salt Lake City: University of
Utah Press, 1968); Bart D. Ehrman, idem., and Michael W. Holmes, The Text of the Fourth
Gospel in the Writings of Origen, V 1 (New Testament in the Greek Fathers 3, vol. 1; Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1992); and Eldon Jay Epp and idem., Studies in the Theory and Method of
New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993).
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 169

hermeneutical theorist and teacher of exegetical method.154 In fact, Fee has

arguably been the most influential theorist for contemporary Pentecostal
biblical hermeneutics. His work has been theoretically important in
solidifying the link between the methodology of many Pentecostals
and Evangelical hermeneutics in the late-twentieth and early-twenty-fijirst
centuries. Further, through his dissent from the normal Pentecostal
doctrine that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a distinct, subsequent and
normative experience for all Christians and that it is physically evidenced
by speaking in tongues as the result of the implications of several of his
hermeneutical principles, he has inspired a Pentecostal hermeneutical
reaction to his work which has, in turn, become important to recent
Pentecostal biblical hermeneutics. His theoretical approach to hermeneu-
tics is especially found in a collection of his essays entitled Gospel and Spirit:
Issues in New Testament Hermeneutics155 but is also found heavily, albeit
briefly in the introductory chapter, of his and Douglas Stuart’s How to Read
the Bible for All It’s Worth.156
Fee’s theological hermeneutics are almost entirely focused on biblical
hermeneutics because the Scriptures properly function as the authority
for the Protestant and Evangelical Christian communities. However, Fee
clearly considers Scripture to be a penultimate authority. God is the
ultimate authority but Scripture carries such authority because God
communicates and reveals himself through it. This commitment to the
authority of Scripture is a faith commitment for Fee. And it is a commit-
ment which one can never prove to be correct; apologetically, one can
only hope to show others that it is reasonable. He categorizes Scripture’s
function as the authority for Evangelicals as external, as opposed to being
internal to the person or community. An external authority is necessary

154 Collections of his essays on exegesis, most of which are applications of his exegetical
method, are found in the following collections: Listening to the Spirit in the Text (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000); To What End Exegesis?: Essays Textual, Exegetical, and
Theological (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001); and New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook
for Students and Pastors, 3rd ed. (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2002).
155 Each of the essays in Gospel and Spirit had a previous publication record as a journal
article or book chapter but is slightly revised in this compilation.
156 Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth, 3rd ed.
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003). Fee’s hermeneutics can be distinguished from Stuart’s
in that each wrote entire chapters on their own with Fee writing the decisive theoretical
introductory chapter and the chapters on genres in the New Testament and Stuart writing
those dealing with genres of literature in the Old Testament. The influence of this text can be
recognized in its having sold over a half million copies according to its publisher. It has also
been translated and revised in Spanish as well, La Lectura Efijicaz de la Biblia, rev. ed. (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007).
170 chapter four

because God cannot be discovered or “known from below,” since the human
vision of God has been distorted since the Fall. Thus God has graced human-
kind with this external authority in his self-revelation in Jesus Christ
through the Scriptures:157
Our knowledge must come from above. We further believe that God has so
revealed himself: by deeds, in a Person, and through a book that both reports
and interprets those deeds and that Person. Because ultimately
we know the Person, or hear the gospel, through the book, we take the book to
be our primary penultimate authority. That is, we believe that this is the
way God chose to reveal and to communicate. The other forms of authority
(tradition, reason, experience) in various ways authenticate, verify, or
support, but all must themselves fijinally be authenticated by Scripture.158
Fee further identifijies Scripture as “God’s word spoken in human words in
history.”159 Scripture is both divine and human. And he works this out by
claiming that God’s Word is found in Scripture in the intent of the human
authors. He argues that the attempt to be absolute in one’s understanding
of Scripture can actually displace Scripture as authority with one’s own
interpretation of it.160 God’s Word has eternal relevance in that it speaks to
humankind in every age and culture, but it also has historical particularity
in that “each document is conditioned by the language, time, and culture in
which it was originally written (and in some cases also by the oral history it
had before it was written down). Interpretation of the Bible is demanded by
the ‘tension’ that exists between its eternal relevance and its historical
particularity.”161 God has thus locked a certain amount of ambiguity into
the texts. And human speech always requires hermeneutics anyways.162

157 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 28–29. Fee tends to use the word “infallibility” when he dis-
cusses the nature of Scripture rather than “inerrancy.” While Fee never argues against the
term “inerrancy” itself, he clearly distinguishes himself from the strict “inerrancy” position,
fijinding it inconsistent and problematic and characterizing it primarily in relation to
Fundamentalist rather than Evangelical hermeneutics (Ibid., 1–5, 20–23). However, he tends
to use neither term often, perhaps indicating his desire to avoid the debate he seems to con-
sider problematic. Instead, he identifijies the Scriptures most often as “God’s word.”
158 Ibid., 29.
159 Fee acknowledges that this identifijication is a slight adaptation of Gordon Ladd’s in
Ladd, The New Testament and Criticism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), 12 (Fee, Gospel
and Spirit, 30). See also Fee and Stuart, How to Read the Bible, 17.
160 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 30–35. Making an analogy with Christology, Fee rejects a
Fundamentalist understanding of the nature of Scripture as akin to a Docetism as it “merely
pays lip service to its human authors,” and a liberal understanding to Arianism because it
diminishes or negates the divine. As in orthodox Christology, Scripture is properly both.
161 Fee and Stuart, How to Read the Bible, 17.
162 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 25–26.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 171

Further, God gave humankind these revelatory texts in the manner he saw
fijit, and the modern Western person ought not to try to make them into a
series of propositions apart from their genre and context.163
Thus there are two tasks in biblical interpretation. The fijirst is exegesis,
“the careful systematic study of the Scripture to discover the original,
intended meaning.”164 The second task he labels hermeneutics is the seek-
ing of contemporary relevance of ancient texts, though he acknowledges
that this term usually covers the entire task of interpretation as a whole.165
His delineation here of exegesis and hermeneutics is nearly identical to
Hirsch’s distinction between meaning and signifijicance. Put together with
the importance Hirsch places on genre and the locus of meaning of a text in
the author’s intent, Fee is well understood as within Hirsch’s hermeneutical
camp.166 For Fee, “the only proper control for hermeneutics is to be found in
the original intent of the biblical text…this is the ‘plain meaning’ one is after.
Otherwise biblical texts can be made to mean whatever they mean to any
given reader.”167 This original meaning thus becomes the objective point of
control. Though Fee does not explicitly say so, there is in his language a
moral impetus here for letting the original text be what it is without impos-
ing alien notions onto it. And while he does think that the Holy Spirit helps
one in interpreting Scripture, “his help for us will be in the discovering
of that original intent, and in guiding us as we try faithfully to apply that
meaning to our own situations.”168 But one ought not to give the Holy Spirit
credit for what one wants the text to mean.

163 Throughout his writings on hermeneutics, Fee consistently decries the way in which
popular Christian literature utilizes individual Scriptural verses as miniature texts and inter-
prets them apart from their context. Popular misinterpretation of the Bible, as he under-
stands it, is the main problem Fee is attempting to correct in his hermeneutical project. On
the other hand, he wants to avoid scholarly elitism. He counters elitist tendencies by empha-
sizing that what is important is obedience to Scripture not just understanding it. For exam-
ple, see Fee and Stuart, How to Read the Bible, 13.
164 Ibid., 19.
165 Ibid., 25.
166 Bradley Truman Noel sees the influence of Paul Ricoeur and Anthony Thiselton as
well on Fee. See Noel, “Gordon Fee,” 60–61. While I see Noel’s awareness of issues raised by
these authors in Fee’s work, I fail to see where he difffers in any substantial way from Hirsch’s
general hermeneutics. Noel concedes that Fee prefers “the older historical-critical method
and E.D. Hirsch’s focus on authorial intent” (Ibid.). It seems that Noel is referring to the ambi-
guity and ultimate lack of absoluteness in the hermeneutical task that Fee afffijirms, but
Hirsch concedes this as well in Validity in Interpretation. Along with Hirsch, Fee is strident in
his defense of declaring certain interpretations invalid which is not the same as declaring an
interpretation of a text absolute.
167 See Fee and Stuart, How to Read the Bible, 25.
168 Ibid., 26.
172 chapter four

Fee considers that the task of interpretation is to understand the original

setting of the text, then to hear the Word of God in that setting, and then to
apply it to one’s own situation.169 Yet he still afffijirms that there is no such
thing as presuppositionless exegesis: “It is simply not possible for us not to
bring our own experience of faith and church to the biblical texts. The very
selectivity of our hermeneutics…is for the most part related to our tradi-
tions, not to our exegesis.”170 He asserts that this selectivity is a result of vari-
ous factors, some of which are problematic while others are more innocent.
Though he claims that presuppositions are unavoidable, he still implies
that they ought to, as much as possible, be suppressed in order to hear the
voice of the original author’s intention. Presuppositions are something that
ought to be overcome, though Fee does not think this is entirely possible. As
a remedy, he suggests that exegesis from multiple cultures and traditions
help to better open up understanding of Scriptural texts, just as a baptism
in front of a mocking crowd he witnessed in rural Senegal helped Fee better
understand the New Testament accounts of baptism.171 “The ability to hear
texts through the ears of other traditions may serve as one of the best exe-
getical or hermeneutical correctives we can bring to the task.”172 While it is
almost impossible to transcend one’s own tradition, he believes that it can
be done and that those who do it are our great pioneers. But this usual
inability is not entirely a negative thing for Fee because tradition serves as a
safeguard, and in Christian theology it passes down the rich heritage which
“was never far afijield in terms of what was inherently embedded in the New
Testament texts, even if not precisely or intentionally explicated.”173
Presuppositions and tradition remain something to be minimized and, to
the degree possible, overcome.174
Bad exegesis results from “reading biblical texts in light of our
own experience, culture, theological bias or simply misinformation.”175

169 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 6–9.

170 Ibid., 70.
171 Ibid., 78–80.
172 Ibid., 79.
173 Ibid., 80.
174 Ibid. In the preface to his The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Fee notes his own presup-
positions and tradition: “since exegesis cannot be done in a vacuum, I note without apology
that I am a believer whose theological tradition is both pentecostal and evangelical. Like
many others before me I have written out of my own tradition. Each of these traditions
has insights to offfer that are sometimes neglected by others. Nonetheless, I have done my
best to keep those viewpoints from intruding on the exegesis itself” (First Epistle to the
Corinthians, xi).
175 Gordon D. Fee, “History as Context for Interpretation” in The Act of Bible Reading: A
Multidisciplinary Approach to Biblical Interpretation, ed. Elmer Dyck (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1996), 12.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 173

The Bible itself is given in human words in history, in an original situation,

language and culture. While God’s word is in the “plain meaning of the text,”
this plain meaning is that of the original author and audience which can
difffer signifijicantly from the contemporary reader’s “plain meaning.” Thus
Fee focuses on fijinding the proper historical and literary context before deal-
ing with the content of the text. He embraces historical-critical methods
but in the form of a believing criticism in which the historicity of the events
of Scripture are, in general, defended. Finding this “plain meaning” is a mat-
ter of having the best hypothesis or account for the data from historical
research about the text, critical examination of its genre, and its literary
examination. In defending his exegesis of I Corinthians 12–14, he suggests
that it is compelling because it “is not the servant of a prior hermeneutical
commitment, but is correct simply because it touches all the bases and
makes sense of all the data.”176 Fee thus holds that God’s word in Scripture
is heard through the best account of the original author’s intended mean-
ing. Similarly to Anderson, he generally rejects a sensus plenior in Scripture,
an extended meaning in the text placed there by God’s Spirit, though he
recognizes that the New Testament writers found it in the Old Testament,
and that there is a possibility for it in predictive futuristic prophecy as
well.177
But the problem of hermeneutics, in Fee’s use of the word in terms of
applicability, is primarily how to extend this original plain meaning to our
present situation. It is found in how to distinguish that which is culturally
relative in Scripture from that which is culturally transcendent. He suggests
six principles: (1) that which is in the central core of the Bible must be
distinguished from what is peripheral, (2) that which is inherently moral
and theological should be distinguished form that which is not, (3) that
which is given uniform witness should be distinguished from places where
Scripture witnesses diffferently on the matter, (4) principle and specifijic
application of principles should be distinguished, (5) interpreters must be
sensitive to cultural diffferences between the current day and the ancient
world, and (6) charity and generosity should be practiced in the interpre-
tive process.178 Yet each of these principles lacks specifijic content.
For instance, with the fijirst, that which is core and that which is peripheral
to the Bible is a matter of intense debate and not a neutral given.
These principles seem to be practical ones which, when infused with the

176 Gordon D. Fee, “Tongues – Least of the Gifts? Some Exegetical Observations on

I Corinthians 12–14,” PNEUMA 2:2 (Fall 1980): 14.
177 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 17–20.
178 Ibid., 14–16.
174 chapter four

content Fee fijinds in them, like that which is at the core of the Bible, have
been very efffective for him in distinguishing what has eternal relevance in
Scripture and what is merely a historical particularity.
Fee’s interpretation of how the narratives of Scripture have relevance for
continuing Christian living has caused his most serious engagement with
other Pentecostal hermeneuts. His most important theoretical work in this
regard is an essay entitled, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent –
A Major Issue in Pentecostal Hermeneutics.”179 Fee deals with two general
objections by other Evangelicals to the Pentecostal biblical justifijication for
the normativity of the baptism in the Holy Spirit for Christian life: its subse-
quence to salvation, and tongues as its initial, physical evidence. First,
Pentecostals, they claim, wrongly use historical portions of Scripture to jus-
tify their doctrinal claims rather than the didactic. Second, Pentecostals
mistakenly take the descriptive history of the primitive Church and attempt
to make it normative for the contemporary Church. Fee accepts these
claims because, in general, he believes Pentecostals have been pragmatic
and not scientifijic in their interpretation of Scripture. Pentecostals “obey
what should be taken literally; spiritualize, allegorize, or devotionalize the
rest.”180 Further, he importantly claims that “in general the Pentecostals’
experience has preceded their hermeneutics. In a sense, the Pentecostal
tends to exegete his or her experience.”181 This leads to his account of the
origination of these Pentecostal doctrines. According to Fee, Pentecostals
had deep spiritual experiences of the Spirit, then saw like spiritual experi-
ences in the New Testament and especially Acts, thus they thought “this
(their experiences) is that (the experiences in the New Testament),” and
declared such experiences normative for Christian life.182 He considers that
this case of doctrinal development raises signifijicant questions about how
narratives in Scripture, in this case those in Acts, are the Word of God.
Since genre is of utmost importance to determining authorial intent,
and thus the Spirit’s voice in the text, Fee argues that Acts’ genre as
history must be fijirst acknowledged. Anticipating to a degree the objections

179 This essay has appeared in three forms. Originally, it was presented as “The
Hermeneutics of Historical Precedent” at the 1972 Annual Meeting of the Society for
Pentecostal Studies. A published version appeared as “Hermeneutics and Historical
Precedent,” in Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism in 1976. And an updated version, with
additional material responding to William Menzies and Roger Stronstad, appeared
as “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent – A Major Issue in Pentecostal Hermeneutics,”
Ch. 6 of Gospel and Spirit, 83–104.
180 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 86.
181 Ibid.
182 Ibid., 85–87.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 175

the projects of Stronstad and Robert Menzies will raise to his position,
Fee argues against overemphasizing Luke’s “theology” in his historical
narrative.
However much of the “theology” of Luke one fijinds in the book, it is not an
epistle or theological treatise. Even if one disregards its historical value, one
cannot, indeed must not, disregard the fact that it is cast in the form of histori-
cal narrative…Theology there is aplenty, and theology is almost certainly part
of Luke’s intent; but it is cast as history, and the fijirst principle of hermeneutics
here is to take that literary genre seriously.183
It is Luke’s “broader intent,” then, in writing this history that counts the
most. Fee thinks it is: “A defensible hypothesis that he was trying to
show how the church emerged as a chiefly Gentile, worldwide phenome-
non from its origins as a Jerusalem-based, Judaism-oriented sect of Jewish
believers, and how the Holy Spirit was ultimately responsible for this
phenomenon of universal salvation based on grace alone.”184 This historical
lesson was Luke’s primary intention. And what is normative for Christians
must be found in the center of a biblical author’s intention. That which is
secondary or incidental to this primary intention cannot have the same
didactic value as what the narrative intended to teach. In order for a prac-
tice to be established as normative, it must be shown that the biblical
author intended to establish a precedent and normative practice through
the narrative.185 Fee claims that Christian theology, ethics, experiences and
practices are derived either primarily from an author’s intent or secondarily
through implication from Scripture. He identifijies the Pentecostal under-
standing of the baptism in the Holy Spirit as a matter derived from experi-
ence and practice.186 But “the use of historical precedent as analogy by
which to establish a norm is never valid in itself. Such a process (drawing
universal norms from particular events) produces a non sequitur and is
therefore irrelevant.”187 His guiding principle for resolving this situation
thus appears: “for a biblical precedent to justify a present action, the prin-
ciple of the action must be taught elsewhere, where it is the primary intent

183 Ibid., 90.
184 Ibid., 91.
185 Fee thinks Acts is intended to serve as a model for Christian life “not so much in the
specifijics as in the overall picture,” that Luke intended that the church should be like those in
his narratives, “but in the larger sense, not by modeling itself on any specifijic example” See
Fee and Stuart, How to Read the Bible, 101; and Ibid., 94–112, for specifijics of his understanding
of Luke’s intentionality in Acts.
186 Fee, Gospel and Spirit, 90–93.
187 Ibid., 94.
176 chapter four

so to teach.”188 In the case of the Pentecostal doctrine of the baptism in the

Holy Spirit and the case of evidential tongues, he does not fijind this situa-
tion to obtain.189 Fee, who considers himself a Pentecostal on account of his
afffijirmation of the empowering and charismatic experience of the Spirit as
a normal part of Christian living, ends up distinguishing between this expe-
rience of the Spirit as normal for the primitive Church and its being norma-
tive, that is “what must be adhered to by all Christians at all times and in all
places, if they are truly to be obedient to God’s word.”190 It is normal but not
normative. He cannot afffijirm the latter for the Pentecostal doctrine of the
baptism in the Holy Spirit. Instead, he sees those reasons mentioned above,
which are based upon the need to produce obedience, empowerment and
love in the Christian life, for this doctrinal development.191
Fee is thus a sympathetic doctrinal outsider in interpreting these key
Pentecostal doctrines while continuing as an experiential insider. His dis-
sent is driven by his application and judgments about Scripture made in
light of his method of Scriptural exegesis. What emerges is an Evangelical
hermeneutic which afffijirms the penultimate authority of Scripture as the
source for any knowledge of God since it is the sole revelation of God. All
else is judged in its relation to Scripture. He draws on critical realism and
the moral impetus for defending the author’s intention as the meaning of a
text in line with Hirsch’s hermeneutics. His application of criteria for deter-
mining if a biblical text has plenary relevance to Christian belief, ethics and
living results in his denial of the Pentecostal justifijication for the normative
and compelling nature of the baptism in the Holy Spirit upon Christian life.

188 Ibid., 95. Fee also delineates three categories of circumstances in which to deal with
biblical patterns: (1) the strongest case can be made when only one pattern is found in
Scripture and that one pattern is repeated, (2) when there is ambiguity of patterns or a pat-
tern is found once but appears to have further substantiation elsewhere in Scripture it may
be considered repeatable for later Christians, (3) what is culturally conditioned is not repeat-
able and must be translated into contemporary culture (Ibid., 96). It should be noted that
Fee’s judgment that these Pentecostal doctrines do not fall into category one, here, would
difffer from that of many Pentecostal interpreters who do think that Acts does present such a
repeated pattern. Thus there is not necessarily as much diffference in hermeneutical theory
as much as it is in judgments and application. This is further the case in locating Luke as
“theologian.” Fee afffijirms that there is theological teaching in Luke-Acts, but he locates it in
the overall intent of the narrative. Stronstad and Robert Menzies do as well, as illustrated
below, but they fijind Luke’s theological intent in his narrative to apply more broadly than
does Fee. And included in this intent is teaching about how the Spirit works in empower-
ment for service in Christian life.
189 Ibid., 96–99.
190 Ibid., 102.
191 Ibid., 111–119.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 177

This has resulted in a friendly but strong debate between Fee and his
Pentecostal fellows.

3.2. Luke as Theologian: Roger Stronstad, Robert Menzies and the Biblical

Justifijication for the Distinctive Pentecostal Doctrines
Roger Stronstad and Robert Menzies have replied to Fee’s objections to the
distinctive Pentecostal doctrines with several key methodological moves.192
First, they both have sought to deny a simple dichotomy between descrip-
tive historical portions of Scripture and didactic portions. Second, they
have aimed to establish the thesis that Luke is a theologian “in his own
right,” and a charismatic one at that. And third, Robert Menzies has worked
to advance the theological method of the Evangelical-Pentecostal herme-
neutic by offfering an approach to the procedure of moving from biblical
theology to systematic theology.
Stronstad’s The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke provided a major
Pentecostal response to the criticism of Fee as well as the general Evangelical
critique of the Pentecostal biblical justifijication of the doctrine of the
baptism in the Holy Spirit.193 In it, he denies a clear distinction between
description and teaching in “the New Testament understanding of biblical,
that is, Old Testament historiography.”194 Stronstad goes on to insist that “if
for Paul the historical narratives of the Old Testament had didactic lessons
for New Testament Christians, then it would be most surprising if Luke, who
modeled his historiography after the Old Testament historiography, did
not invest his own history of the origin and spread of Christianity with a
didactic signifijicance.”195 Especially, following I. Howard Marshall in Luke:
Historian and Theologian, Stronstad concludes that Luke’s writing appears
to be modeled after Old Testament historiography, especially as exhibited
in the Septuagint. It is also comparable to intertestamental Jewish

192 This line of Pentecostal response initially began with William Menzies, the father of
Robert Menzies, with his article “Synoptic Theology, An Essay on Pentecostal Hermeneutics,”
Paraclete 13 (Winter 1979): 14–21. It has since been articulated more thoroughly by Stronstad
and Robert Menzies.
193 Roger Stronstad, The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
1984).
194 Ibid., 6. Stronstad buttresses his argument with the claim that Paul afffijirms all of
Scripture as useful for “teaching” or “instruction” (didaskalian) in two instances (2 Tim. 3:
16–17; Rom. 15:4) and in another where Israel’s experience in the wilderness is used as an
example for such teaching (1 Cor. 10:11) (Ibid., 7).
195 Ibid., 7.
178 chapter four

historians like Josephus or the books of the Maccabees.196 He thus comes to

a diffferent conclusion concerning the genre of Acts than does Fee. Further,
he divides Luke’s narratives into four basic types, though these can be
combined: (1) episodic, (2) typological, (3) programmatic and (4) paradig-
matic.197 Thus the manner in which the events recounted in Luke-Acts
function as theologically instructive narratives varies.
In the light of these four narratival elements, the solution to Pentecostalism’s
methodological challenge is not to retreat behind an artifijicial and arbitrary
“descriptive” vs. “didactic” dichotomy. Rather, it is to come to grips with
the true nature of Luke’s historiography. Deeply influenced by his biblical-
septuagintal historiographical model, Luke narrates the story of the founding
and growth of Christianity. As in his model, his episodes are historical-
theological in intent. In other words, Luke never intended to give his readers a
simple description of events, either to inform or to satisfy the curiosity of his
readers about the origins of their faith. Therefore, however the details are to
be worked out, in principle Luke’s narratives are an important and legitimate
data base for constructing a Lukan doctrine of the Spirit. Thus, rather than
providing a flimsy foundation upon which to erect a doctrine of the Holy
Spirit, as is commonly alleged, the historical accounts of the activity of the
Spirit in Acts provide a fijirm foundation for erecting a doctrine of the Spirit
which has normative implications for the mission and religious experience of
the contemporary church.198
This also means that Luke, as a theologian “in his own right,” ought not to be
read through the lens of Pauline pneumatology. As noted earlier in this
chapter, Stronstad recognizes that presuppositions position the interpreter.
He is critical, then, of the presupposition that Luke should be interpreted in
light of Paul. Interpreters of Paul, especially Evangelicals, almost all
conclude that the apostle’s references to a baptism or infijilling of the Spirit
are all references to an initiatory, salvifijic event. This defijinition, Stronstad
claims, is then read onto Luke’s use of the term. Instead, he suggests
that, minimally, the following is true: “(1) Luke-Acts is theologically

196 See I. Howard Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
1971). Stronstad, Charismatic Theology of St. Luke, 13–32, offfers an account of the relationship
between the pneumatology of Luke-Acts and that of the Old Testament and intertestamen-
tal literature.
197 Stronstad defijines these terms as follows: “In general, all of the narratives are episodic.
In addition, a typological narrative is one that looks back to an historically analogous and
relevant episode from earlier times, either in Luke-Acts or in the Old Testament. In contrast
to the typological narrative, the essence of a programmatic narrative is that it points ahead
to the unfolding of future events. Finally, a paradigmatic narrative is one that has normative
features for the mission and character of God’s people living in the last days” (Ibid., 8).
198 Ibid., 9.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 179

homogeneous, (2) Luke is a theologian as well as a historian, and (3) Luke is

an independent theologian in his own right.”199 When operating with these
assumptions, then, the interpreter can conclude that Luke’s phrase “fijilled
with the Holy Spirit” is not to be interpreted in the same manner as the
Pauline term. Rather than referring to salvation or sanctifijication, it “is
exclusively brought into relation to a third dimension of Christian life –
service…Luke is found to have a charismatic rather than a soteriological
theology of the Holy Spirit.”200
Robert Menzies develops Stronstad’s position further in Empowered
for Witness: The Spirit in Luke-Acts.201 In it, he takes issue with Fee in Gospel
and Spirit, claiming that it “ignores important developments in New
Testament and Pentecostal scholarship, and that when these developments
are taken into consideration, Luke’s intention to teach a baptism in the
Spirit distinct from (at least logically if not chronologically) conversion for
every believer – the essence of the doctrine of subsequence – is easily
demonstrated.”202 Though Fee has a legitimate concern in wanting to
distinguish those portions of Luke’s narrative which are normative and
others which are not, Fee makes a methodological error when he focuses
upon the issue of hermeneutics and historical precedent rather than exege-
sis and Luke’s pneumatology. Menzies claims that Luke, through his narra-
tive, intended to teach every Christian to receive the Pentecostal gift. Thus
he seeks to justify the Pentecostal doctrine of the baptism in the Holy Spirit
in Luke’s intent.203
Menzies makes a very similar yet more extensive case than Stronstad’s
that Luke’s pneumatology is charismatic and in the pattern of Septuagintal
and intertestamental historiography. Using redaction criticism to buttress
it, his thesis is that “Luke never attributes soteriological functions to the
Spirit and that his narrative presupposes a pneumatology which excludes
this dimension…[and] that Luke consistently portrays the Spirit as the

199 Ibid., 12. See also, Ibid., 33–73, for the manner in which Stronstad works out the details
of this approach.
200 Ibid.
201 (JPT Supplement 6; Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 1994). Part III (Chapters
12–14), “The Signifijicance of Luke’s Pneumatology: A Pentecostal Perspective,” has been
added to an earlier version of this monograph which was published as The Development of
Early Christian Pneumatology: With Special Reference to Luke-Acts (JSNT Supplement 54;
Shefffijield, UK: JSOT Press, 1991).
202 Robert Menzies, Empowered for Witness, 233.
203 Ibid., 233–240.
180 chapter four

source of prophetic inspiration, which (by granting special insight and

inspiring speech) empowers God’s people for efffective service.”204
Menzies makes several signifijicant methodological claims for establish-
ing the core Pentecostal distinctive doctrines on top of the conclusions he
reaches as a scholar of Luke-Acts. First, he denies that an Evangelical
approach to Scripture demands that the biblical authors each share the
same theological perspective. Thus Paul and Luke might offfer diffferent but
compatible pneumatologies, the overharmonization of which would
detract from the proper theological diversity which exists in the biblical
texts on the Spirit.205 Second, he theorizes that the relationship between
biblical theology and systematic theology play a key role in developing
doctrines. Whereas biblical theology seeks to:
Listen to the dialogue of the biblical authors seated at a round table. In bibli-
cal theology, we listen to their discussion. By way of contrast, in systematic
theology we frequently begin with the agenda and questions of our contem-
porary setting. We bring the questions of our day to the biblical text and, as we
wrestle with the implications that emerge from the text of our questions, we
seek to answer them in a manner consistent with the biblical witness. In sys-
tematic theology, we do not simply sit passively, listening to the discussion at
the round table. Rather, we bring our questions to the dialogue and listen for
the various responses uttered. Ultimately, we seek to integrate these responses
into a coherent answer.206
For Menzies, the Pentecostal doctrinal claim that tongues speech is the ini-
tial, physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit cannot be
sufffijiciently justifijied through biblical theology; rather, it is properly a

204 Ibid., 44. See also “Hermeneutics: The Quiet Revolution,” Ch. 2 of Menzies and
Menzies, Spirit and Power, 37–45, for additional description of how he employs redaction
criticism to support his interpretation of Luke’s theological intent.
205 Robert Menzies supports his claim for the independence of Luke’s pneumatology
with scholarship that argues that Luke was not acquainted with Paul’s epistles and that his
familiarity with Paul’s pneumatology was probably limited to personal conversation or sec-
ondary written sources. He further supports these claims on the premises that “other aspects
of Paul’s theology have not signifijicantly influenced Luke” and that “Luke’s summaries of
Paul’s preaching do not contain traces of Paul’s pneumatology” (Robert Menzies, Empowered
for Witness, 241–242). He cites in support of these claims Charles K. Barrett, “Acts and the
Pauline Corpus,” Expository Times 88 (1976): 2–5; Martin Hengel, Acts and the History of
Earliest Christianity, trans. J. Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1979), 66–67; Robert Maddox, The
Purpose of Luke-Acts (FRLANT 126; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1982), 68;
Marshall, Luke; and J.C. O’Neill, The Theology of Acts in its Historical Setting, 2nd ed. (London:
SPCK, 1970), 135.
206 Robert Menzies, Empowered for Witness, 244–245.
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 181

systematic question that is an inference from biblical teaching in the same

manner as the doctrine of the Trinity.207
Third, Menzies denies “an exclusive focus on an author’s ‘primary intent’
or ‘intention’ to teach.” This does not mean he has gone over to a reader-
centered hermeneutics; he fijirmly wants to ground the meaning of a text in
its “historical meaning,” heartily rejecting a position where all readings of a
text are valid. But he considers that the meaning of a text is in the historical
“author/text,” that is, the “theological perspective of the biblical author,” an
approach broader than the “tunnel vision which ignores the implications of
an individual text for the theological perspective of the author.”208 It is a
process which cannot be limited to isolated passages but must focus on the
author’s entire perspective. The process of bringing the interpreter’s or the
interpreter’s community’s questions to the biblical text is one where “we
seek to hear the answers (by inference) to our questions which emerge from
the various theological perspectives of the biblical authors.”209 Thus the
Pentecostal community poses the question to the biblical texts as to the
initial, physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. While he readily
admits that this focus on evidence is a modern question of scientifijic
method, foreign to the biblical authors, Menzies claims it is “an inevitable
question for those who would try to reconcile Paul’s gift language with
Luke’s Pentecostal gift.”210 And the identifijication of tongues as evidence of
the baptism in the Holy Spirit is an appropriate inference to be drawn on a
systematic level. But such theological formulations have their limitations as
“human attempts to come to terms with the signifijicance of the Word of
God. All such formulations stand under the judgment of the Word of God.”211
Yet he considers that this process of formulating systematic theological
statements from biblical theology ought to move primarily from the biblical

207 Ibid., 244–247. “It is difffijicult to argue that Luke, through his narrative, intended to
teach this doctrine as articulated by modern Pentecostals. This does not appear to be his
concern” (Ibid., 246).
208 Ibid., 247. See Robert Menzies’ “Jumping Offf the Postmodern Bandwagon,” PNEUMA
16:1 (Spring 1994): 115–120, for his afffijirmation of the “historical author/text” and his strong
rebuke for those who favor “a reader-oriented postmodern approach.”
209 Ibid., 248.
210 Ibid., 253.
211 Ibid. The importance of understandings of theological language in relation to
Scripture in this debate is important. In an interview, Fee summarizes his objection to
tongues as initial, physical evidence on account of the matter of language: “I do not throw
out initial evidence, I throw out the language, because it is not biblical, and therefore irrele-
vant” [Gordon Fee, interview with Bradley Truman Noel (5 December 1997) in Noel, “Fee,”
68 n27].
182 chapter four

to the systematic, though the questions systematic theology poses come

from the contemporary setting of readers.

3.3. The Signifijicance of the Debate

The objections raised by Gordon Fee to the Pentecostal biblical justifijication
for these core doctrines have caused those who adhere to a like herme-
neutical approach to contend with his claims. While Fee’s own theological
hermeneutics have only been slightly advanced as a result of this debate,
the combined effforts of Stronstad and Robert Menzies have signifijicantly
pushed the hermeneutical agenda of those in the Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic forward. They have employed more comprehensive
approaches to the formation of biblical theology, offfering a noteworthy
account of early Christian pneumatology. Beyond this, the debate has led
Robert Menzies to offfer the beginning of a methodological approach for
relating biblical and systematic theologies within this hermeneutical school
of thought.

4. Conclusion: The Signifijicance of the Contemporary

Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic

The Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic has emerged as the major theo-

retical and academic hermeneutic of contemporary American Classical
Pentecostalism. In its recent form, it has sought to employ “believing criti-
cism” in a manner that develops biblical theologies and then integrates
them into systematic theologies. It is a continuation in Pentecostal form of
the classical Protestant claim that the authority for theological knowledge
is found in Scripture and Scripture alone. While this hermeneutic has var-
ied slightly in its accounts of the nature of Scripture, it has largely moved to
an understanding of it in analogy to the dual nature of Christ, as simultane-
ously fully human and fully divine. This stands in contrast to the original
Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic and the early Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic, both of which marginalized the humanity of the Scriptures.
It can be further diffferentiated from the early Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic in its utilization of “believing criticism,” which has employed
historical-critical methods and has moved beyond the internal context of
the biblical texts to understanding them in light of their external contexts
as well. Still, the proponents of this hermeneutic have tended to assume a
simple identifijication of Scripture with the Word of God, standing in
contrast, as I will show in Chapter Six, to most of the advocates of the
 the contemporary evangelical-pentecostal hermeneutic 183

ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic who have sought to diffferentiate yet

relate Scripture as the Word of God to Christ as the Word of God. But it is
helpful to recall that in the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic, Scripture
is elevated to that of a penultimate, and not ultimate, authority.
This hermeneutic has especially sought to deal with the relationship
between Scripture and experience on two accounts. First, prescriptively,
there is a general sense that, as much as possible, Scripture should inform
experience and not the inverse. But second, descriptively, this is usually
held to only be an ideal, that for which one should strive. Experience is
often accounted for in its role of informing Scriptural interpretation. While
experience can be regarded as an element to be overcome, advocates of this
hermeneutic have often backed offf from this claim and, instead, concen-
trated on prescribing the right – that is, biblical – experiential presupposi-
tions rather than attempting to overcome presuppositions altogether.
The attempt to overcome presuppositions to fijind neutral ground, at least
in an ideal sense, is a notably modern quest. That it should serve as an ideal
will be a question which will be a key diffference that will emerge between
this hermeneutic and the rise of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic as
a contemporary alternative. But the increasing complexity of the herme-
neutics of the representatives of the contemporary Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic exhibits that they have begun to deal with some of the ques-
tions raised by contemporary philosophical and theological hermeneutics.
Most have operated with a version of author-centered hermeneutic theory
similar to that of Hirsch, modifijied by secondary nuances appropriate to the
issues they have encountered.
The Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic has been seen, as its critics will
demonstrate in the next chapter, as a turn to modernistic propositionalism.
Theology is understood to be about merely fijinding the right propositional
statements which correctly state theological truths rather than allowing
God to work through stories, song and other genres and forms, of which the
biblical revelation is primarily constituted. That is, it could be understood
as a cloaking of the religious convictions of Pentecostals, who, practically at
least, tend not to dichotomize between practice and theory (often so by
eschewing formal theory altogether), in rationalistic and propositionalistic
forms, as the forming of statements to be afffijirmed or denied. To a degree
this appears to be the case. On the approach espoused by this hermeneutic,
exegesis has the goal of searching the biblical texts in order to discover
propositional content for forming theological claims. But this is not the
entire story. A pragmatic ethos remains here from the experiential heritage
of both the Evangelical and Pentecostal traditions, found here in hybrid
184 chapter four

form. The high regard for the biblical text is a result of the impetus to live in
relationship with and submission to God. Advocates of the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic have not invented a new form of discourse from
which they might theologize; they fijind themselves, instead, wearing the
“armor” of modern Evangelical hermeneutics and author-centered herme-
neutic theory.212
Yet, with its core assumptions, this theological hermeneutic might well
be characterized as axiomatic. There are few attempts to prove its core
beliefs. Instead, they are apologetically defended on the grounds that they
enlighten, account for, or provide the wherewithal for right living in
relationship to God. Ultimately, they are self-evident, the results of induc-
tion. But this heremenutic still functions in the modern style of dealing
with method before content. Many of its advocates suggest that proper
methodology, that is, proper exegesis followed by a well-organized topical
arrangement of its fijindings, will achieve proper theological knowledge.
But there is also often a spiritual or pneumatic aspect to attaining theologi-
cal understanding. However, while recognizing many of the theological
and philosophical assumptions that fund their methods, adherents of the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic may not have adequately accounted
for the influence of context and their own preunderstanding on their theo-
logical understanding of the world, on their hermeneutic. At least, this is
what the proponents of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic have been
contending.

212 I borrow this allusion to “armor” from D. Lyle Dabney, “Saul’s Armor: The Problem and
Promise of Pentecostal Theology Today,” PNEUMA 23:1 (Spring 2001): 115–146.
 chapter five

THE CONTEXTUAL-PENTECOSTAL HERMENEUTIC

Hermeneutics is not a postlapsarian phenomenon, coming upon the scene

“after Eden.” Instead interpretation is found “in Eden” and is thus included in
the pronouncement of goodness (Gen. 1:31). Hermeneutics, then, is not an evil
to be overcome (or in the case of Derrida, an inescapable, violent state of
afffairs) but rather an aspect of creation and human life that ought to be
afffijirmed as “good.”
– James K.A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation (2000)1

The contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic is the third hermeneutical type

I will be characterizing. It represents a set of Pentecostal theological herme-
neutics which are informed by the theoretical and existential concerns in
the human experience of interpretation raised by contemporary philosoph-
ical or general hermeneutics. For a number of its proponents, this herme-
neutic has developed through criticisms of the Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic. Its defijining characteristic is an emphasis on the situation and
context of the interpreter, going beyond the afffijirmation of the historicity
and context of the biblical texts already present in the contemporary
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. Beyond this primary characteristic,
however, these contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutics vary. Some defijine
their approach by the rejection of the claim made by the adherents of the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic that the “meaning” of a text is found
in an original author’s intent, usually on grounds that such knowledge is
impossible to achieve and that it oversimplifijies the complexities of herme-
neutics. Others will still see authors, at least ideally, as bearing signifijicant
weight upon interpretation while focusing heavily upon the role of the
interpreter and the process of interpretation as a whole.
In addition to its emphasis on the conditions of interpretation in the
present, the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic also adjusts the project of
theological hermeneutics away from the method of the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic, which was largely constituted by moving from

1 James K.A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational
Hermeneutic (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 23.
186 chapter five

biblical theologies based upon the reconstructed intentions of the human

biblical authors toward a systematic or topical arrangement of these fijind-
ings. The self-understanding of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic is
one in which theological hermeneutics is a discerning of realities in light of
God. How the Scriptures are utilized as an authority thus shifts, and
this shift is largely a result of the conviction among the advocates of
this hermeneutic that the force of the interpreter’s own context is not neg-
ligible. More will be said about this shortly in relation to Hans-Georg
Gadamer and his influence (though predominately indirect) upon this
hermeneutic.2
A third defijining characteristic for the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneu-
tic is that what counts as a text, or thing, to be theologically interpreted is
more than just written or spoken texts. Language is considered more
broadly, at the level of human conceptualization of the world. This will thus
cause these theologians to reconsider the languages or categories in which
they think otherwise than as sacrosanct in and of themselves. James K.A.
Smith, in particular, makes the case for the ubiquity of interpretation and
the fijinitude of human theological articulations.
Finally, the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic has begun to engage
contemporary philosophical concerns, drawing Pentecostal theology into
some of the classical concerns of philosophical theology which have often
been ignored in Pentecostal circles, and with an orientation largely in line
with the hermeneutical concerns found in the Continental philosophical
tradition. Advocates of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic have
engaged the stream of philosophy that initiated the “linguistic turn.”3
While I know of no signifijicant engagement by a Pentecostal with the work
of Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of its key fijigures, several of the other
major fijigures associated with the linguistic turn, including Martin
Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty and Paul
Ricoeur, have received at least some attention. Further, a debate over
“postmodern hermeneutics” has taken place between those who are pro-
moting this hermeneutic and those defending the Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic.

2 Gadamer’s influence on Pentecostal hermeneutics is demonstrated by Gerald T.

Sheppard in “Biblical Interpretation After Gadamer,” PNEUMA 16:1 (Spring 1994): 121–141.
3 I also deal with the “linguistic turn” in my constructive effforts in Chapter Seven, offfering
a description of its claims and signifijicance there.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 187

1. Hans-Georg Gadamer and Contemporary Philosophical Hermeneutics

The philosopher most critical to the background of the contextual-

Pentecostal hermeneutic is Gadamer. He is the key fijigure who developed an
alternative understanding of hermeneutics that moved away from the
idealized hermeneutics coming from the legacy of Schleiermacher toward
an understanding that considers hermeneutics in terms of the becoming
of being that is understood in time.4 His project works against the modern
tendency to form methodologies for the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften)
in light of the methodologies of the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften),
because he argues that the latter are themselves dependent on a prescien-
tifijic understanding and thus cannot serve as their own grounds.
In the place of scientifijic methodology, Gadamer takes up the project of
developing a new critical consciousness of understanding mediated by tra-
dition. His project is a philosophical investigation of what actually occurs in
the quest for understanding. In it, he is most deeply indebted to Heidegger,
holding that Heidegger’s “being there” (Dasein) is not simply a mode of
understanding but the mode of being human. And “understanding is never
a subjective relation to a given ‘object’ but to the history of its efffect; in
other words, understanding belongs to the being of that which is under-
stood.”5 Gadamer’s hermeneutics must then be understood in coherence
with Heidegger’s critique of the traditional notion of “being” which
came from Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysics. Following Heidegger, for
Gadamer “being” is a matter of “being there.” So “being” is then be-ing in a
particular place and time. And truth is a matter of the disclosure of this
“being” (i.e., alētheia), not correspondence between propositions and a
separate reality. “Being” itself is linguistic: “Being that can be understood
is language.”6
Gadamer self-consciously acknowledges that he is altering the herme-
neutical task. Not just texts but also aesthetics must be absorbed into
hermeneutics. And it is the rise of “historical consciousness” that has
brought hermeneutics to the center of the human sciences. Although both

4 Anthony Thiselton recounts several assessments of Gadamer’s influence, all of which

hold him to be one of or the key hermeneutical theorist leading into the contemporary era.
See Between Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 25–26.
5 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and
Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 2004), xxxi.
6 Ibid., 474.
188 chapter five

Schleiermacher and Hegel were both attempting to account for “the

consciousness of loss and estrangement in relation to tradition,” Gadamer
criticizes Schleiermacher for his goal of fijinding a “nodal point” in the
author’s mind as the goal of a hermeneutical reconstruction. Rather,
Gadamer advocates following Hegel and opts for integration in which
the historicized spirit is made contemporaneous through the ongoing
signifijicance of a work.7 The horizon of the reader and the horizon of the
text come together in interpretation in a “fusion of horizons (horizon
Verschmelzung).8

7 Ibid., 164–69.
8 In Truth and Method Gadamer considers Heidegger as having explicated the fore-struc-
ture of understanding for ontology. Since then, the question has become how hermeneutics,
without objectivity, can do justice to the historicity of understanding. Because Dasein is tem-
poral, the way foreword is through the structure of fore-structures of understanding. This
means that interpretation is always a projection. However, the fore-meanings that one proj-
ects onto a text can go unnoticed. But these meanings cannot be understood simply in an
arbitrary manner. What is required is that we remain open to the meanings of others or the
text. So, for him, there is a necessity in recognizing one’s own bias in choosing from the range
of meanings that a text presents. Understanding thus must be methodologically conscious.
Underlying this is his conviction that the metaphysics of fijinitude ought to replace the
ontology of subjectivity. And he argues that this does not necessarily lead to historicism
because historicism shares the assumptions of the Enlightenment about subjectivity and
objectivity. He considers the Enlightenment prejudice as the prejudice against prejudices. So
the concept of prejudice ought to be rehabilitated away from its negative connotations
toward a defijinition of it as pre-understanding. And tradition is itself the source of these
prejudices. In Gadamer’s hermeneutics, genuine understanding is understanding about the
subject matter, not the other person or his or her lived experiences (Erlebnisse). Language is
where agreement takes place: “The linguisticality of understanding is the concretion of his-
torically efffected consciousness” (Ibid., 389).
Gadamer further claims that “Writing is self-alienation” (Ibid., 390). For in writing what is
spoken exists apart from the emotional elements of expression and communication. “A text
is not to be understood as an expression of life but with respect to what it says. Writing is the
abstract ideality of language” (Ibid., 392). This frees the horizon of language from its original
context. When speech is fijixed in writing it becomes free for new relationships. This leads
him to conclude that, “Normative concepts such as the author’s meaning or the original
reader’s understanding in fact represent only an empty space that is fijilled from time to time
in understanding” (Ibid., 395). Thus it is absurd to try to escape one’s own concepts, so the
idea that there is a “correct” interpretation “in itself” is likewise absurd. This is also true
because understanding always includes application: “When we are concerned with under-
standing and interpreting verbal texts, interpretation in the medium of language itself shows
what understanding always is: assimilating what is said to the point that it becomes one’s
own” (Ibid., 398).
But what of the objection that one often has to seek to express things in language which
one already experiences? Gadamer responds that this is only a criticism of the schematiza-
tion or set of concepts in a common language in which one is seeking to express something.
And that we can only make this criticism with language is itself evidence that language is the
becoming of reason. He credits Johann Gottfried von Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt for
bringing this last link to bear when they recognized the connection between languages and
worldviews. There thus occurs a unity between the world, the word and the subject matter.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 189

Language is a Weltanschaung. It is “man’s” world: “Not only is the world

world only insofar as it comes into language, but language, too, has its real
being only in the fact that the world is presented in it.”9 For Gadamer the
world is not merely an environment, for an environment is a social concept
centering on social efffects. Only the human, unlike all other living crea-
tures, has a world: “The truth is that because man can always rise above the
particular environment in which he happens to fijind himself, and because
his speech brings the world into language, he is, from the beginning, free for
variety in exercising his capacity for language.”10 A world is disclosed in
natural languages. Thus we never see “things” as they are but we see a view
of the world. The thing-in-itself, as he considers Edmund Husserl to have
shown, is the continuity of various perceptual perspectives. For Gadamer,
only a theological appeal could save “being-in-itself” which, otherwise, is
merely a despotic appeal.11
Anders Odenstedt contrasts Gadamer’s understanding of the radicality
of context-dependence with the universal accessibility of truth found in the
Enlightenment tradition.12 On Odenstedt’s reading of him, Gadamer under-
stands that:
A context is cognitively homogeneous in an unreflected way and that the cul-
tural specifijicity of presuppositions has been underestimated…The antithesis
of this argument…held by philosophers in the Enlightenment tradition…(is)
that the influence of a context is slight and may in principle always be over-
come and that contexts are basically similar due to universal forms of thought
and experience.13
While Gadamer argues for radical contextuality, eschewing the categories
of subjectivity and objectivity in the process, the Enlightenment tradition
believes that context can be overcome. Odenstedt fijinds that the conviction
in the Enlightenment tradition that presuppositions can be overcome as
coming through two related but diffferent impulses. One thinks that presup-
positions can be overcome through scrutiny; the other thinks that the
influence of context is actually slight. Both of these impulses can be seen in
representatives of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. But Odenstedt
interprets Gadamer as advocating a position which claims that there are

     
9 Ibid., 443.
10 Ibid., 444.
11 Ibid., 443–445.
12 Anders Odenstedt, “Gadamer on Context-Dependence,” The Review of Metaphysics 57:1
(September 2003): 75–104.
13 Ibid., 75.
190 chapter five

always unreflected presuppositions that are assumed in a tradition in such

a manner that some are general to that cultural milieu.14 That is, there are
basic unreflected presuppositions assumed by all. Yet Gadamer’s histori-
cism should be distinguished from that arising from the Enlightenment tra-
dition because of his turn to the subject matter. Enlightenment historicism
assumes cognitive change about an unchanging object whereas Gadamer
understands changes in interpretation as related to the transformation of
being itself.15 Gadamer’s context-dependence must then be understood in
light of his following Heidegger.
It is in the shadow of this alternative construal of hermeneutics and the
rejection of an essentialist or static metaphysics which Pentecostal theolo-
gians have begun to consider a hermeneutical alternative to that of a
“believing” version of the scientifijically-oriented historical-critical method
which developed through the Enlightenment.

2. The Postmodern Contextual-Pentecostal Critique of the

Evangelical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic

If the birth of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic can be dated, it

would be at the publication of the Fall 1993 issue of PNEUMA: The Journal of
the Society for Pentecostal Studies, when four articles offfered alternative
visions to the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic.16 In introducing them,
Murray Dempster’s editorial essay briefly advocated a new sketch of
what Pentecostal hermeneutics could and ought to look like along those
emerging contours.17

14 Odenstedt states that “unreflected context-dependence can involve diffferent things: (i)
that presuppositions are not noticed, (ii) that their pervasiveness in a context is not dis-
cerned, (iii) that their occurrence is not seen as a result of contextual influence, or (iv) that
they are not questioned” (Ibid., 93).
15 Ibid., 78–81.
16 Each of these articles had a previous version presented during a Society for Pentecostal
Studies Annual Meeting. These four are Richard D. Israel, Daniel E. Albrecht and Randal G.
McNally, “Pentecostals and Hermeneutics: Texts, Rituals and Community,” PNEUMA 15:2
(Fall 1993): 137–161; Timothy B. Cargal, “Beyond the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy:
Pentecostals and Hermeneutics in a Postmodern Age,” PNEUMA 15:2 (Fall 1993): 163–187;
Jean-Daniel Plüss, “Azusa and Other Myths: The Long and Winding Road from Experience to
Stated Belief and Back Again,” PNEUMA 15:2 (Fall 1993): 189–201; and Joseph Byrd, “Paul
Ricoeur’s Hermeneutical Theory and Pentecostal Proclamation,” PNEUMA 15:2 (Fall 1993):
203–214. In the following issue, Sheppard commends these alternatives and pushes them
further to reflection on the role of general hermeneutics in relation to a special hermeneu-
tics regarding biblical revelation. See his “Biblical Interpretation After Gadamer.”
17 Murray W. Dempster, “Paradigm Shifts and Hermeneutics: Confronting Issues Old and
New,” PNEUMA 15:2 (Fall 1993): 129–135.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 191

Dempster’s primary claim was that Pentecostal hermeneutics was expe-

riencing a paradigm shift along three fronts. First, a change was occurring as
to what constituted the texts to be interpreted. This change was in line with
the broadening of the meaning of texts to social as well as written or spoken
texts. The meaningful actions of a faith community, too, could now be con-
sidered a text. Interpretation of written texts is thus a dynamic movement
between written texts, social texts and a narrative subtext underlying the
reader’s understanding of the pertinent history.18
Second, the pre-understanding of the interpreter was considered difffer-
ently than the modern dichotomy between objective and subjective inter-
pretation. Dempster considers that the historical-critical methods are an
“important component” of biblical interpretation, yet objectivity in reading
is impossible. While many advocates of the Evangelical-Pentecostal herme-
neutic would agree, Dempster moves beyond their position by claiming
that:
While historical critical consciousness rightfully emphasized that an inter-
preter lives in history and is thereby conditioned by time and social location,
the more telling factor in a hermeneutical theory is that history and culture
live in the interpreter. The tradition, the loyalties, the values and the particular
communities of discourse of a reader is what gives a reader the capacity to
understand the meaning of a text. Within the context of the Pentecostal tradi-
tion, a hermeneutic must function both to explain a text and to activate the
reader’s participation in the world portrayed in the text.19
The interpretation of texts that follows such a line of thinking is constrained
by two factors, according to Dempster. Following Paul Ricoeur’s distinction
between a fijirst and a second naïveté, that is, the distinction between pre-
critical and post-critical hermeneutical assumptions, there is no legitimacy
in uncritically reading one’s experiences onto a text. And following
Gadamer’s notion of the interpretive horizon, the interpreter’s engagement
with a text is adequately qualifijied by the structure and content of the text
itself: “Because a text has a fijixed relationship among its own signs and
symbols, it imposes its own structure on the legitimate reference range of

18 Ibid., 129–131. Dempster identifijies the texts to be interpreted by Pentecostals for disclo-
sure of the meaning of human life as “Scripture, ritual enactments, relational life within a
community of discourse, Christian tradition and ecclesial associations, key historical events
such as the Azusa Street outpouring of the Spirit, and preaching activity which translates an
ancient biblical text into present-tense proclamation” (Ibid., 131). This list is especially reflec-
tive of the four articles he is introducing.
19 Ibid., 132.
192 chapter five

meanings open to an interpreter.”20 This stands over and against the distinc-
tion between a text’s meaning and signifijicance, especially as articulated in
the literary theory of E.D. Hirsch, fusing these categories together on
account of the impossibility of clearly separating them.
Instead, the third front of change is that “meaning is produced at the
point where the world of the text and the world of the interpreter
conjoin.”21 This includes the experiential world of the interpreter so that
“the claims (made in a text) need to be lived out in real life in order to
understand their meanings.”22 And since these worlds come to us in the
forms of traditions, there is also a legitimate role played by tradition in a
Pentecostal hermeneutic.23
Following this breakout, debate has ensued among Pentecostals around
attempts to assess the proper influence of postmodernity and postmodern
literary theory on Pentecostal hermeneutics.24 With some exceptions, the

20 Ibid., 133. Dempster’s interpretation of the interaction of text and interpreter over and
against the modern subject-object dichotomy is as follows:
“The concept of a fusion of horizons is crucial in overcoming the faulty dichotomy
which drives a conceptual wedge between the objective meaning and the subjective
meaning of a text. As implied in the idea of a fusion of horizons, Gadamer and Ricoeur
are interested in describing how a text and an interpreter function together in the pro-
duction of meaning. Meaning is produced at the point where the world of the text and
interpreter conjoin. In this conceptual scheme, the text is a world unto itself with its
own signs, symbols and structure. Through its own fijixed relationships of signs and
symbols, the text points beyond itself to some referent. The world of the text melds
with the horizon of the interpreter, the text gives meaning to the interpreter and the
interpreter gives meaning to the text. The world of the text gives meaning to the world
of the interpreter. But the converse is equally true. In the act of interpretation, the text
breaks through the horizon and enters the world of the interpreter. The world of the
interpreter gives meaning to the text. The text is appropriated to the life-world of the
interpreter and given a present-tense meaning” (Ibid.).
21 Ibid., 133.
22 Ibid., 134.
23 Ibid.
24 See Hannah K. Harrington and Rebecca Patten, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics and
Postmodern Literary Theory,” PNEUMA 14:1 (Spring 1994): 109–114; Cheryl Bridges Johns, “The
Adolescence of Pentecostalism: In Search of a Legitimate Sectarian Identity,” PNEUMA 17:1
(Spring 1995): 3–17; Jackie David Johns, “Pentecostalism and the Postmodern Worldview,” JPT
7 (1995): 73–96; Ralph Del Colle, “Postmodernism and the Pentecostal-Charismatic
Experience,” JPT 17 (2000): 97–116; Yongnan Jeon Ahn, “Various Debates in the Contemporary
Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” Spirit and Church 2:1 (May 2000): 19–52; Frank D. Macchia, “The
Spirit and the Text: Recent Trends in Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” Spirit and Church 2:1 (May
2000): 53–65; Mathew S. Clark, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics: The Challenge of Relating to
(Post)-modern Literary Theory,” Spirit and Church 2:1 (May 2000): 67–93; Sam Hey, “Changing
Roles of Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” Evangelical Review of Theology 25:3 (2001): 210–218; Scott
A. Ellington, “History, Story, and Testimony: Locating Truth in a Pentecostal Hermeneutic,”
PNEUMA 23:2 (Fall 2001): 245–263. Two articles by Pentecostal theologians have also explored
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 193

articles over postmodern hermeneutics in the Pentecostal journals have

tended to lack sustained engagement with the philosophical sources and
frameworks they assume or employ, and only too briefly spend time inter-
preting and evaluating them. Though many of these articles offfer helpful
suggestions and analysis of particular issues, they have tended to insufffiji-
ciently envision and justify the hermeneutical programs which they are
putting forth. Taken as a whole, the proliferation of these programmatic
articles has left this debate with a lack of conceptual clarity. For example,
the term “postmodernism” has been used to refer to diffferent, even if related,
things (just as the term is used in a multivalent manner in the broader
discussion of contemporary culture), but without sufffijicient analysis of
various conceptions of it.25 While I consider Kenneth J. Archer’s hermeneu-
tical program problematic, his approach to a postmodern Pentecostal
hermeneutics stands out as the one which has been developed more fully
into a strategy for which he offfers justifijication.26 And further, as I will
recommend below, a more sustained engagement with accounts of
the intellectual, social and moral culture which constitutes modernity
and postmodernity in relation to Christian theology is needed among
Pentecostals.
The contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic largely arose as a critique of the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic, presenting itself as an alternative to
it. If its rise to a signifijicant hermeneutical stream in Pentecostal hermeneu-
tics can be dated to the aforementioned issue of PNEUMA, the article which
has garnered the most attention has been Timothy Cargal’s, “Beyond the
Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy: Pentecostals and Hermeneutics in
a Postmodern Age.” No other article provoked such a strong reaction, and
its continual citation in Pentecostal debates on hermeneutics   demon-
strates its ongoing influence.

the related matter of oral and textual cultures. They are Smith, “The Closing of the Book:
Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and the Sacred Writings,” JPT 11 (1997): 49–71; and Jerry Camery-
Hoggatt, “The Word of God from Living Voices: Orality and Literacy in the Pentecostal
Tradition,” PEUMA 27:2 (Fall 2005): 225–255.
25 Del Colle’s “Postmoderism and the Pentecostal-Charismatic Experience,” represents
the type of sustained engagement with a specifijic set of issues revolving around the structure
of a specifijic “postmodern” text: Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1989). Del Colle gives conceptual clarity to his engagement with
“postmodernism” by diffferentiating between four types following Terrence Tilley, Postmodern
Theologies: The Challenge of Religious Diversity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995).
26 Kenneth J. Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First Century: Spirit,
Scripture and Community (JPT Supplement 28; London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004).
194 chapter five

Cargal holds that a tension exists in Classical Pentecostal hermeneutics

between the pre-critical hermeneutics of largely theologically underedu-
cated Pentecostal pastors and those of Pentecostal biblical scholars who
have been trained at Evangelical institutions.27 The hermeneutic of the
former is pragmatic and typological, continuing the interpretive tradition
I have accounted for as the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic, with
these current practitioners often claiming the illumination of the Holy
Spirit concerning the interpretation of certain passages. According to
Cargal, such hermeneutical practices have resulted in a plurality of inter-
pretation concerning “the meaning” or “the message” of the same passages.
The latter, who I have considered in the previous chapter in terms of the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic, have employed modern critical
methods and the principle that “the meaning,” in the singular, of a biblical
passage is found in the inspired human author’s intention at the point of
the text’s composition. Cargal wants to legitimize the practices of the for-
mer, albeit in a post-critical manner, by rejecting “the shared epistemologi-
cal presuppositions of Modernists and Fundamentalists.” This includes the
“positivistic philosophical paradigm which took history as the dominant
category of meaning” with history as “the fijield encompassing fijield”:28
“Perhaps ironically, however, these traditional forms of Pentecostal ‘pre-
critical’ biblical interpretation – particularly with regard to their emphases
upon the multiple dimensions of meaning and applications of the text –
have more in common with postmodern modes of interpretation than do
the ‘critical’ interpretations of Pentecostal biblical scholars.”29 Cargal is
motivated to reject what he sees as the positivist-objectivist-historicist

27 Throughout “Beyond the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy,” it seems implicit

that Cargal is claiming that while many of these Pentecostal pastors could be considered
Fundamentalists in some regards, their underlying hermeneutic, which he never quite
describes but is something akin to my account of the original Classical Pentecostal herme-
neutic, places them in the camp of this hermeneutic rather than that of what I have called
the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. His reference to the “Fundamentalist” end of the
“Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy” fijinds Evangelical and Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutics as the heirs of Fundamentalist hermeneutics, and not the “pre-critical”
hermeneutics of Pentecostal pastors.
28 Ibid., 167.
29 Ibid., 165. While it may be a fair characterization of early Pentecostal hermeneutics as
holding to “multiple dimensions of meaning,” my assessment of the original Classical
Pentecostal hermeneutic would deny that these hermeneuts were thus hermeneutical plu-
ralists. The typological and common sense readings of these early Pentecostals seem to be
more of a quest to fijind the real meaning of a text through either a deeper reading of the text
informed by a Spirit-baptized reader or through a plain and simple reading of the text
through the lens of the reader’s common sense and supernaturalistic horizon.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 195

nexus in modern thought. He objects to the position that would hold that
“only what is historically and objectively true is meaningful.”30 And he holds
that postmodernism is constituted by the rejection of this claim. He sees
such a paradigm shift as having occurred with the shifts in the hard sciences
which undermined positivistic philosophy.31
Pentecostals can, he suggests, offfer a hermeneutic relevant to this
post-positivistic world by fijinding the continuity between postmodern
hermeneutics and, as he understands it, their traditional hermeneutic,
which Cargal defijines according to French Arrington’s aforementioned
claim that Pentecostal hermeneutics revolves around pneumatic interpre-
tation, holds to the dialogical role of experience for theology, and empha-
sizes biblical narratives (see Chapters Two and Four).32 For Cargal:
Its emphasis upon the role of the Spirit in interpreting/appropriating the mul-
tiple meanings of the biblical texts is an important contribution as the
Western church seeks to reclaim its sense of mysticism and the immanence of
the transcendent which was diminished by rationalism. Its recognition of the
dialogical role of the experiences of the Pentecostal believer in both shaping
and being shaped by particular interpretations of the biblical text is both
compatible with certain poststructuralist views of the reader as creator of sig-
nifijications and an important critique of objectivist views of “the” meaning of
the Bible and its authority.33
With the fijirst aspect, he holds that pneumatic interpretation, exemplifijied
by the Pentecostal who claims that “The Holy Spirit showed (or ‘revealed’)
something to me in these verses that I had never seen before,” is an

30 This statement is revealing in that it shows that the underlying issues, many of which
he does not make explicit in this article, are metaphysical and ontological as well as episte-
mological and hermeneutical.
31 Cargal specifijically cites Einstein’s “Special Theory of Relativity,” quantum mechanics,
Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle,” and developments in theoretical mathematics which
transitioned Western culture away from the Newtonian worldview. His understanding of the
nature and implications of these scientifijic theories for theology will be one of the problems
raised about his hermeneutical claims by John C. Poirier and B. Scott Lewis, “Pentecostal and
Postmodernist Hermeneutics: A Critique of Three Conceits,” JPT 15:1 (2006): 3–21.
32 See Arrington, “Hermeneutics, Historical Perspectives on Pentecostal and Charismatic,”
DPCM, ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988),
376–389.
33 Cargal, “Beyond the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy,” 186. I will not further
recount Cargal’s articulations of the second and third aspects because they are largely afffijir-
mations of Arrington’s claims about experience influencing hermeneutics at all points and
Robert Menzies’ arguments against the privileging of didactic portions of Scripture over the
narrative. Cargal places these afffijirmations within the context of his advocacy of the “post-
modern paradigm” he is advocating and thus modifijies them accordingly.
196 chapter five

extrapolation from Pentecostal concepts about the inspiration of

Scripture.34 While Cargal is concerned that such a position could lead to a
hermeneuetical Docetism, he afffijirms the use of the text to apply the words
to situations unforeseen by the author of the text. He argues against fijinding
the meaning in a “kernel” within the text as problematically modern and
objectivist, rejecting Evangelical “principlizing” as a form of this. He consid-
ers that the reaction from Pentecostals who follow the Evangelical method
as one which downplays the possibility of multiple meanings of the
Scriptural texts. Such, he claims, flows from the logic of the singularity of
truth. The postmodern paradigm combats the hegemony of reason and its
ability to give fijinal answers. This leads him to claim that, as far as biblical
hermeneutics goes, “while critical methods can tell us some important
things about the text (e.g., the history of its composition and transition),
they cannot tell us everything that is meaningful about the text.”35
Cargal argues that Pentecostals should reject the modern positivist-
objectivist-historicist nexus because it limits truth and meaning to what is
historically true, whereas he wants “to assert that there is truth and mean-
ing within scriptural texts which one may have to concede are not ‘histori-
cally true’ according to the canons of critical historiography.”36 He believes
that this results in an openness to transcendence in postmodernism that at
least makes possible the ontological status of the transcendent. His goal is
to claim that it is legitimate for the varieties of human experiences and
interpretive horizons to produce multiple meaning-producing approaches
to the biblical texts. Thus in Cargal’s hermeneutic there is a subtle yet
important shift in the location of “meaning” in the biblical texts away from
the intention of the biblical author toward its locale in the interaction
between text and reader, and the legacy of the hermeneutical tradition fol-
lowing Gadamer can be seen here. Cargal advocates a hermeneutics which
focuses upon the texts claims about the world and the reader’s appropria-
tion of the text to the world rather than the original author’s intent.
The impossibility of a disinterested and objective interpretation entails,
on his view, a lack of unity to the meaning of a text.37 In this “postmodern

34 Cargal notes the diffferentiation made by Myer Pearlman in Knowing the Doctrines of
the Bible (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1937), 22–23, between the “inspiration”
of the human authors in writing the Scriptures and the Spirit’s “illumination” of its interpret-
ers, granting them the same understanding. However, my reading of Pearlman, recounted in
Chapter Three, fijinds good reasons for considering him a hermeneutical monist rather than
a hermeneutical pluralist.
35 Cargal, “Beyond the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy,” 177.
36 Ibid., 178.
37 Ibid., 180–182.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 197

paradigm,” systemic thinking, where meaning is found in patterns of inter-

relationships and systems, is the “fijield encompassing fijield” instead of his-
tory. What is meaningful on this account is the shaping of a system that is
found in historical narratives and the social matrix in which such systems
emerged. Thus what is to be interpreted in texts are the functions of various
aspects of texts as they constitute a system.38
Archer, too, suggests that the rise of the use of modern historical-critical
method as the “proper exegetical method” or as an “objective and scientifijic”
method for getting at the original author’s intent has been a “natural result”
of Pentecostal scholars increasingly being educated in the modern acad-
emy.39 He criticizes the alliance between Evangelical and Pentecostal
hermeneutics along two lines. He does so on its understanding of herme-
neutics itself because he does not believe it properly accounts for readers
and reading communities’ contributions to interpretation. He also criticizes
it on what he considers its lack of faithfulness to the original hermeneutical
strategy of fijirst generation Pentecostals.40
Archer claims that “exegesis” has as much to do with a hermeneut’s
social location as it does the use of “a so-called neutral-scientifijic method.”41

38 Ibid., 185–186. Cargal himself admits that he longs for some degree of certainty that
this paradigm lacks, but ultimately considers it illusory. The lack of any mechanism for deter-
mining validity or invalidity can be viewed, as I do, as a major weakness of Cargal’s proposal.
It seems premised on his falling into the trap of either afffijirming objectivist certainty or the
inability to determine invalid readings from the valid. Since he offfers no mechanism for
the latter, it leads to the question as to why anyone should be compelled by his reading of the
history of Pentecostal hermeneutics or the authors whom he quotes in his article, much of
which and several of whom I fijind he has misunderstood and thus misappropriated. An alter-
native approach to his, and the similar project of Archer, will be articulated in Chapter
Seven, though I will offfer some additional criticisms in the conclusion to this chapter.
39 Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 128–130. Archer holds that these Pentecostals who
turned toward Evangelical and Reformed hermeneutics abandoned the “Bible Reading
Method” (see Chapter Two) for the modern historical-critical method while maintaining tra-
ditional Pentecostal and conservative conclusions. He considers their use of historical-criti-
cal methods, while rejecting naturalism’s denial of the supernatural in the biblical text, still
implicitly assumed in their use.
40 See Ibid., 127–155. Of those who reject the turn to Evangelical and author-centered
methodology, Archer deems them to be constructing “a theology worthy of the name
Pentecostal” (Ibid., 134). He imagines Pentecostalism in terms of its roots: “Pentecostalism
began among the poor and racially marginalized people in society. Even today
Pentecostalism’s greatest growth is in the so-called third world countries…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” (Ibid., 146).
41 Ibid., 128. Archer diffferentiates the current context of the Pentecostal hermeneutical
debate in the terms of these two camps. He identifijies the majority view similarly to
what I have deemed the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic while he deems the
minority view similarly to how I have identifijied the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic.
More specifijically, he characterizes the latter as “holistic” because he considers that it
198 chapter five

He criticizes the “meaning/signifijicance” distinction on several points,

especially in reference to both Gordon Anderson and E.D. Hirsch.42 First, it
denies the contribution of the reader and the reader’s community that
helps create meaning because, as he sees it, “meaning is created in the very
process of dialogue with the text.”43 Second, the extension of meaning as
“application or contemporization” is important as the goal is to hear
and obey God’s word. In continuity with Dempster’s rejection of the
“dichotomy” between what a text meant and what it means, Archer claims
that “meaning is the result of a dialectic transaction between the readers’
contributions and a text’s contribution.”44 The alternative that emerges is

accounts for the reading community’s experiences and presuppositions and thus accounts
for more of the picture of the hermeneutical process (Ibid., 141–142).
However, there is a signifijicant diffference in our categorization here. Archer divides these
groups on the basis of those who allow Pentecostal experience to be a legitimate presupposi-
tion in biblical interpretation and those who try to avoid presuppositions in their interpreta-
tions (Ibid., 142–145). Thus Stronstad, and even William Menzies, support the latter position
for Archer on his delineation. I consider the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic along the
lines of those who ideally want to move from Scripture through the formation of biblical
theologies to systematic theologies, and then to experience – even if experience is already
presupposed to begin with or is used to verify beliefs afterwards – in the justifijication of
theological beliefs so that the monistic meaning resident in the biblical texts is drawn out.
I consider the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic along the lines of those Pentecostal
interpreters who theoretically begin with the context of the interpreter and the limited
conditions of human knowing. My account of the latter position does not entail the rejection
of meaning residing in a text or any other thing apart from a reader or interpreter, although
representatives of this approach, like Cargal and Archer, take such positions.
42 Ibid., 131–133, 148–154.
43 Ibid., 149. This, however, is a case of equivocation and question begging as Archer is
essentially arguing that the Hirschian use of “meaning” is an improper understanding of
meaning because it does not attain to Archer’s own defijinition of it. More productively, at
other times he seems to be trying to demonstrate that his understanding of meaning better
accounts for the reader (and the reading community’s) role in interpretation. What Archer
seems to be holding to is that such an objective reality – Hirsch’s “meaning” – does not exist
independently of a contemporary reader who, instead, “makes” it in her interaction with a
text. This is a large ontological claim which is not sufffijiciently justifijied in Archer’s project. He
also makes substantial assumptions about the nature of history in relation to the present,
largely in line with Gadamer’s Hegelian understanding, which fail to include the relation of
a transcendent God to the past. My alternative is found in Chapter Seven, though I point to
it at the conclusion of this chapter.
44 Ibid., 128. Elsewhere, Archer says: “Interpretation involves both the discovery of
meaning and the creation of meaning. Thus texts are by their very nature indeterminate”
(Ibid., 147); “meaning is what happens as a result of reading” (Ibid., 152); “Meaning is not
something we discover then appropriate. Meaning is something we construct” (Ibid., 154).
Beyond the issues of consistency in his understanding of meaning, Archer mistakenly
invokes Kevin Vanhoozer in support of his notion of it. His citation of Vanhoozer’s statement
that “meaning is actualized not by the author at the point of the text’s conception but by the
reader at the point of the text” in support of such a view of meaning misses the key word
there – “actualized” [Ibid., 149, cites Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “The Reader in New Testament
Interpretation,” in Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation, ed. Joel Green
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 199

thus similar to Gadamer’s “fusion of horizons.” Further, following Cargal,

Archer also criticizes the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic on account
of its “principlizing,” which Archer considers to be the removing of a cul-
tural husk around a timeless truth or moral principle, thus functioning as
“an immutable propositional truth claim set free from the prison of cultural
particularity.”45 He suggests otherwise that “Scripture is inspired and
not the extracted principle.”46 Against what he views as the tendency in
modern Evangelical hermeneutics to prioritize the propositional, Archer
suggests that “Narrative is the chosen genre for theological discourse.”47
Such challenges to the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic have not
gone unanswered. Several representatives of the Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic have offfered rejoinders to the critiques leveled on them by
contextual-Pentecostal critics. Most notable was Robert Menzies’ criticism
of Cargal’s assertion that relevance for Pentecostal biblical hermeneutics
depends on following what the latter understands as postmodern herme-
neutics.48 Menzies was especially critical of Cargal’s call to reject that “only
what is historically true is meaningful” as this impinges upon several
Evangelical convictions.49 The fijirst is that the historical meaning of a text is
the central goal of hermeneutics. While Menzies concedes that aspects of
postmodern hermeneutics help the interpreter to reflect on the reader’s
pre-understanding in interpretation, he considers this historical and
epistemological stance as extreme and leading to relativism. Though it is
impossible to gain certainty about authorial intent, it is possible to gain
knowledge that can inform interpretation of it. Further, Menzies contends
that concern for historical meaning allows the text to confront and
transform the reader’s pre-understanding, and not vice versa. Without it,
there is no way to judge invalidity, nothing to stop the reader from
obliterating the text with her and her communities’ own ideologies and

(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 301]. Archer’s understanding of Vanhoozer does not
take into account Vanhoozer’s clear defense of the meaning/signifijicance distinction, though
in line with Habermas’ theory of communicative action rather than authorial intentionality,
that leads Vanhoozer to claim that “the meaning of a text is what the author attended to in
tending to his words” [Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?: The Bible, The Reader, and
the Morality of Literary Knowledge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 262].
45 Archer, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics and A Critique of the Evangelical Historical-
Critical Method,” Papers of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies,
March 2002, (14–16 March 2002; Southeastern University, Lakeland, FL), 154.
46 Ibid., 155.
47 Ibid., 156.
48 Robert Menzies, “Jumping Offf the Postmodern Bandwagon,” PNEUMA 16:1
(Spring 1994): 115–120.
49 Ibid., 116 cites Cargal, “Beyond the Fundamentalist/Modernist Controversy,” 171.
200 chapter five

pre-understandings. Such a framework which cannot distinguish between

truth and falsehood and valid and invalid interpretations will not be
attractive, Menzies holds in contrast to Cargal’s assertion, for Christians in
the contemporary context. Secondly, Evangelicals claim that Christian faith
is intimately connected to key redemptive events in salvation history.
Therefore, they are concerned with historicity. But this does not entail that
only that which is historical in texts, Scripture or otherwise, is true and
meaningful; rather, the imperative is to take seriously the biblical authors’
intentions concerning how their texts should be read.50 Third, he contends
that the criticisms of Evangelicals fijinding “kernels” in the biblical texts,
as Cargal claims (as does Archer later on), are misguided. Instead,
Evangelicals, including himself, as an Evangelical-Pentecostal, use histori-
cal-critical methods to help uncover textual meaning because Scripture is
God’s Word.51
Another signifijicant rejoinder has been offfered by John Poirier and
Scott Lewis.52 They explicitly align themselves with Menzies in the goal of
slowing down the “postmodern bandwagon” by arguing that the cases made
by Pentecostals who favor a postmodernist hermeneutic do so on the basis
of fallacious arguments and flawed premises. Poirier and Lewis admit that
they object to the postmodern approach on a very basic level because
they consider the move away from a hermeneutical monism in it to contra-
dict “both the referential nature of the New Testament kerygma and
Pentecostalism’s primitivist commitment to restore the theology and afffec-
tions of the New Testament community.”53 They implicitly cast the terms of
the debate between themselves and their postmodernist opponents in
terms of their own critical realism fending offf a more radical, essentially
non-realist, approach. Whereas Cargal and other postmodernists deny the
necessity of historical method, Poirier and Lewis defend the “very notion of
objective, historical truth.”54
The fijirst “conceit” Poirier and Lewis take to task is that these Pentecostal
advocates of postmodernism see postmodernity as carving out conceptual
space for the miraculous based upon the supposed agreement between

50 Menzies, “Jumping Offf the Postmodern Bandwagon,” 116–117.

51 Ibid., 118.
52 John C. Poirier and B. Scott Lewis, “Pentecostal and Postmodernist Hermeneutics:
A Critique of Three Conceits,” JPT 15:1 (October 2006): 3–21.
53 Ibid., 4.
54 Ibid., 6.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 201

the postmodern worldview and quantum physics, aligning advocates of

historical-critical methods with Newtonian physics and postmodernists
on the side of the Einsteinian revolution.55 Poirier and Lewis contend that
several of these advocates, and especially Cargal, are particularly
uninformed and misleading when they cite Einstein in favor of a non-
deterministic understanding of truth and cite him alongside Heisenberg as
if the two were in broad agreement.56 Second, Poirier and Lewis reject
any claim that pre-Enlightenment biblical hermeneutics was not
concerned with authorial intention, and that this leaves the contemporary
Pentecostal hermeneut with only two good options: the postliberal and
the constructivist.57 They argue that “the claim that biblical hermeneutics
once had little to do with what the author intended cannot be substanti-
ated by a direct reading of the sources.”58 The canonical hermeneutics of
postliberalism, in fact, makes Christianity into a book religion, something
incompatible with the primitivism of Pentecostalism. Third, Poirier and
Lewis fijind what they consider to be the basic argument for a constructivist
hermeneutics to be fallacious, an argument which holds that the unattain-
ability of a purely objective standpoint entails that one cannot know objec-
tively. They characterize this approach as attaining hermeneutical closure
through, instead, the reader’s domination of the text. They attest that
epistemic lack of closure, that is, certainty, does not entail ontic relativism
and thus postmodernists exaggerate the implications of the lack of pure
objectivity, of which they contend, modern historians have usually been

55 Poirer and Lewis cite the following Pentecostals as doing so: Cargal, “Beyond the
Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy,” 163, 171–172; Johns, “Pentecostalism and the
Postmodern Worldview,” 96; Clark, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” 76; and Ervin,
“Hermeneutics,” 19. See Poirier and Lewis, “Pentecostal and Postmodernist Hermeneutics,”
6–7.
56 Poirer and Lewis argue, following Karl Popper [Ibid., 6–11, cites Popper, Quantum
Theory and the Schism in Physics, 2nd ed. (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefijield, 1982)] and
others, that Heisenberg’s claim that certain phenomena behave diffferently when observed
than when they are not entails that “objective reality has evaporated” (Ibid., 9). Instead,
contra Heisenberg, Poirier and Lewis claim that the influence of an observer on phenomena
is simply negligible, and to do so would be “like attributing an ontological change to the
efffect that a strobe light has on the rotating blades of a fan” (Ibid., 10).
57 Poirier and Lewis cite the following as examples of postliberal Pentecostal approaches
which claim this: Robert W. Wall, “A Response to Thomas/Alexander, ‘And the Signs are
Following (Mark16.9-20),’ ” JPT 11:2 (April 2003): 171–183; Sheppard, “Biblical Interpretation
After Gadamer.” They cite Israel, Albrecht, and McNally, “Pentecostals and Hermeneutics,” as
an example of a constructivist approach, along with their many allusions to Cargal, “Beyond
the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy.”
58 Poirer and Lewis, “Pentecostal and Postmodernist Hermeneutics,” 12.
202 chapter five

well aware. Thus Poirier and Lewis side with modernists for whom
“meaning is conveyed by signifijiers and propositions in the text.”59
Poirer and Lewis thus espouse a position in line with the type of
Enlightenment hermeneutic recalled by Odenstedt (in the discussion of
Gadamer above) as seeing the role of context – especially, the influence
of the observer – as either negligible or something to be overcome. Against
the dangers of non-realism and the lack of a mechanism for invalidity
exhibited by postmodern Pentecostal hermeneutics, they suggest a turn
back to objectivity for Pentecostal theology.
Finally, a number of other recent programs for Pentecostal hermeneutics
have been suggested by yet other Pentecostal theologians who have
approached the matter in light of the concerns addressed by both the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic and the contextual-Pentecostal
hermeneutic. Among those who have sought to develop a contextual-
Pentecostal hermeneutic, but not in the terms set by this debate, are James
K.A. Smith and Amos Yong.60 Arden Autry, whose proposal I will briefly
employ in Chapter Seven, did so as well, though in only one brief article.
But fijirst, it will be necessary to briefly account for a more concrete,
ethically-oriented, set of issues regarding context in Pentecostal theology.

3. Ethnic and Cultural Contexts and Pentecostal Theology

Although the focus of this account of the contextual-Pentecostal

hermeneutic will be on those addressing more general philosophical and
theological issues, it is necessary to at least briefly address the issue of the
concrete ethnic contexts from which Pentecostal theology has emerged,
and to illustrate one contemporary exemplar of such an approach. In one
respect this has already been addressed in Chapters One and Two, as
Classical Pentecostalism largely emerged in the context of America’s rural
and urban poor at the turn of the twentieth century. In another sense,
though, this is an emerging issue for Classical Pentecostalism as it grows

59 Ibid., 16. Poirier continues his line of criticism, especially of Archer, and advocating for
the retrieval of a dualist anthropology in “Narrative Theology and Pentecostal Commitments,”
JPT 16:2 (April 2008): 69–85.
60 Smith, though, considers his own approach as drawing on “postmodern” thought. On
his “postmodernism,” see James K.A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida,
Lyotard and Foucault to Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006). Smith sees him-
self as “making offf with Egyptian loot” in drawing from this trio of postmodern philosophers
for the sake of the kingdom of God (Ibid., 22–23).
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 203

alongside the global explosion of charismatic and pentecostal Christianity.61

Amos Yong has already begun to explore the potential of Pentecostal
theology as a “global theology” – that is, a theology which will emphasize
“the particularities of local discourses and perspectives.”62 His claim has
been that a pneumatologically-oriented approach that discerns the pres-
ence of the Spirit throughout a variety of contexts around the globe shows
that (small-p) pentecostalism provides this potential. But this study is lim-
ited to Classical Pentecostal theology, and Yong’s approach, as a contextual-
Pentecostal one, will be dealt with later in this chapter. Still, I fijind it likely
that cultural (small-p) pentecostal theological hermeneutics will emerge as
a signifijicant type of hermeneutics in world Christianity in the next half
century.63
A signifijicant ethnic contextual-Pentecostal theological hermeneutic is
presented by Samuel Solivan in The Spirit, Pathos and Liberation.64 Solivan
sees orthopathos, as practiced by Hispanic-American Pentecostals as well
as by other marginalized and sufffering Christian communites, as that which
properly bridges what he considers to be the gulf between orthodoxy and
orthopraxis. He grounds a just and liberating passion in a doctrine of God
which does not consider God apathetic, that God’s passions in the Scriptures
are not anthropomorphisms but, conversely, that right human passions
are “theomorphic.”65 He suggests that it is especially in the concrete
experiences of human sufffering through which Christian communities
can fashion theological reflection.66 The Scriptures transform the believer’s

61 The small-p in “pentecostalism” is, again, used intentionally here and below.
62 Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global
Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: BakerAcademic, 2005), 18.
63 For a projection of the coming influence of (small-p) pentecostalism worldwide,
see Lamin Sanneh, Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (Oxford, UK and
New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 274–277.
64 Samuel Solivan, The Spirit, Pathos and Liberation: Toward an Hispanic Pentecostal
Theology (JPT Supplement 14; Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 1998). Among the
body of work beginning to emerge on ethnic Classical Pentecostal theology are Arlene
Sanchez Walsh, “Pentecostals,” in Handbook of Latina/o Theologies, ed. Edwin David Aponte
and Miguel A. De La Torre (St. Louis: Chalice, 2006), 199–205; Eldin Villifañe, The Liberating
Spirit: Toward an Hispanic American Pentecostal Social Ethic (Lanham, MD: University Press
of America, 1992); a number of essays in André Corten and Ruth Marshall Fratani, eds.,
Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001); Wonsuk Ma, “Toward an Asian Pentecostal
Theology,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 1:1 (January 1998): 15–41; and many of the other
articles in Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies since its inception in 1998.
65 Solivan, The Spirit, Pathos and Liberation, 35–39, 47–69, 97–102.
66 Solivan notably criticizes other forms of liberation theology’s focus on orthopraxis
because he believes that it, in efffect, has developed a “tendency to convert actual praxis into
204 chapter five

passions in the experience of sufffering, but, also, transformative experi-

ences witness Scripture’s role and authority. For Hispanic Pentecostals –
and Pentecostals in general – Solivan fijinds a norming source of authority in
“the experience of personal transformation witnessed to in Scripture.”67
While Scripture is the “fijirst norm” for Pentecostals, he fijinds that conversion
experiences, on various levels – spiritual, physical and social – “fundamen-
tally informs the authority of the Scriptures. It is the experience of transfor-
mation in the aforementioned categories that witnesses to the authority of
the Scripture and not some a priori theological proposition.”68 And
Pentecost, both as an original event and as a continuing event in the life of
Christian communities, represents how such transformation occurs in
local, concrete communities in God’s afffijirmation of the witness to the
Gospel occurring in various tongues, languages and dialects among various
ethnicities. This entails a proper and good diversity, a work of the Holy
Spirit, among Christians of diffferent cultures and their attendant
theologies.69
While Solivan and other Pentecostals have begun to engage the issues
surrounding the role of cultural contexts and large-scale sociological condi-
tions and Pentecostal theology, the remaining three major representatives
of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic tend to focus on the questions
concerning context, language and communal narratives in light of the other
general philosophical and theological questions which arise concerning the
context of Pentecostal theology.

4. James K.A. Smith’s Creational Hermeneutic: An Incarnational

Pentecostal Hermeneutic after the Linguistic Turn

Smith’s theological hermeneutics provides a sophisticated contextual

account of Pentecostal theological hermeneutics. Throughout, his approach
criticizes the Enlightenment notion of autonomous reason, providing in its

a cognitive technique,” thus considering orthopathos a necessary step to return orthopraxis

to its original roots (Ibid., 97–101, 148). He also uses “sufffering” rather than “poverty” as
his starting point because he fijinds that it is more inclusive and more faithful to the Gospel:
“The preferential status, whether epistemological or hermeneutical, given the poor at the
exclusion of others is in danger of becoming an oppressive preference…The use of the
concept of sufffering seeks to address this shortcoming…Yet the experience of sufffering
cannot be reduced or easily quantifijied and relegated to a single social class” (Ibid., 100).
67 Ibid., 105.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid., 112–118.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 205

stead an alternative account of the humanness of interpretation of God,

God’s revelation, ourselves and our world in Christian theology, funded by
both its grounding in Christian faith, especially the doctrine of creation,
and developments in the last century in Continental philosophy, especially
the phenomenological tradition. Smith’s Pentecostalism also funds his
project. Yet his relation to Pentecostal thought, faith and tradition is not a
matter of simple identifijication with the Pentecostal tradition. In his early
work, Smith self-identifijies as a Pentecostal,70 but in more recent work he
self-identifijies as a “charismatic” on account of his rejection that “tongues is
the initial and only physical evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit.”71
Since this project has limited its scope to those who are rooted in and
self-identify with the Classical Pentecostal tradition, the “early” Smith’s
hermeneutical project will be considered as a Pentecostal theological
hermeneutic while his more recent work will be understood as having
moved into the wider charismatic world, yet still part of the greater
(small-p) pentecostal tradition.72
In what follows, I consider the “early” Smith’s work in developing a
“creational-pneumatic” hermeneutic as an instance of a contextual-
Pentecostal theological hermeneutic. I will especially analyze it in relation

70 See Smith, The Fall of Interpretation, 9, 32. The “early” Smith’s question is not if his
hermeneutic is a Pentecostal one, but what type of Pentecostal hermeneutic he is in fact
developing: “My goal is not to construct a Pentecostal biblical hermeneutic (as per Gordon
Fee, McLean, [Robert] Menzies, et al.). Rather my goal is to develop a Pentecostal general or
philosophical hermeneutic (as a project within the equally scandalous endeavor of Christian
philosophy)” (Ibid., 217 n85). Smith writes in the fijirst person plural as he offfers his call to the
small guild of Pentecostal philosophers to own one’s Pentecostal faith in doing philosophy in
his “Advice to Pentecostal Philosophers,” JPT 11:2 (October 2003): 235–247. He also was the
key fijigure in initiating the Philosophy Interest Group within the Society for Pentecostal
Studies (SPS) begun in 1999.
71 Idem., “Tongues as ‘Resistance Discourse’: A Philosophical Perspective,” in Speaking in
Tongues: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives, ed. Mark J. Cartledge (Bletchley, Milton Keynes, UK:
Paternoster Press, 2006), 82.
72 I make this judgment not on account of his denial of the traditional Classical
Pentecostal ascription of the identity of tongues speech and its relationship to the baptism
in the Holy Spirit (otherwise Fee would not have been considered in Chapter Four), but on
account of his recent self-identifijication otherwise than as a Pentecostal. Still, he continues
to write within and for the Pentecostal tradition. See idem., “Thinking in Tongues,” First
Things 182 (April 2008): 27–31; “Is the Universe Open for Surprise: Pentecostal Ontology
and the Spirit of Naturalism,” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 43:4 (December 2008):
879–896; and Smith’s participation as co-chair (with Amos Yong) of “Science and the Spirit:
Pentecostal Perspectives on the Science/Religion Dialogue,” a John Templeton Foundation
funded three-year research project (2006–2008), the fijindings of which will be published in
Yong and Smith, eds., Science, the Spirit & Pentecostal-Charismatic Scholarship: Questions &
Possibilities (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009).
206 chapter five

to his project as found in two important monographs, The Fall of

Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic and
Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation, as well as a
number of articles from this “early” stage in his career, though in relation to
his more recent work.73
Smith’s hermeneutical project is set out in The Fall of Interpretation
where he articulates the program for his “creational-pneumatic” hermeneu-
tic in contrast to two other models for understanding hermeneutics:
the “immediacy” model and the “violent mediation” model.74 He rejects
two varieties of the “immediacy” model in which interpretation itself
is understood as a matter to be overcome, a result of the fallen state of
humankind. One variety, the “present immediacy model,” holds that
“knowing” is hindered by the space of interpretation, and thus the goal of
hermeneutics is to, in fact, overcome interpretation so that an experiencing
of the thing itself may occur. While some of the advocates of this “present
immediacy model” do take into account the influence of culture, history

73 Idem., The Fall of Interpretation; and idem, Speech and Theology: Language and the
Logic of Incarnation (London and New York: Routledge, 2002).
Smith’s more recent work has begun to set its roots down primarily in a certain stream of
the Reformed tradition (of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd) and working within
the wider “sensibility” or “spirit” known as Radical Orthodoxy. For a brief description of how
this comes together for Smith, see idem, “Elements of a Manifesto,” Ch. 3 of Introducing
Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-secular Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004), 63–85;
and “What Hath Cambridge To Do With Azusa Street?: Radical Orthodoxy and Pentecostal
Theology in Conversation,” PNEUMA 25:1 (Spring 2003): 97–114.
It is notable for understanding Smith’s more recent project that he breaks from some
prominent fijigures in Radical Orthodoxy, like John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock, on the
relationship between Platonism and Christianity. While Milbank and Pickstock, among oth-
ers, want to emphasize what they understand as the continuity between the Platonic doc-
trine of participation and Christian sacramentality, Smith fijinds discontinuity between this
Platonic doctrine and the Christian doctrine of Incarnation. Smith holds that the logic of
Incarnation afffijirms embodiment as “an original and eternal good” in a manner that is incom-
mensurable with several Platonic notions. He is further concerned with the “natural theol-
ogy” of a neoplatonic ascent rather than an Incarnational descent in several of these projects
(Speech and Theology, 170–176).
In the sense of critiquing the Enlightenment notion of reason, the secularity of the
public sphere and in offfering a theologically-inspired alternative, Smith is a signifijicant
participant in Radical Orthodoxy’s project. In Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, 70–80,
Smith describes his understanding of Radical Orthodoxy as a “symphony in fijive movements.”
It is (1) a critique of modernity and liberalism, (2) post-secularity, (3) participation and
materiality, (4) sacramentality, liturgy, and aesthetics, and (5) cultural critique and transfor-
mation. Smith is also quite “Radically Orthodox” in his retrieval of premodern thought in
order to critique the modern, especially regarding the ability of language and concepts to
adequately account for its object.
74 For a summary of Smith’s project in relation to these other models, see idem., The Fall
of Interpretation, 19–25.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 207

and personal experiences, they hold that these biases can, in some way, be
overcome. On this account, the biblical narrative is read in a manner
where interpretation is the result of the Fall, the multiplication of languages
at Babel is a result of human hubris, and the possibility of “knowing”
(as opposed to interpretation) exists in the epistemological ramifijications of
redemption which results in a “paradise regained.” Smith fijinds this model
to be typical of contemporary Evangelical theology.75
Smith also identifijies another variation of the “immediacy” model. The
“eschatological immediacy” version, exemplifijied by Wolfhart Pannenberg,
holds that the human and fijinite work of interpretation will one day be
overcome in the future. The provisional nature of human knowledge will
be eventually overcome as God completes creation in the eschaton.76
Pannenberg posits a moment in the future where “fijinitude is transcended,
interpretation is overcome and the conditions of history are surmounted.”77
He further identifijies both Gadamer, in his “fusion of horizons,” and Jürgen
Habermas, in his project of identifying idealized conditions for
non-violent communication, as themselves putting forward secularized
versions of this “eschatological immediacy” model.78
In the second model of interpretation which Smith engages and also
rejects, the “violent mediation” model, he locates several of the projects
found in the Continental phenomenological tradition, especially those
of Heidegger and Derrida. While he fijinds these accounts to be both helpful
in identifying the conditions for human “being-in-the-world” and thus
providing strong grounds for the ubiquity of interpretation, he also fijinds
them to be problematic in claiming that the structural conditions for
human interpretation of the world are inherently violent.79

75 Ibid., 37–60, especially deals with Rex A. Koivisto, One Lord, One Faith: A Theology for
Cross-Denominational Renewal (Wheaton, IL: Bridgepoint/Victor, 1993) and Richard Lints,
The Fabric of Theology: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1993) as the exemplars of this approach.
76 Smith takes a stand against an account of creation and salvation which would result in
a type of theosis where the creature would overcome fijinitude. He has trouble imagining
humankind being other than temporal and embodied, even in an eschatological existence
(Smith, Fall of Interpretation, 68–69). He contends with views which he considers to hold
humankind guilty on account of fijinitude. Rather, he sees fijinitude as a created good which
ought to be embraced, not judged as a fault to be attempted to be overcome.
77 Ibid., 66.
78 Ibid., 61–83. Smith sees the Geist of Hegel in Gadamer’s “fusion of horizons” (horizon
Verschmelzung) where tradition continually provides an overcoming of hermeneutics in the
“fusion of horizons.” He sees this ending in a “monologism” which excludes. Habermas’ ideal-
ized conditions make him the target of Smith’s criticisms here.
79 See Ibid., 87–113, for his engagement with Heidegger, and Ibid., 115–129, for his with
Derrida.
208 chapter five

In place of either of these models, “immediacy,” in both versions,

and “violent mediation,” he offfers his “creational-pneumatic” hermeneutic.
A key source for this hermeneutic is his use of Augustine’s doctrine of
creation. Yet it is also funded by his turn to the fijinitude and contextuality of
human existence under the influence of the phenomenological tradition,
and his readings of the biblical narratives of Creation, the Fall, Babel and
Pentecost.80 For Smith, all of creation is good, and thus the fijinitude of
human existence is as well.81 Since interpretation is a result of human fijini-
tude, it too is a creational good and must not be diminished as a result of
the Fall. Instead, the Fall, in what Smith refers to as his more “Arminian”
reading of the human situation, was accidental. And rather than fijinding
God’s confusing of the people at Babel as punishment, Smith holds that it
was “a restoration of plurality. It was a lack of diffference that occasioned
Yahweh’s intervention in what was destined to be a violent story of oppres-
sion in the name of unity.”82 Correspondingly, he reads the Pentecost narra-
tive as a powerful outpouring of the Spirit of God in the diversity of God’s
creation, as another key instance of God promoting plurality in it. This
results in a hopeful vision of the hermeneutical task,83 yet one chastened by
its (good) limitations:

80 Smith describes his understanding of the Fall (or the human condition in general), in
contrast to other theological and philosophical accounts, as:
“a more Arminian (but not precisely Arminian) understanding of the Fall and its impli-
cations for philosophical hermeneutics; it draws not on the received and dominant
tradition but rather on the interpretive tradition traced in the likes of Grotius, Erasmus,
Jacobus Arminius, Wesley and Miley as mediated in its reinterpretation in early
Pentecostal experience and later Pentecostal theology (inasmuch as it attempts to
retrieve its Wesleyan-Holiness roots rather than a more Reformed-Baptistic frame-
work)…Redemption…is neither the completion of a defijicient creation (Pannenberg)
nor recreation of an absolutely corrupted ‘nature’ (Luther), but rather the restoration
or healing of a broken creation. The Fall, therefore, is historical rather than ontological,
accidental rather than essential or constitutive, ubiquitous rather than absolute or
total” (Fall of Interpretation, 136–137).
81 Throughout his writings, Smith is careful to distinguish his use of “fijinite” from its use in
traditional Western metaphysics: “I am not thinking of the fijinite as limited against the
Infijinite; I am thinking of situationality – being human, being here” (Ibid, 31).
82 Ibid., 57.
83 For a further explication of the embedding of hope in Smith’s hermeneutic, see
“Determined Hope: A Phenomenology of Christian Expectation,” in The Future of Hope:
Essays on Christian Tradition Amid Modernity and Postmodernity, ed. Miroslav Volf and
William Katerberg (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004): 200–227. He argues, in dialogue
with Derrida and Richard Rorty, that Christian faith gives better reasons for hope than their
secularized approaches.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 209

A creational-pneumatic hermeneutic does not understand this necessity and

inescapability of interpretation as a violent state of afffairs but rather as an
aspect of a good, peaceful creation. Hermeneutics is not a postlapsarian
phenomenon, coming upon the scene “after Eden.” Instead interpretation
is found “in Eden” and is thus included in the pronouncement of goodness
(Gen. 1:31). Hermeneutics, then, is not an evil to be overcome (or in the case of
Derrida, an inescapable, violent state of afffairs) but rather an aspect of
creation and human life that ought to be afffijirmed as “good.” Such a
(demythologized) Augustinian hermeneutic would link Augustine’s insights
on the temporality of human be-ing and language with his afffijirmation of the
fundamental goodness of creation; the result is an understanding of the status
of interpretation as a “creational” task, a task that is constitutive of fijinitude
and thus not a “labor” to be escaped or overcome. Such an “interpretation of
interpretation” re-values embodiment and ultimately ends in an ethical
respect for diffference as the gift of a creating God who loves diffference and
who loves diffferently. The heart of a creational hermeneutic is also rather
“Pentecostal,” creating a space where there is room for a plurality of God’s
creatures to speak, sing and dance in a multivalent chorus of tongues.84
Smith’s project has thus been to develop a hermeneutic which embraces,
rather than attempts to overcome, human limitations because of his con-
viction that these limitations are, in fact, part of the goodness of creation.

4.1. Creation, Finitude and the Ubiquity of Interpretation:

Smith’s Turn to Temporality, Situationality and Traditionality
Smith’s embrace of fijinitude is due in part to his philosophical account, what
he would term a “construal,” of the human condition. He holds that “the
very topic of philosophy is experience,” a belief found in the phenomeno-
logical tradition in the trajectory set by Husserl.85 Turning to pheno-
menology and what has become known as “postmodern” philosophy, along
with premodern sources in the Christian tradition, he criticizes modern

84 Smith, The Fall of Interpretation, 23.

85 Smith, Speech and Theology, 4, 13 n8. Though space does not permit me to illustrate
their influence further, Smith’s Doktorvater, John Caputo, and his mentor through his mas-
ter’s work, James Olthius, have both had signifijicant influence on his turn to phenomenology
and contextuality. Many of Olthius’ essays concerning hermeneutical matters can be seen
influencing The Fall of Interpretation. And Caputo’s work, especially as found in his Radical
Hermeneutics: Deconstruction, Repetition and the Hermeneutic Project (Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press, 1987) have influenced Smith to the point that he felt compelled to
note this in The Fall of Interpretation, 185 n6 when he mentions that “this book owes an incal-
culable debt to Professor Caputo and to his Radical Hermeneutics.”
210 chapter five

philosophy – and thus much of modern theology – for “reducing the object
to the measure of the concept,” a “violence” the concept thus inflicts:86
In modernity, the concept becomes a means of domination, seizure, encom-
passing such that one who has the concept of the thing has the thing, “in one’s
grasp,” as it were. In modernity – and marking a signifijicant break from the late
ancients and medievals – knowledge and comprehension are no longer dis-
tinguished; rather, knowledge is only knowledge insofar as it comprehends
(and thereby guarantees “certainty”)…And it is just this modernity that gives
birth to distinctly modern theologies which must include both neo-Scholasti-
cism and fundamentalisms of varying strains…or what I label “theological
positivism.” Inheriting the modern penchant for comprehension and cer-
tainty (what of faith?), modernist (and, unwittingly, anti-modernist) theology
is marked by an employment of language and concepts which seeks to defijine
the divine, to grasp the essence of God (and to employ such knowledge to
marginalize any who disagree).87
Smith, instead, follows Heidegger in attempting a radical break with the
modern epistemological project. Human existence is a “being there”
(Dasein) where one has “always already” taken what one encounters as
“ready-at-hand” (zuhanden) that is, as something (e.g., I understand the
book as a book) prior to any ontological examination of such an object,
Heidegger’s “present-at-hand” (vorhanden). Thus experience is both prethe-
oretical and always already an interpretation. Interpretation is always con-
ditioned by one’s own horizon for interpretation. One is shaped by his or
her own tradition and language, patterns of taking a thing as a certain thing,
and the limits of his or her ability to see and understand the world. For
Heidegger, the human situation of “always already” interpreting the world is
a situation he describes as “fallenness,” though he explicitly denies any
identifijication between the Christian doctrine of the Fall and his account of
the human situation.88 And while Smith afffijirms the “early Heidegger’s”

86 Ibid., 5. Much of Smith’s project is, following French postmodernism, deconstructive in

that it attempts to take apart what it considers intellectual “edifijices” in order to reveal that
they are contingent realities formed by fijinite beings within language and living within tradi-
tions. It must be noted that Smith diffferentiates an “edifijice’s” deconstruction from its
destruction, though it sometimes can function as or be considered such.
87 Ibid.
88 Smith fijinds “Christian antecedents” to Heidegger’s assessment of the human situation
in Martin Luther and Søren Kierkegaard. He argues that Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein is not
the “pure consideration of structures” which would precede any faith commitments which
Heidegger claims it is (Smith, Fall of Interpretation, 105–106). On this point Smith engages
Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena, trans. Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 283.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 211

account of the fijinitude and situationality of human “being-in-the-world,”

he criticizes Heidegger’s “methodological atheism” as a presupposition for
doing philosophy.89 For Smith, “Faith – commitment, trust – is that which
makes theory (and philosophy) possible…Not that every philosopher will
attend church or synagogue; but every philosopher will and must operate
with an ultimate trust which makes philosophy possible.”90 Atheism, too,
then is a matter of faith, of ultimate trust. And it ought not to be privileged
as the faith of philosophy.
Smith also substantially interacts with the deconstructive philosophy of
Jacques Derrida. While he concurs with Derrida that all of life is a “text”
which is always interpreted – or, to use Derrida’s metaphor, always goes
through the “postal system” – where the space which makes communica-
tion possible also functions as “the site of miscommunication and alien-
ation,” he is also critical of the original violence which Derrida claims
concerning language itself.91 He afffijirms, with Derrida, that there is nothing
outside the text – not that there is no referent to which a text points but

89 Heidegger’s “methodological atheism” is identifijied by Smith in “The Art of Christian

Atheism: Faith and Philosophy in Early Heidegger,” Faith and Philosophy 14:1 (January 1997):
72, in Heidegger’s claim that,
“Questioningness (Fraglichkeit) is not religious, but it may nevertheless lead me to a
position where I must make a religious decision. I do not behave religiously in philoso-
phizing, even if I as a philosopher can be a religious man. ‘But here is the art’: to phi-
losophize and thereby to be genuinely religious, i.e., to take up factically its wordly,
historical task in philosophizing, in action and a world of action, not in religious ideol-
ogy and fantasy. Philosophy, in its radical self-positing questioningness, must be in
principle a theistic” (Smith’s translation) [Heidegger, Phänomenologische Interpretation
zu Aristoteles: Einführung in die Phänomenologische Forschung, ed. Walter Bröcker and
Kate Bröcker-Otlmanns (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1985), 197].
Smith also criticizes Heidegger’s notions of “authenticity” and “inauthenticity” where the “I”
needs to stand over and against the “they” in order to be “authentic” as a continuation of the
modern paradigm, as individualistic. Smith, on the other hand, argues that the “they” be
understood as a creational good and not necessarily as (though possibly) being violent
towards Dasein (Smith, Fall of Interpretation, 94–104).
90 Smith, “The Art of Christian Atheism,” 78. On the previous page, Smith explains that
he is:
“Proposing a retrieval of a broader meaning of pistis (and pisteuō) as trust or commit-
ment. The result of this broadening is two-fold: fijirst, faith is no longer determined by
the object or content of the commitment but rather as the commitment itself…A sec-
ond implication of this retrieval is the correlative broadening of the notion of ‘religion’
as simply a commitment to and trust in something ‘ultimate’ which cannot be ratio-
nally proven, but rather stands at the beginning of all reason and theory. That which is
believed is not argued to but argued from…For my purposes here, it is not primarily a
question of what someone is trusting but that someone is committed before theory,
before reason.”
91 Smith, The Fall of Interpretation, 46.
212 chapter five

that “no reading bypasses the hermeneutical space of interpretation” –

while rejecting that writing, reading and interpreting are inherently violent
because of an “originary decadence” on a structural level in language itself.92
While Smith is concerned to do justice to the alterity of the “Other” which is
transcendent to the self – God, diffférance (the textual chain of meaning in
language), and “factical experience” (pre-theoretical experience, including
that of our own selves and other persons) – by not attempting to capture
them in our own concepts and thus violate them by making them out to be
what our concepts say they are, he is not willing to concede that speaking,
or living or thinking, is necessarily violent, nor is he, on the other hand,
willing to retreat into apophaticism. Rather, he deems that interpretation
must begin by recognizing the human situation as one of a creational and
good fijinitude – of temporality, situationality and traditionality – and thus
of the ubiquity of interpretation.
Finitude and intersubjectivity are thus the conditions for hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics is a negotiation between fijinite entities which is “an inescap-
able aspect of being human not an accidental or fallen way of being,”93 and
it is not limited to the textual or verbal solely but includes every level of
communication and understanding. He accounts for human beings as situ-
ated interpreters of their worlds, both as those who inherit traditions com-
munally and as individuals with personal histories. One’s own bibliography,
the texts one is exposed to, “discloses one’s tradition or one’s exposure to a
host of diffferent traditions.”94 Further, interpretation happens within inter-
pretive traditions in which an accepted hermeneutic functions normatively.
Yet these interpretive traditions are themselves construals of the world
which are open to critique and revision.95 Tradition does not stand as a
barrier to interpretation, as it would for adherents of an “immediacy” model,
rather it “opens up the very possibility of interpretation while at the same
time standing as the determinate condition of interpretation.”96 This leads
Smith to a form of Pentecostal hermeneutical pluralism, at least in the sense
of there being multiple legitimate interpretations of a thing:

92 Ibid., 47, 115–129.

93 Ibid., 150.
94 Ibid., 153.
95 Ibid., 154–55. Smith acknowledges that, on his account, his own hermeneutics must
itself be a construal: “My construal of the world as creation is just such a construal: an inter-
pretive decision in spite of a number of experiences that would seem to point otherwise, to
the inevitable or essential violence of human life. But I would offfer, the construal of the
world as structurally violent is also a decision fraught with undecidability, confronted by
experiences that would point otherwise” (Ibid., 161).
96 Ibid., 156.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 213

There is always already interpretation in every relationship, which means that

there is also room for plurality, or rather, plurality is the necessary result of
irreducible diffference. We abandon, in addition to the myth of “objectivity,”
the mono-logic of a hermeneutics of immediacy that claims to deliver the
one, true interpretation. But if interpretation is part of being human, then its
analogue is a creational diversity: a multitude of ways to “read” the world. This
is not to give up the notion of truth, but it does abandon a certain understand-
ing of truth; further, to say that everything is a matter of interpretation is not
to abandon criteria, but it does require a reconsideration and reformulation of
what those criteria will be.97
There is thus a level of undecidability when it comes to interpretation and
criteria for interpretation. Interpretation is the work of the judgment of a
fijinite creature and thus always includes misunderstanding as well as
understanding.
Still, Smith speaks of his own position as a “hermeneutical realism.”
While rejecting a realism which would attempt to assert a correspondence
between the categories through which it speaks of things and the things
themselves, he is not resorting to an anti-realism in which the interpreter
may do what she pleases with the “text” at hand.98 Rather, there are both the
constraints of the real world and of ethics on interpretation that allow one
to deem an interpretation wrong or to judge one interpretation better than
another. For Smith, “what is interpreted remains a norm for every interpreta-
tion.”99 Following the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd, he fijinds that
which constrains interpretation as “empirical transcendentals,” which is

97 Ibid., 156–157.
98 While Smith uses language that rejects a simple “realism,” his entire project is clearly
not anti-realist either. It is attempting to fijind a way to use language to speak of God, God’s
self-revelation, the human self and the world without utilizing the tools of language in a
manner which would think it could grasp or control such. Yet it still presupposes real pres-
ences to which it might point. He rejects the label “critical realist” for his project because, he
says, “my sense is that even a ‘critical’ realism claims too much inasmuch as it asserts that the
thing is known partially ‘in itself.’ I would rather speak of a ‘hermeneutical realism’ (Hubert
Dreyfus’s, not N.T. Wright or [Kevin] Vanhoozer’s) or a ‘phenomenological connection’ that
never claims to know something ‘in itself’ but that does gain access to ‘the things them-
selves.’ However, such a connection with die Sachen selbst is always understood ‘as’ some-
thing, ‘as’ I construe it” (Ibid., 186–187 n18). Here he cites Hubert Dreyfus’ “hermeneutical
realism” in Dreyfus’ Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s “Being and Time,”
Division I (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), 253–265.
Smith also explicitly claims that his notion of “hermeneutical realism” signifijicantly difffers
from postliberalism. Also, see here his afffijirmation of “real presences” but denial of “full pres-
ence” in Smith, “Limited Inc/arnation: Revisiting the Searle/Derrida Debate in Christian
Context,” in Hermeneutics at the Crossroads, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, James K.A. Smith and
Bruce Ellis Benson (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006), 119–125.
99 Idem., Fall of Interpretation, 169.
214 chapter five

“the world as given and experienced.”100 The thing, then, imposes itself
upon us and thus imposes limits for its interpretations: “Bad interpretations
will be precisely those construals that transgress those limits.”101 In a good
Heideggerian manner, Smith concludes that truth is not the thing itself
(die Sachen selbst) uncovered but its uncovering. Yet he fijinds theological
justifijication for this, too, as he reads the biblical account of the Fall as the
autonomous quest to know the thing itself.102 Accepting one’s own limita-
tions is the beginning of interpreted knowledge. Ethically, then, the “Other,”
stands as the empirical transcendental for interpretation. The face of the
“Other,” “makes me ethically responsible and demands justice. As such, the
‘Other’ is precisely the transcendence that places limits on interpretation…
the question of limits on interpretation is an ethical rather than simply an
epistemological matter.”103 Yet this ethics is itself rooted in a hermeneutics
of trust. Smith argues that understanding itself is a task built on trust.
Contra Derrida, before there is suspicion and violence, there is the attempt
to believe in order to understand. This, he claims, is evidence of a world that
is a good creation: “there is a trust that is more primordial than suspicion
precisely because, I have been attempting to argue, goodness is more
primordial than evil.”104

100 Ibid. For a brief discussion of how Dooyeweerd (and thus Smith) argues for a struc-
tural horizon that is a priori but empirical (contra Kant), see Ibid., 215 n49. Smith edited and
introduced some of Dooyeweerd’s writings in Herman Dooyeweerd, In the Twilight of Western
Thought: Studies in the Pretended Autonomy of Philosophical Thought, Collected Works B/4,
ed., intr., and notes by James K.A. Smith (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999).
101 Idem., The Fall of Interpretation, 169.
102 According to Smith and his co-author:
“As we re-member the biblical story, humanity’s fall(ing) into the abyss began when we
tore/tear away (the original dichotomy) from the Creator (the source of life) in an inde-
pendent bid for unmediated knowledge of/access to God (grasping for godhood/the
‘dream of full presence’). Whether through aggressive autonomy or passive acquies-
cence (two sides of the same coin of independence), we grasp at the security of
our seemingly tangible, though in the end illusory, constructions. In doing so, we
heroically attempt to establish ourselves in the world by becoming Lords of the
world” [Smith and Shane R. Cudney, “Postmodern Freedom and the Growth of
Fundamentalism: Was the Grand Inquisitor Right?” Studies in Religion/Sciences
Religieuses 25:1 (1996): 48–49].
103 Smith, Fall of Interpretation, 175. Smith is inspired by Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy
on this point, especially Levinas, Totality and Infijinity, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh:
Duquesne University Press, 1969).
104 Smith, The Fall of Interpretation, 180.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 215

4.2. Smith’s Creational Hermeneutic and Its Incarnational Strategy

Smith’s hermeneutical project is done in the face of the fundamental prob-
lem he sees with theology: the incommensurability between “cognitive
knowing or conceptual language” and God, self and others (including one’s
world). “The incommensurate is precisely that which is wholly other, and
any account of the incommensurate – if it is going to do justice to that dif-
ference – must preserve the diffference.”105 Must an account “domesticate
the incommensurate in the order of language”?106 Or, as he otherwise
puts it: “if (1) God is Infijinite, and (2) language – particularly conceptual
language – is fijinite, then how will it be possible to speak of God, since
(3) speaking requires the employment of language, and theology requires
the employment of concepts?”107 Since he has rejected apophaticism as
untenable, Smith sees his project as an “attempt to think the concept
otherwise – to locate the possibility of a non-objectifying, even nonviolent,
‘concept’ (which is not a concept) which both sketches and indicates its
topic, but at the same time respects its alterity and incommesurability.”108
“On my account,” says Smith, “theology is a second-order, reflective disci-
pline which nevertheless operates on the basis of faith, reflecting on faith as
its topic, with the goal of cultivating faithfulness.”109

105 Smith, Speech and Theology, 9.

106 Ibid.
107 Ibid., 153.
108 Ibid., 10.
109 Ibid., 155. He goes on to say of theology that:
“Is an inherently ecclesial task, irreducible to philosophy. However, I do think that all
questions of method are in fact philosophical questions, since they involve matters of
epistemology and conceptual determination. When we consider the nature of con-
cepts, or the possibility of transcendent knowledge, we are asking questions which go
beyond the focused concern of theology as a science, but nevertheless concern theol-
ogy at its very foundation” (Ibid.).
Just prior to this, he claims that “a Christian theology can only be possible on the basis of a
Christian philosophy, a radically incarnational philosophy” (Ibid.). In his more recent work,
Smith speaks of “theology 1” and “theology 2”:
“Theology 1 refers to the fundamental Christian confession afffijirmed by the church,
embodied in Scripture, and articulated in the confessions and creeds; theology
2 refers to the ongoing work of specifijically theoretical, second-order reflection on the
church’s confession. The latter is undertaken in the theoretical attitude…the former
is a pre- and supra-theoretical confession and places constraints on the shape of
practice, including theoretical practice” (Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, 177).
216 chapter five

Smith fijinds an answer to this dilemma in the Christian doctrine of

the Incarnation. Incarnation is “God’s own resolution” to this challenge, the
manner in which God offfers God’s self in the terms of the fijinitude of the
receivers of such a revelation. At this point, he afffijirms Thomas Aquinas’
principle that revelation must be “received according to the mode of the
receiver.”110 In doing so, he also draws upon Augustine’s semiotics.111 For
Augustine, signs (and thus words as signs) function properly when they
point beyond themselves. The signs used to speak of God, then, ought to be
icons which point to that which is greater than the sign. However, these
signs are liable to become idols instead, which, rather than pointing to their
referents, especially when the referent is God, absorb the concern paid to it.
There is then an ethical dimension to how we speak about God.112
Smith fijinds Augustine’s strategy for speaking of God to begin with a turn
inward to the interior transcendence of the self: “For Augustine, it is my own
soul which cannot be made fully present, even to myself.”113 Thus Smith
notes the space of absence there is for Augustine in the knowledge of his
own self. Augustine’s strategy of “confession” is thus to ask “who am I?”,
which in turn always asks “who is my God?”114 Language originates in the
rift between interiorities since others have no other means of entering into
one’s soul.115 Words indicate an interiority which cannot be fully disclosed

In regard to my discussion and summarization of Smith’s hermeneutic thus far, “theology 1”

largely correlates with what he refers to as “faith” and “theology 2” with “theology.” This dis-
tinction between “faith” and “theology” can be seen in Smith’s thought in one of his fijirst
published essays, “Fire From Heaven: The Hermeneutics of Heresy,” Journal of Theta Alpha
Kappa (1996): 13–31, esp. 22. See Chapter Seven for the way in which I utilize this distinction,
following Smith, in my own approach to theological hermeneutics.
110 Idem., Speech and Theology, 153–154. Smith goes on to cite Summa Theologiae 1a.12,
1a.75.5, 76.2.ad3 (Speech and Theology, 164–165).
111 Smith primarily works with Augustine’s Confessiones, De Doctrina Christiana and De
Magistro. His understanding of Augustine’s semiotics favors the Bishop of Hippo’s doctrine
of creation over his doctrine of original sin. Smith provides this through a “deconstruct(ion)
of Augustine in the name of Augustine; we must read the Augustinian afffijirmation of the
goodness of creation against the received understanding of Augustine’s notion of ‘original
sin’ ” (idem., The Fall of Interpretation, 135). This, Smith argues, will provide another reading
of Augustine where Augustine’s Christianity trumps his Neoplatonism, principally by press-
ing further Augustine’s understanding of evil as a privation of the good rather than as itself a
substance.
112 Smith, Speech and Theology, 120–127; and The Fall of Interpretation, 133–146. See also
Smith’s “Between Predication and Silence: Augustine on How (Not) to Speak of God,”
Heythrop Journal 41 (2000): 66–86. “The imperative to speak ‘well’, to speak ‘properly’, is at
root an ethical imperative, even a categorical imperative” (Ibid., 66).
113 Idem., Speech and Theology, 135.
114 Ibid.
115 Smith sees this interiority as what Kierkegaard describes as “subjectivity” and
Heidegger as “facticity” (Ibid,, 138).
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 217

in speech. Confession is not for God but for the confessor and those to
whom he confesses. Language is not necessary for God since God knows
our innermost thoughts. Confession then is a grammatical style which is
an appresentation to the other which allows the other – including my
conscious self – to experience one’s own self in its alterity. It is “a speaking
which neither concedes nor efffaces the incommensurate.”116 And Augustine
must speak of God for his and his congregation’s spiritual edifijication.
Smith fijinds this way of referring to a thing without attempting to delimit
it as consonant with Heidegger’s notion of “formal indications” where “the
meaning-content of these concepts does not directly intend or express
what they refer to, but only gives an indication, a pointer to the fact that
anyone who seeks to understand is called upon by this conceptual context
to undertake a transformation of themselves into their Dasein.”117 Smith
uses Heidegger’s “formal indications” in developing a revised understand-
ing of the use of concepts for both theology and all second order uses of
language so that “the concept is to function as a pointer, an indicator of that
which exceeds and eludes it” rather than that which grasps the thing to
which it refers.118
From this basis, in his philosophical theology of language Smith defends
the use of “analogy” as an “incarnational account of knowledge.”119 In incar-
nation, the transcendence of the other is received, as gift, by the immanent.
This claim has great breadth in Smith’s hermeneutic. It is grounded in God’s
self-revelation in Incarnation, but that in turn grounds all language whatso-
ever: “God’s revelation in the Incarnation is the condition of possibility for
language to function analogically,” and not vice versa.120 Smith understands
this “incarnational account” as a “third way” between correlational theolo-
gies (e.g., Tillich and Rahner) and revelational theologies (e.g., Barth and
Von Balthasar): “The former [correlational theologies] tend toward a reduc-
tive understanding of revelation which is in danger of reducing it to mere
cultural manifestation; but the latter ignore the historical condition of
possibility for the reception of a revelation. An Incarnational account does
justice to both poles.”121 A key to Smith’s logic here is that, following

116 Ibid., 144.
117 Martin Heidegger, Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude,
trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,
1995), 297, cited in Smith, Speech and Theology, 87.
118 Smith, Speech and Theology, 169.
119 Ibid., 164. Also see 156–169.
120 Ibid., 179 n41.
121 Ibid., 166. Here Smith engages the Barth and Brunner debate on revelation and natural
theology. He argues that Barth’s forceful objection, his “Nein!”, toward Brunner’s holding
218 chapter five

his reading of Augustine, knowledge of God is a condescension by God

in an (Incarnational) revelation rather than a (neoplatonic) ascension.122
Smith sees this, then, as a reframing of the categories concerning revela-
tional theology and natural theology, especially in light of his afffijirmation of
Aquinas’ principle that revelation must be “received according to the mode
of the receiver”:
It is pertinent to note that in looking to Thomas’ account of analogy, I am
not attempting to rehabilitate a project of natural theology, which I have
already rejected above. So I am not concluding from this that we can infer
from creation to God by means of natural, unaided reason (which is why
Barth asserted that Catholic [analogical] theology and liberal theology both
operated on the same principles); however, I do think that the epistemologi-
cal axioms in Aquinas’s account of analogy must also be the conditions for the
reception of any “special” revelation as well. Thus, I am sympathetic to Barth’s
critique of Aquinas’s project for a natural theology, but would assert that the
epistemological aspects of analogy are not inextricably linked to such a
project.123
Smith’s understanding of revelational theology as Incarnational and human
interpretation as a creative good thus reframes much of the prolegomena of
theological method around this alternative theological hermeneutic.

4.3. Smith’s Creational Hermeneutic and Ethical Responsibility

toward Authors
Smith’s concerns with the conditions of knowledge of God and the fijinitude
and ubiquity of interpretation would lead those who share the concerns
of Pentecostal hermeneuts like Gordon Fee and Robert Menzies to the
question of the interpreters responsibility to the author. Does Smith, despite
his claims about the ethics of interpretation, “do justice” to the authors
of texts?
Smith addresses the issue of authorial intent in an essay on the debate
over hermeneutics between John Searle and Derrida.124 He argues that
Searle misunderstood Derrida and that Derrida, in fact, claimed that Searle

a point of contact between God and humankind which provides a natural capacity for the
knowledge of God is sustained only if that capacity is in fact a natural one. Smith instead
suggests that what exists is a “passive capacity” that is “both (1) the condition of possibility
for revelation of the Other, and (2) that which demands that any such revelation be analogi-
cal, i.e., incarnational” (Ibid., 168).
122 Ibid., 124–126.
123 Ibid., 179 n43.
124 Smith, “Limited Inc/arnation,” 112–119.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 219

did misunderstand him.125 The key miscue on Searle’s part is to think that
Derrida’s claim that the “iterability” of a text, that is, a text’s dissociation
from a communicative agent or consciousness, results in complete absence
of the author’s intent.126 Smith fijinds Searle positing a disjunction between
full presence or complete absence.127 Instead, Smith claims, Derrida is ask-
ing “to what degree can an author’s intentions be communicated?”128 Smith
fijinds that, for Derrida, the conditions which make communication possible
make miscommunication always part of the process of communication but
do not entail that communication is impossible. The iterability that is built
into the structure of language and the inability to absolutely determine
context do mean, however, on Smith’s reading of Derrida, that there is both
presence and absence in all communication. Smith himself afffijirms this. But
he works this out by further afffijirming that interpretation is a created good
rather than considering it as inherently, and structurally, violent: “To speak
is to venture into the play of signs, and thus to risk decontextualization
and misunderstanding. But such a risk is the necessary condition for
communication. It is in this sense that we can see God’s own speaking
and ‘communication’ as operating under the (creational) conditions
sketched by Derrida.”129
Smith argues that the determination of God’s own meaning, that is, the
determination of the intention of the ultimate author, in the event of the
Incarnation, for instance, is “determined by and from within the community
of the Church, both globally and across time. The ecumenical councils, of
course, were the early Church’s communal effforts to discern the authorial
intent, we might say, of the Incarnation.”130 Those deemed heretics held to
readings of the author’s (God’s) intention that were determined “out of
bounds” by the community. Though Smith wants to deal quite diffferently
with heretics than the traditional approach of condemning and excommu-
nicating them, he considers a community making a claim that a reading is

125 Smith does, though, concede that “Derrida bears some responsibility for Searle’s
either/or approach” because he unwittingly invokes an ideal of purity in his writings.
Derrida’s claim that miscommunication is somehow always part of the process of communi-
cation thus itself gets lost in the “postal system” and can be easily interpreted as falling back
into the discussion of an either/or of full presence or full absence (Ibid., 123–124).
126 See Ibid., 127 n19.
127 Ibid., 114–115.
128 Ibid., 115.
129 Ibid., 124.
130 Ibid.
220 chapter five

not an author’s intention, be it God’s or otherwise, to be a legitimate

practice.131

4.4. The Pentecostal Speech of the Christian Community

Relative to the “creational” aspects of his hermeneutic, Smith’s pneumatol-
ogy remains fairly undeveloped. Yet he still considers this hermeneutic
a “creational-pneumatic” one. A pneumatic hermeneutic is needed as a
“special hermeneutic,” in addition to his “creational” hermeneutic, when it
comes to Scripture: “This is because only with respect to Scripture do we
have a situation where the Author also indwells the reader – or better, the
reading community – to illumine the text…Or, in the terms of Kierkegaard’s
Fragments, the Teacher is also the One who provides the condition for the
reception of the teaching in the heart of the learner.”132 For Smith, then,
hermeneutics requires both a pneumatology and an ecclesiology.
Like other advocates of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic, he criti-
cizes the manner in which Evangelicals – and Evangelical-Pentecostals –
use Scripture as a norm. Constructively, he wants to relocate the place and
use of Scripture and “canon” as norms. Scripture, he suggests, ought to be
understood as “oral communities” would understand it, as testimony, as
“pointing to the experience and events of meeting God in Christ.”133 Smith
is not for discarding the idea of canon but for relocating it in “the Spirit as it
operates in the discernment of the community.”134 For “The Spirit of Christ
is the norm for faith…It is not Scripture that is the ultimate norm, but
Christ.”135 Scripture, he argues, is itself always already interpreted since it is

131 The “very early” Smith addressed the issue of heresy and the treatment of heretics in
his “Fire From Heaven.” He wants to rework heresy towards an issue of orthopraxis rather
than orthodoxy. He does this on account of a move toward a “post-authority theology” which
was in turn based upon the claim that universally determinate contexts to support concep-
tual theological judgments are unavailable. Thus “faith,” and not “theology,” determines
the rightness of judgments. He fijinds a new basis for theological ethics on the “carnal gener-
alities” found in the real faces of the “Other,” which is “a criterion in my guts, in my flesh”
(Ibid., 25). Smith’s work since can well be interpreted not as post-authority so much as
moving beyond certain dominant traditional notions of authority (of the role of Scripture,
the Church, and a certain Enlightenment notion of reason) toward a reworked notion of
authority for and centered around the discernment of Christian communities.
132 Smith, “Limited Inc/arnation,” 125.
133 Idem., “The Closing of the Book,” 49–71. “Textual communities,” on the other hand,
elevate texts to the level of serving as a strict authority on their communities and produce a
strong tendency to cut offf continued revelation (Ibid.).
134 Ibid., 68.
135 Ibid.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 221

itself the product of a plurality of traditions.136 It is thus a part of this great

tradition of traditions and is thus “ ‘normed’ by a criterion outside of tradi-
tion, namely, the Spirit of the living Christ as he resides and abides within
the community of the faithful” and which keeps it from relativism or sub-
jectivism.137 This requires a great amount of discernment for the Christian
community which he acknowledges is necessary but does not work out in
much detail. This, he suggests, is an act of “faith” in which “the Lord’s author-
ity is closer than texts.”138
As a community of discernment, the Christian community will be
pluriform in its witness of a multivalent tradition of traditions and its inter-
pretations of it. The Babel and Pentecost narratives illustrate this for
Smith.139 And he fijinds himself in continuity here with Steven Land’s
sustained argument in Pentecostal Spirituality that, for Pentecostals, ortho-
pathos and orthopraxis are as important to Pentecostal theology as ortho-
doxy.140 This pluriform witness is found as it forms the afffections
and practices of the Christian community as much as in confessional
theology.141 Smith sees the “afffective epistemology” of Pentecostals as undo-
ing the rationalisms and dualisms of Evangelical theology. He suggests, for
instance, that the traditional Pentecostal afffijirmation of the healing of the
physical body occurring in the Atonement to be indicative of such
tendencies.142

136 Ibid., 68–69. Smith here rejects the “naïve” distinction between Scripture and tradi-
tion as norms or sources of authority. Here, too, he notes that though Scripture is a plurality
of traditions (of testimony concerning God and God’s workings in the world), it also has
excluded other traditions concerning God. He cites Francis Schüssler Fiorenza’s analogy that
the New Testament canon is the “founding constitution” of the Christian community
as along the lines of the appropriate role he sees for Scripture [Ibid., 69 n69, cites Fiorenza,
“The Crisis of Scriptural Authority: Interpretation and Reception,” Interpretation 44:4
(October 1990): 353–368].
137 Ibid., 68–69 n68.
138 Ibid., 70.
139 See idem., The Fall of Interpretation, 23, 33, 45, 57–60, 148, 184.
140 Smith regularly acknowledges his debt to Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for
the Kingdom, (JPT Supplement 1; Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 1993) as in The Fall
of Interpretation, 205 n9.
141 For Land, Pentecostal spirituality is Pentecostal theology. While Smith appreciates
Land’s contribution to understanding Pentecostal faith and theology, especially Land’s
emphasis on its Wesleyan roots, Smith’s appreciation for Land must not be confused with his
acceptance of Land’s principle in identifying Pentecostal spirituality and theology. Rather, it
ought to be understood in light of Smith’s own use of the categories (“formal indications”?)
of “faith” and “theology.”
142 Smith, “What Hath Cambridge To Do With Azusa Street?,” 109–110.
222 chapter five

But the underdevelopment of the pneumatological implications of

Smith’s hermeneutic has led Yong to offfer a friendly “pneumatological
assist” to him.143 He suggests that Smith ought to flesh out a pneumatologi-
cal theology which is pointed to but underdeveloped in Smith’s theology,
urging him to revision nature in pneumatological terms, overcoming the
nature-supernature divide. Further, this “assist” would provide a bridge on
the plane of Spirit where, although there is still that which is transcendent
to one’s self, “there is no ‘absolutely other’, since an absolute stranger will
always remain unknowable.”144 Smith positively responds to this “theoreti-
cal altar call,” albeit using his own categories of understanding. He sees a
juncture between his own incarnational and participatory ontology and
Yong’s pneumatological ontology in Acts 17:28 where Luke’s Paul proclaims
that it is “in him that we live and move and have our being.”145 Yet he still
wants to commit himself to a sense of distance or discontinuity between
things. So, instead, he reformulates participation in the Spirit along the
lines of a continuum, in an intensity account of the Spirit:
While a participatory or pneumatological ontology holds that all that is par-
ticipates in the Creator, or all is animated by the dynamic presence of the
Spirit, this does not mean that all participates in the same way or to the same
degree. We might distinguish between a structural participation of a low-
grade intensity and a more robust, directional participation of high-grade
intensity.146
Thus necessary participation does not entail full or proper participation, or
proper direction in participation, in God. Smith even suggests working out
an account of miracles along these lines.147 Yet he is careful to couch his
approach here in the language of humans as creation and to reject any
super-human capacities attributed to humankind.148

143 Amos Yong, “Radically Orthodox, Reformed, and Pentecostal: Rethinking the

Intersection of Post/Modernity and the Religions in Conversation with James K.A. Smith,”
JPT 15:2 (October 2007): 233–250. See also Smith’s reply, “The Spirit, Religions, and the World
as Sacrament: A Response to Amos Yong’s Pneumatological Assist,” JPT 15:2 (October 2007):
251–261. Yong, here, is responding to Smith’s continued project (and not just the “early Smith”
as I am here dealing with), especially as found in Introducing Radical Orthodoxy. Yong’s focus
is on seeing how this “pneumatological assist” can assist Smith on the matter of dealing with
interreligious dialogue and its relationship to theologies of church and culture.
144 Yong, “Radically Orthodox, Reformed, and Pentecostal,” 247, 249.
145 Smith, “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament,” 254.
146 Ibid., 256.
147 Ibid., 257. He sees this account as similar to C.S. Lewis’ in Miracles (New York:
Macmillan, 1947).
148 Smith’s philosophical theology leads him to another more specifijically Pentecostal
(and Charismatic) concern: tongues speech. He analyzes tongues speech (as glossolalia
and not xenolalia) as a discourse of resistance on both conceptual and ethical levels in
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 223

4.5. Smith’s Hermeneutic as a Contextual-Pentecostal Hermeneutic

Smith is an advocate of what I have labeled the contextual-Pentecostal
hermeneutic on account of his work, as a Pentecostal philosophical theolo-
gian, making the turn to the contextual nature of all theological claims. His
distinction between “faith” and “theology” (and later between “theology1”
and “theology2”) articulates his claim that the latter are “construals” based
upon, but not determinative of, the truth of the former. Yet, though Smith
certainly does imply it at a number of points, he might have greater empha-
sized and accounted for the former inhabiting the latter as well. The
“pre-theoretical” experiences one has of life are not strictly “pre-theoretical”
but always already fijilled with conceptual content and distinctions (as I will
suggest in Chapter Seven).
But Smith’s hermeneutic is clearly a project which points away from a
quest for a pristine theology. Philosophically, it is driven, in part, by the nar-
rative of the story of modern philosophy to which he adheres, one in which
the accounts of reason in the modern Enlightenment project have done a
violent disservice to humankind, conceptually and experientially. Seen as
autonomous, the modern vision of reason sought to sever its ties from its
various sources in “faith” and claimed a status for itself as the adjudicator
of all truth. In place of this scenario, Smith wants to offfer a counter-story
of construals, one in line with critiques of the Enlightenment, like those
espoused by the early Heidegger and Derrida. His own construal in his
“creational-pneumatic” hermeneutic offfers an alternative account of
human rationality and interpretation in light of the “faith” embedded
deeply in his own paradigm.149

“Tongues as ‘Resistance Discourse,’ ” 81–110. Smith sees glossolalia as “linked to a ‘worldview’

which would eschew reductionistic naturalism and would encounter the world as a kind of
‘open-system’ – as a site for the in-breaking of the divine” (Ibid., 98). In its current manifesta-
tion in modern global pentecostalism, he sees it as “the language of the dispossessed – or the
language of the multitude – precisely because it is a mode of speech which resists the powers
and structures of global capitalism and its unjust distribution of wealth,” and it further
resists the logic or rationality of these power structures thus producing an alternative imagi-
nation through which to see the world otherwise (Ibid., 109–110).
149 While I afffijirm Smith’s speaking of his own hermeneutic in a provisional mode, his
approach could be aided by explicitly employing a notion like Charles Taylor’s “strong evalu-
ations” for his most important claims about what is true and good (and beautiful). Taylor’s
“strong evaluations” are “discriminations of right or wrong, better or worse, higher or lower,
which are not rendered valid by our own desires, inclinations, or choices, but rather stand
independent of these and offfer standards by which they can be judged” (emphasis mine)
[Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1989), 4]. Smith’s conviction that the world is God’s creation drives his her-
meneutical ethics and informs his entire hermeneutical paradigm, and thus has the status of
a “strong evaluation.”
224 chapter five

Yet Smith’s project does not stand neatly within the, admittedly, porous
borders of what I have labeled the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic. It
also spills out into the project of the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic;
and this is even truer of his more recent work in Reformed theology and
Radical Orthodoxy as Smith values tradition itself as a source for theologi-
cal truth. This leads him to state that “I take the historicity of the Church as
a continued mode of God’s revelation, which is why I take the catholic
creeds seriously.”150 He holds that Pentecostalism, too, is a tradition of
Christian faith in which God continues to be made manifest through the
testimonies of the manifold charismatic experiences of the Pentecostal
faithful.

5. John Christopher Thomas and Kenneth J. Archer: Narrative and

Communitarian Approaches to Pentecostal Hermeneutics

5.1. John Christopher Thomas and the Role of Community

in Biblical Hermeneutics
The Pentecostal biblical scholar John Christopher Thomas represents a
movement toward communitarian and narrative hermeneutics, an
approach further developed by Kenneth J. Archer. Thomas understands
himself as subtly providing an apologetic for a distinctive Pentecostal bibli-
cal hermeneutics, though not over and against but alongside those of other
Christian traditions. In several articles, he derives this hermeneutic from
the approach he fijinds in the deliberations of the Jerusalem Council
described in Acts 15:1–29.151
Thomas thus builds an approach to hermeneutics based upon his
interpretation of this biblical passage. In contrast to the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic, which seeks to move from biblical exegesis

150 Ibid., 259 n18.

151 The earliest use of this approach came in “Women, Pentecostals and the Bible: An
Experiment in Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” JPT 5 (April 1994): 41–56; it was reproduced in his
“Women in the Church: An Experiment in Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” Evangelical Review of
Theology 20:3 (July 1996): 220–237. In both of these versions of this article, he builds upon
this method in order to apply it to the issue of the role of women in the Church. See also
idem., “Reading the Bible from within Our Traditions: A Pentecostal Hermeneutic as Test
Case,” in Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology,
ed. Joel B. Green and Max Turner (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 108–122. For Thomas’
other signifijicant works, see idem, Pentecostal Commentary on 1 John, 2 John, 3 John (London
and New York: T&T Clark, 2004) and a collection of his essays in New Testament interpreta-
tion in idem, The Spirit of the New Testament (Leiden, The Netherlands: Deo, 2005).
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 225

through systematic organization to the experience and praxis of Christian

faith, Thomas fijinds it remarkable that in Acts 15 the apostles began with
their experiences in coming to a decision concerning the inclusion of
Gentiles and their responsibilities in following Jewish law. The experience
of the Church was understood to be the result of the activity of the Holy
Spirit. Peter’s experience with God’s saving work among the Gentiles is
received by the early Church as the work of God, and to disobey its lesson
would be to disobey God. Barnabas and Paul’s experiences of the signs and
wonders God performed among the Gentiles were also understood as a
basis for their acceptance. The Apostle James reinterprets the situation of
Gentile inclusion in light of Peter’s experience.152 And James interprets the
entire situation in light of the trajectory of God’s saving work through the
Jewish people and then applied to the Gentiles as attested to by James’
interpretation of Amos 9:11–12.
Thomas points out that it is at this point that Scripture is appealed to in
their process of discernment, not at some a priori point. Further arguing
against the usual Evangelical method, he questions whether the meaning of
Amos’ prophecy implied in James’ use of it is the same as the prophet’s
intention.153 These two reasons imply rethinking how Scripture is used
today. James’ choice of Amos 9:11–12, itself, to justify God’s inclusion of the
Gentiles necessitated discernment in selecting what Scripture text applied
to their situation. Thomas fijinds that since Luke’s narrative demonstrates
the fulfijillment of the Davidic promises in Jesus and through the early
Church, it is the Spirit’s witness in the early Church which helped the com-
munity navigate its way through this hermeneutical maze in order to turn
to the Scripture in Amos. He concludes that the community thus moved
from its context, and the experience of the Spirit in this context, to the bibli-
cal text, and not vice versa.154 Further, Thomas notes that the community
both granted James a measure of authority in this process of discernment,
noting his judgment in the fijirst person singular in 15:19, and that the com-
munity made this decision together in concert with the Holy Spirit, as 15:28
states in the letter to the church in Antioch that their decision “seemed

152 It is noteworthy for interpreting this passage that James refers to Peter by his Jewish
name, Simon.
153 Thomas points out that the LXX’s translation of this passage is more amenable to
James’ interpretation than is the Hebrew text itself (“Reading the Bible from within Our
Traditions,” 114–116).
154 Ibid., 118.
226 chapter five

good to the Holy Spirit and to us…” Thus James’ leadership and the com-
munity’s role in discernment were both afffijirmed.155
From this, Thomas concludes that “in sum, the hermeneutic revealed in
Acts 15 has three primary components: the believing community, the activ-
ity of the Spirit, and the Scripture.”156 He believes that many Pentecostal
communities already engage in this type of hermeneutical process. The
community receives testimony concerning God’s activity and assesses it.
The community also provides a forum for accountability and support in
this process, guarding against excesses of individualism or subjectivism,
with such corporate engagement properly functioning as discernment
without equating a majority vote with the will of God. Further, Thomas
argues that the Spirit’s work in the interpretive process is far more complex
than found in the notion of “illumination,” understood as the work of the
Spirit to give the reader of the biblical text the same meaning of the text as
the biblical author would have had in writing the text (as it has been advo-
cated by several proponents of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic in
Chapter Four). Rather, the Spirit also creates the contexts for interpretation,
guiding the choice and use of texts in churches. Such a dynamic encounter
between the community, the Spirit and Scripture, then, still regards
Scripture as authoritative, at least on Thomas’ account. For “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
deemed illegitimate.”157 Critically, Thomas considers his model to offfer a
way forward for questions that arise for churches where the biblical evi-
dence is divided or inadequate, just as in Acts 15.158
Thomas fijinds such a situation obtaining today in Pentecostal communi-
ties regarding the role of women in ministry positions, a case in which
Thomas applies his methodology. Against the methodology which seeks to
determine the meaning of the Pauline (even if deutero-Pauline) biblical
texts and those in Acts regarding women’s role in the church in authorial
intent – primarily through historical-critical investigation of them – and
then integrate them into a coherent whole, he suggests that this methodol-
ogy of interaction between community, the Holy Spirit and Scripture is a
better place to begin. Thus, the community, with its shared experience of
the Spirit, gives and receives testimony concerning a pressing theological

155 Ibid., 111–118.
156 Ibid., 118.
157 Ibid., 119.
158 Ibid., 117–120.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 227

issue in order to evaluate it in light of Scripture. This means that the com-
munity will discern the work of the Spirit. In this case, Pentecostals have
often recognized the ways the Spirit has endowed the “daughters” of the
Pentecostal communities with gifts for ministry. In the face of such power-
ful testimonies of the ministries of Pentecostal women, Thomas wonders,
analogously to the apostles in Acts 15, how Pentecostal communities can
test God by placing restrictions upon the ministries of these women. When
the community turns to the witness of Scripture, which is authoritative
upon them, however, they fijind a mixed witness of texts which restrict
women (Thomas cites 1 Cor. 14:33b-35 and 1 Tim. 2:11–12) and others which
presume their roles in ministry and leadership positions or qualify restric-
tions placed upon them (Thomas cites 1 Cor. 11:3–16, 16:19; Tit. 2:4; Acts 12:12,
18:26, 21:9; Rom. 16:1–7; Col. 4:15 and Phil. 4:3). Thomas contends that the
experience of the Pentecostal community of the Spirit’s activity gifting
women should cause Pentecostals to prioritize the passages that testify in
favor of the accessibility of these roles to women over those that deny
them.159

5.2. Kenneth J. Archer and the Making of Meaning in Pentecostal

Communities
Archer follows Thomas’ proposal for the roles of community, Spirit and
Scripture but then goes beyond it in his A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the
Twenty-First Century: Spirit, Scripture and Community, a work which I have
already engaged in regard to its account of early Pentecostal hermeneutics
(see Chapter Two) and in its criticisms of the Evangelical-Pentecostal her-
meneutic (see above). Archer understands his project as one that is critical
yet faithful to the Pentecostal community and its narrative tradition, a tra-
dition he identifijies with the fijirst generation of Pentecostal hermeneuts and,
especially, the narrative of the Latter Rain. His goal is to take Pentecostal
community and its “Central Narrative Convictions” seriously. He identifijies
these narrative convictions with the fijive-fold “full gospel” and the Latter
Rain. He attempts to emphasize praxis and to retain aspects of what he con-
siders to have been the early perspective of Pentecostals, especially their
perspective from the margins of modern society.
As aforementioned, Archer criticizes the use of the modern historical-
critical method by Pentecostals as the proper exegetical method. He wants

159 Thomas, “Women, Pentecostals and the Bible,” 50–54.

228 chapter five

to move away from the emphasis on the individual implementing an accept-

able and correctly applied method, a modern approach, and move toward
one in which the community is understood as the “spiritual cultural context
in which interpretation takes place” where “the primary fijilter for interpreta-
tion will be the Pentecostal narrative tradition. Yet the Pentecostal strategy
will resist positioning the community over and against Scripture.”160 This
narrative approach “embraces a tridactic negotiation for meaning between
the biblical text, the Holy Spirit and the Pentecostal community” so that
meaning is arrived at through this process.161 Archer holds that meaning is
not found inherently in the text nor is it found in the reader but is produced
in their interdependent dialectical interaction. Neither ought to dominate
the negotiation of meaning. The reader and text work together to “actual-
ize” the potential meaning(s) of the text through the process of reading:
This dialectic link between the narrative text and the reader insists on the
reader responding to the text in ways that are signaled by the text for the pro-
duction of meaning. Therefore, the empirical contemporary reader in com-
munity is an active participant in the production of meaning. The meaning(s)
of the text is not simply found in the text, nor is it simply found in the reader
but comes into existence in the dialectic interaction of the reader with the
text.162
Archer reasons that “Reader Response criticism” is needed because the
reader supplies or fijills in the gaps of the details that are not expressly pre-
sented in the narrative. These details fijill out a narrative with the reader’s
repertoire of knowledge and experience. So meaning is not a content in the
text which the historian simply discovers, but the result of an experience
which occurs during the reading process. Thus this is a rejection of the
notion that meaning is a stable and determinate reality of a text.163
Archer employs a semiotics which follows Umberto Eco.164 Eco’s project,
in his essays with which Archer works, is to limit the possible interpreta-
tions a text can generate for the reader. Eco allows for multiple valid inter-
pretations instead of one single correct one; however, for an interpretation
to be valid it must be latent within the text. Misinterpretation is then an
“overinterpretation” – the result of not being sensitive to the “intention of

160 Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 156.

161 Ibid., 157.
162 Ibid., 170.
163 Ibid., 170–173.
164 Archer deals with the essays by Umberto Eco in Eco with Richard Rorty, Jonathan
Culler and Christine Brooke-Rose, Interpretation and Overinterpretation, ed. Stefan Collini
(New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 229

the text” (intentio operis) which operates as a constraint upon the play of
the “intention of the reader,” (intentio lectoris) rather than “the intention
of the author” (intention auctoris) because the latter is very difffijicult to fijind
out and often irrelevant for a text’s interpretation. The “text’s intention” is,
for Eco, a “conjecture on the part of the reader,” that is, the empirical reader.
“A text is a device conceived in order to produce a model reader.”165 The text
ought to then be given the opportunity to produce the model reader who
reads the text in the way it was designed to be read. This includes paying
attention to the socio-linguistic context of the text as well as of the reader.
Archer wants to adopt Eco’s concern for a dialectical link between text and
reader, though he does not think that the notion of the “model reader” can
work because no reader can fully attain to this ideal. Still, he sees this as
useful and applicable for his Pentecostal hermeneutical strategy concern-
ing the place of the biblical text.166
This contemporary Pentecostal strategy would then afffijirm the impor-
tance of the text’s genre along with the grammatical rules of the language to
which the specifijic speech-act belongs. The text would be analyzed, how-
ever, from a formalistic perspective while afffijirming the importance of the
social and cultural context in which the text came into existence. Meaning
is negotiated through the conversation between the text, community, and
Spirit, with the world behind the text informing rather than controlling the
conversation.167 Archer see this as a way to afffijirm the traditional Pentecostal
mode of interpretation, the “Bible Reading Method” (see Chapter Two),
while moving beyond its paramodern philosophical context. His model of
semiotics understands the text as a dialogical partner constituted by lin-
guistic signs in a communicative event where the reader produces the
meaning of a text in her reading of it, though he neglects the agent(s) at the
other end of the life of the text, those involved with its composition and
transmission.
Beyond his semiotics, Archer has followed Alasdair MacIntyre in holding
that “moral reasoning is always rooted in a particular narrative tradition
which offfers its version of reality to other communities.”168 Thus Pentecostal
hermeneutics can only be done by one who identifijies with the Pentecostal

165 Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 161. Archer cites Eco, Interpretation and

Overinterpretation, 64.
166 Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 159–162.
167 Ibid., 163.
168 Ibid., 164. For Archer on MacIntyre, see Ibid, 96–98. See also MacIntyre, After Virtue: A
Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984); and Whose
Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988).
230 chapter five

community and its Central Narrative Convictions. This strategy recognizes

that all readings are “culturally dependent and inherently contain the
ideological perspective(s) of the community” and afffijirms the ubiquity of
context and, in turn, seeks to produce “a hermeneutic of suspicion and
retrieval.”169 He conceives of this strategy as praxis-oriented, especially as
the community moves toward the biblical text with specifijic concerns and
the need to speak to its present situations.
Further, Archer sees hermeneutical method not as predetermined but as
selected by the hermeneut as a tool for the creative negotiation of meaning.
And he considers his “Narrative Critical” approach to be the best tool for
Pentecostals.170 This is because, by nature, Pentecostals are storytellers. The
traditional historical-critical methods have not paid enough attention to
narrative, the primary genre of Scripture, focusing too much on the world
“behind the text.” Archer’s approach seeks to read the biblical narratives as
story and through the insights of narrative literary criticism: “Narrative
Criticism reads the story as a coherent piece of literature that invites the
reader’s participation in the creation of meaning while also recognizing
that narratives can shape the perception of the reader.”171 He considers it an
approach that attempts to understand the biblical text on its own terms.
Read canonically as narrative, it “will bracket historical referential concerns
and examine the text as a closed universe of the story world.”172 The Bible
then properly functions as a metanarrative, as the foundational story for
Pentecostal belief and practice which shapes its hearers. And this allows the
reader a place in the creative transaction of meaning. Rather than trying to
interpret what a passage meant by its original author at a particular time
and place, it seeks to read the narrative from the perspective of its implied
reader, a hypothetical person who responds to the story with whatever the
text ideally calls for.173

169 Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 164.

170 In his approach to narrative criticism, Archer generally follows Mark Allan Powell,
What Is Narrative Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990).
171 Archer, Pentecostal Hermeneutic, 167.
172 Ibid., 168. Such an approach, however, tends to bracket matters of external context,
fijilling in “gaps” in the text imaginatively rather than based upon good accounts of that
context.
173 Archer, though unclear on this point, seems to diffferentiate his use of the implied
reader (following Mark Powell) from Eco’s model reader. While he understands Eco to con-
sider it possible for the text to produce the model reader, Archer sees his own use of the
implied reader as a way of idealizing this intention within the text without considering this
status attainable by the contemporary empirical reader. Both the implied reader and implied
author are imbedded in the text itself (Ibid., 160–171).
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 231

Following Thomas’ lead, Archer then afffijirms the Holy Spirit’s role
in guiding the community in its engagement with Scripture. The Spirit
guides the community in “understanding the present meaningfulness of
Scripture.”174 The Spirit does so horizontally, coming in and through the
community and through Scripture to the community without being equated
with either, the presence of which is to be discerned by the community
itself. The Spirit can also come from outside the Christian or Pentecostal
community through engagement with others in witness. Further, the Holy
Spirit is to be invited into the disposition of the hermeneut, in an attitude
that is willing to undergo transformation.175
Since Archer has been reticent to make signifijicant ontological claims or
to draw strong methodological boundaries in his hermeneutical strategy, he
considers the necessity of its validation based upon four criteria. This pro-
cess of validation must, fijirst, use a method that outsiders can follow and
fijind coherent. Second, it should see the community’s role, including that of
the Christian community’s throughout history, as central to validating reli-
gious experiences, the use of Scripture and doctrine, and be rooted in the
community’s experiences of praxis. Third, it ought to be subjected to cross-
cultural validation. And, fourth, it should be open to the scrutiny of other
communities, both academic and Christian.176
While Archer’s strategy helpfully illustrates how some of the communal
narrative commitments among Pentecostals influence their hermeneutics,
I fijind problems with his approach. This is especially the case concerning his
neglect of a text’s origination and attendant external context, including his
use of the term “meaning” without reference to the historical authorship
and context of a text. Though noting an implied author embedded in the
text, he does not draw implications for the reader’s responsibility to difffer-
entiate his interpretation of the text (in a meaning-producing event) from
its original meaning, even as such is an interpretive construal. The herme-
neutical community of the reader functions as the context of the text for
Archer.177 Interpretation is constrained by a text’s “inner texture” which
“cues” the interpreter in the making of meaning.178 Still, there is no mandate
for looking at the external context of the text or for the responsibility of
the interpreter to be responsible for her actions, beyond producing an

174 Ibid., 182.
175 Ibid., 183–185.
176 Ibid., 188–190.
177 Ibid., 164–166.
178 Ibid., 163–164.
232 chapter five

interpretation acceptable to her communities. Thus my approach in

Chapter Seven will stand as an alternative to his, at least on these matters
where I am critical of his strategy.

6. Amos Yong’s Trinitarian-Pneumatological Approach

to Pentecostal Hermeneutics

Amos Yong is an Asian-American Pentecostal theologian who has emerged

as an important voice in contemporary Pentecostal theological discourse.
Yong’s work has focused on philosophical theology and theology of
religions, but also more recently on the dialogue between science and
theology and a theology of disability. In Spirit-Word-Community: Theological
Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective, a project at the core of his theologi-
cal paradigm, he deals with the connections between epistemology,
metaphysics, ontology and anthropology in order to offfer a philosophically-
informed approach to theologically interpreting the world.179 Yet his theo-
logical hermeneutic is especially driven by his pneumatology and Trinitarian
ontology. His project, then, has sought to develop a metaphysics to account
for them.180
Yong’s Trinitarian-pneumatological theological hermeneutic under-
stands Pentecostal theology as a “hermeneutics of life.” It draws upon the
revival of Trinitarian theology in the last century and attempts to fijind its
implications for hermeneutic theory and ecclesial discernment. This her-
meneutic could even be categorized as within the ecumenical-Pentecostal

179 Yong’s book length works represent these interests. His main text on philosophical
theology, which is analyzed here, is Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics in
Trinitarian Perspective (New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies
Series; Burlington, VT and Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2002). His earliest interest
was in developing a Pentecostal theology of religions in Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal-
Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions (JPT Supplement 20; Shefffijield,
UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 2000), the published version of his Boston University disserta-
tion, written under the direction of Robert Cummings Neville. He updates his approach in
Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Academic, 2003). He has recently completed a project engaging the science and theol-
ogy dialogue as co-chair (with James K.A. Smith) of “Science and the Spirit: Pentecostal
Perspectives on the Science/Religion Dialogue, the fijindings of which will be published in the
aforementioned series of essays edited by Yong and Smith, Science, the Spirit & Pentecostal-
Charismatic Scholarship. His work in a theology of disability is Theology and Down Syndrome:
Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007). He also
has published scores of articles in theology and religion journals, both inside and outside of
the Pentecostal theological community.
180 See idem., Spirit-Word-Community, 8.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 233

hermeneutic in that it is a “consensual hermeneutic.”181 But because the

focus of his theological hermeneutics is more philosophical and more con-
cerned with the conditions of theological interpretation in general than
with the Christian theological traditions in particular, his project is here
categorized primarily as a contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic.

6.1. Trinity, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Pneumatology

Yong’s thesis is that theological hermeneutics occurs in the hermeneutical
“trialectic” of Spirit, Word and Community. The contours of this hermeneu-
tic can be seen in the structure of Spirit-Word-Community, where Part I
(Chapters 1–3) deals with metaphysics and ontology from a Trinitarian and
especially pneumatological approach. Part II (Chapters 4–6) conceives of
epistemology in terms of a pneumatological imagination. And Part III draws
on the convictions of the previous two in proposing his methodology: “The
Acts of Interpretation: Spirit” (Chapter 7), “The Objects of Interpretation:
Word” (Chapter 8), and “The Contexts of Interpretation: Community”
(Chapter 9). Through this, he seeks to form a “hermeneutics of life” which
interprets the nexus of “God-self-world” where he “strives to describe theo-
logical interpretation as it actually occurs, and prescribe a model of doing
theology relevant to the Church catholic and directed toward the
eschaton.”182
Yong considers that theological interpretation is this dynamic process.
His understanding of hermeneutics thus broadens the scope of his project
well beyond biblical hermeneutics without simply becoming a general
hermeneutics. As a theological hermeneutic it “aims at interpreting the
totality of human experience – and that includes God and God’s relation-
ship with human selves and the world as a whole – from a perspective that
is specifijically and explicitly formed by faith.”183 But in the process of articu-
lating this theological hermeneutic, he does in fact develop a general
hermeneutics coming from his epistemology, metaphysics and ontology as
such are, ultimately, at least, even if they draw on a signifijicant number of
philosophical sources, centered around his Trinitarian ontology. Theology
is a manner of interpreting the world since it “is a strictly second-order
afffair that proceeds in abstraction from fijirst-hand experience…theology
broadly understood concerns the totality of God and God’s relationship to

181 Ibid., 1.
182 Ibid., 316.
183 Ibid., 6.
234 chapter five

human selves and the world understood from the perspective of faith.”184
However, he notes that this is not the only way of cognitively reflecting
upon one’s world, since other disciplines also legitimately approach reality
from their own respective starting points, disciplines from which he draws.
Yong also chastens his project with an epistemological fallibilism, stress-
ing the partiality of all knowledge claims and the dynamic nature of reality
itself. Still, he is unafraid to engage in categorical thinking because he
considers categories themselves “heuristic tools for thinking.”185 He reasons
that since human understanding begins within the fijinitude of human
experience a posteori, he should decline to consider his own categories a
priori on account of his own lack of transcendental perspective. But he
fijinds fallibility not only obtains because of “creaturehood, but also fallen
creatureliness.”186 He most often considers sin as an overreaching of one’s
appointed reason for being, and such has noetic efffects.
The key inspiration for his epistemology and metaphysics is the American
pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, whose metaphysics Yong
correlates with his reading of biblical pneumatology and Trinitarian ontol-
ogy. He adopts and modifijies Peirce’s metaphysics which consider the char-
acter of reality, phenomenologically read, to emerge in three basic
categories: the qualities of things abstracted from experiences (Peirce’s
“Firstness”), the concreteness of actual things or facts in their diffferentia-
tion from one another (Peirce’s “Secondness”), and the general laws which
relate these together (Peirce’s “Thirdness”). “Thirdness” is dynamic while
“Firstness” and “Secondness,” respectively, represent the abstract and con-
crete. In Peirce’s philosophy, all things participate in each of these three
aspects of the becoming of reality.187
Correlating his Trinitarian ontology with Peirce’s categories, Yong holds
that while the Father is the “qualitative source of creative efffijicacy” and the
Son is “the decisive sign or image of the Father through whom the Godhead
is embodied and efffijicaciously interacts with the world,” it is the Spirit who
is “the interpretant of the divine relationality both ad intra and ad extra.”188
Thus Peircean “Firstness,” with its attendant abstraction, is correlated with

184 Ibid., 2–3.
185 Ibid., 28.
186 Ibid., 182.
187 Also see Yong’s “The Demise of Foundationalism and the Retention of Truth: What
Evangelicals Can Learn from C.S. Peirce,” Christian Scholar’s Review 29:3 (Spring 2000):
563–588.
188 Idem., Spirit-Word-Community, 95.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 235

the Father, the concreteness of “Secondness” with the Son, and the dyna-
mism of “Thirdness” with the Spirit.189
Not only does Yong correlate the Trinity and Peircean metaphysics here,
but he is also making a methodological point. He makes another set of
correlations as Spirit, Word and Community are, respectively, understood
in terms of subjectivity, objectivity and contextuality in interpretation. The
created order is grounded in the being and relations of the Trinity.
Interpretation begins with subjectivity, but it always includes the objects of
interpretation and the contexts in which interpretation occurs. This is also
exhibited in the structure of the book. Reversing the usual modern order,
method comes last (in Part III). Yong begins with an ontology and meta-
physics (Part I) and then moves toward an epistemology considered in
terms of a “pneumatological imagination” (Part II), arguing through dem-
onstration for the interdependence of each part with the others and reject-
ing any notion of a “view from nowhere” or a methodology and epistemology
that claims to be devoid of an ontology and metaphysics. The metaphysics
from which this hermeneutics operates thus begins with his “foundational
pneumatology.”190 A foundation is used in a Lonerganian sense in order to
sustain the spiritual nature of all reality.191 He holds that while his “founda-
tional pneumatology” is both communal and contextual in its origination,
it strives toward universal application. This type of foundationalism is thus
“heuristic” or “shifting,” and is a correlative of his fallibilism.192

189 Yong’s Trinitarian theology utilizes both the “mutual love” model of Augustine and the
“two hands of God” model from Irenaeus. He seeks to resolve the tension between them, and
their attendant disagreement on the fijilioque, through the “return model” proposed by David
Cofffey and the similar proposal of Thomas Weinandy in which “The Spirit is thereby the
mutual love between Father and Son, and the link between God and the world” (Ibid., 71).
See Cofffey, Deus Trinitas: The Doctrine of the Triune God (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999); and Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995).
190 The Jesuit theologian Donald Gelpi has been an important source from which
Yong has drawn on here. See Yong, “In Search of Foundations: The Oeuvre of Donald L. Gelpi,
S.J., and its Signifijicance for Pentecostal Theology, Philosophy, and Spirituality,” JPT 11:1
(April 2002): 3–26.
191 In Bernard Lonergan, S.J.,’s Method for Theology he placed “foundations” as the fijifth of
eight functional specialties, not the fijirst. In his theory, foundations follow research, interpre-
tation, history and dialectics. But they are the level at which conversions take place.
Conversions can be of many diffferent types but they all involve a shift in fundamental beliefs
and attitudes. See Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972),
125–45.
192 Yong clarifijies that, “it is therefore not an epistemological or Cartesian foundational-
ism that is erected on incorrigible beliefs. Instead I prefer to image it in terms of a heuristic
or shifting foundationalism since it is attentive to the continuously expanding data of
236 chapter five

What should not be lost here is the very basic claim Yong is making in
contrast to a reductionistic or naturalistic account of reality.193 Similar to
Karl Rahner’s transcendental anthropology, he offfers an alternative account
of the status of the human and, further, the entire world as essentially spiri-
tual, graced by the Spirit in this “foundational pneumatology.” But his theo-
logical hermeneutic also entails a diffferent parsing of the God-world,
divine-human, grace-nature and nature-supernature distinctions than the
usual metaphysics of classical theism or Thomism.194 Against a Hegelian
dialecticism, on the one hand, or a dualism, on the other, his proposal builds
upon the metaphysics of Peirce to claim that a dynamic relational pneuma-
tology mediates the poles of the abstract and concrete as an essential third
force. Interpretation has its source in this Trinitarian dynamics. Thus he
claims that “only a pneumatological rationality is sufffijiciently dynamic, his-
torical and eschatological to drive the dialectical movement of thought.”195

experience” (Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 100). Like Peirce, he seeks to bring together the
best of empiricist and rationalist tuitions while overcoming what he considers their short-
comings. Experience is interpreted by second-order reflection which in turn shapes future
experiences.
193 Despite his sympathies with the phenomenological tradition in philosophy, Yong
rejects the more radical fijinitude found in the non-static and a-theological (as in purposefully
devoid of the theological) hermeneutics of Heidegger and Gadamer since he holds to a
dynamic ontology that is sustained by the Triune God. He further argues for the inevitability
of foundations and frameworks:
“I have posited a foundational pneumatology precisely in order to defend a rational,
critical, and communal realism. Toward that end, my conviction is that if foundations
are equivalent to warrants, then all rationalities and epistemologies are foundational
in that sense. The question then is not whether or not any particular rationality is
foundational, but what kind of foundations are being appealed to and how they oper-
ate” (Ibid.).
Yong’s epistemology could be characterized as similar to the postfoundationalist approach
yet with the diffference that he adds a third dynamic, non-synthesizing aspect. For examples
of the postfoundationalist approach, see F. LeRon Shults, The Postfoundationalist Task of
Theology: Wolfhart Pannenberg and the New Theological Rationality (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1999); and J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997). Postfoundationalism claims that while foundations are
inevitable, they are always subject to criticism and revision; they are not self-evident but the
result of a complex process.
194 Yong comments that while,
“the Holy Spirit could meet us in the depths of our own hearts (Augustine), in the face
of the other (Levinas), and in the future that beckons and welcomes us (Pannenberg)…
Kierkegaard’s qualitative distinction between time and eternity, between creation and
the creator, needs to be noted. This means that the transcendence toward which the
Spirit inspires us must always be more than what we encounter in ourselves, in others,
and in our futures” (Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 227).
195 Ibid., 104.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 237

A synthesis does not overwhelm the other poles, but there exists a respect
for each.196 So this trialectic of Spirit-Word-Community, which is diffferenti-
ated from a triad on account of its dynamism, is superior to a synthesis. The
Triune God upholds this reality as both “the one” and “the many” simultane-
ously are and require one another as they are dynamically related.
This pneumatological foundation also upholds Yong’s account of the
human activity of interpretation. Though he develops this less in Spirit-
Word-Community than in Discerning the (S)pirits and Beyond the Impasse,
his monographs on theology of religions, he conceives of “spirit” as a
complex of tendencies which shape the behavior of any thing. This can
represent things at various levels of aggregation, be they individuals, com-
munities, institutions or things in the natural order. What seems to qualify
something as “spirit,” on his understanding, is that it has volition and that it
is in motion, it is living.197 Thus he considers the subjective moment of
interpretation a matter of “spirit.” And further, “the Holy Spirit is the divine
mind that illuminates the rationality of the world to human minds.”198
Consequently, theological interpretation works when, through a person’s

196 Yong contends that this move alleviates some of the problem created by subject-
object dualism or the collapse of such a distinction:
“While pneumatology in abstraction gives rise precisely to the theological and philo-
sophical wrong turns of speculative or absolute idealism (Hegel), a robust pneumato-
logical theology brings vagueness and generality together with the distinctiveness,
particularity, and individuality of concrete actualities. Here the subject-object distinc-
tion or diffference is not only preserved but insisted upon, yet not in the Cartesian
sense of re-asserting a metaphysical dualism between the knower and the known. It is
also precisely for those reasons that the logic of pneumatology resists all forms of total-
ism: absorbing the other into oneself, defijining the other according to oneself, or
neglecting, ignoring, or abusing the other as not valuable according to standards estab-
lished by oneself. Both the self-deferential character of the Spirit vis-à-vis the mutual-
ity of the Father and Son in the immanent Trinity and the gracious donation of the
Spirit to establish diffference and other [sic] in the work of God economically consid-
ered combat the ideology of totalization. Further, insofar as fallibilism is also negoti-
ated communally, it acts as a means through which the Spirit checks the abuse of
intellectual power” (Ibid., 104).
197 Drawing some similarities with Hegel’s Geist seems inevitable here despite Yong’s
trialectic’s diffferences from a Hegelian synthesis. His use of the concept of “Spirit/spirit” is
not simple. While “Spirit” refers to the Holy Spirit, especially in reference to his Trinitarian
ontology, “spirit” has rhetorical, anthropological, and metaphysical connotations.
Rhetorically, it refers to ethos, atmosphere and even tradition. Anthropologically, it deals
with what is common in humanity, in human experience and rationality. Metaphysically, it
also refers to that which sustains commonality, but it is also cosmic, “the energetic or fijield
dimension that sustains the concrete or phenomenological aspects of things in the world”
(Ibid., 15). Yong fijinds himself following the pneumatological and eschatological orientation
of theologians such as Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jürgen Moltmann and Michael Welker.
198 Ibid., 123.
238 chapter five

pneumatological imagination, the Spirit breaks in and gives a “creative

fijidelity” in understanding the faith which has been passed down. Knowing
that one is responsibly doing theological interpretation requires a discern-
ment that is related to one’s general spiritual discernment, a graced capac-
ity that he conceives of more generally than as a specifijic spiritual gift.199
Following Hans Urs von Balthasar, he acknowledges that “the Spirit is the
transcendental condition of the human experience of God.”200 Thus we
know theologically only by, through and in the Spirit so that “all theologiz-
ing is charismatic in the sense that it is enabled by and through the Spirit.”201
Pneumatic moments in interpretation thus serve correctively in one’s theo-
logical work as the Spirit resists the normal givens of theological knowl-
edge, providing the possibility of newness in theological interpretation.202
However, although in the Spirit, human interpreters are not purely elevated
from their given contexts but encounter the theologically transcendent in a
“mediated immediacy.”203 This is why he employs Peirce’s semiotics.

6.2. Discernment of Spirit(s)
Yong’s theological hermeneutics cannot be well understood apart from his
spiritual hermeneutics. They stand together in a dialogical relationship.
Formal theological interpretation of the world stands in an interdependent
relationship with the reading of concrete aspects of the world as spiritual
realities:
Properly understood, spiritual discernment is much more than the charis-
matic gift of discernment of spirits. Rather, in its broadest sense, it should
be understood as a hermeneutics of life that is both a divine gift
and a human activity aimed at reading correctly the inner processes of
all things – persons, institutions, events, rites, experiences, and so on.204

199 Yong fijinds that because “it is important not to exalt the human imagination as an
autonomous faculty or human freedom as an autonomous activity” (Ibid., 229), the human
interpreter who truly perceives the theologically transcendent sees “in the Spirit” who has
indwelled the interpreter.
200 Ibid., 228.
201 Ibid., 229.
202 A key distinction in Yong’s method is between the “pneumatic,” that is, the experience
of the spiritual and the “pneumatological,” which is second-order reflection upon it.
203 Yong contends that the given objects of interpretation are not static but fluctuate in
time and space in their biological, natural, cultural and ecclesial worlds, thus necessitating
the need for dynamic categories of understanding. This requires that the mediation of the
cultural with biblical and theological traditions goes both ways. Social, natural, economic,
political and other forces influence, shape and, at times, even dictate interpretation.
204 Idem., Beyond the Impasse, 129.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 239

Yong conceives of spiritual discernment as a general capacity that is aided

by divine grace in interpreting the spiritual realities present in the world.
Such a reading of reality comes from carefully attending to the external
realities which are observable to the senses in order to correctly interpret
the inner processes of things.205 Since “spirits” consists of all types of the
inner contours of embodied things at various levels of aggregation, Yong
argues that such a process of discerning spirits cannot occur through some
type of direct spiritual intuitions because spirits are always manifest in the
present world: “Non-manifesting spirits could not be said to exist in any
meaningful sense, certainly in no palpable sense.”206 He bases this under-
standing of discernment on the use of biblical words:
The biblical data, however, suggests a much broader conception of spiritual
discernment that emphasizes the processes of cultivating physical, cognitive,
and afffective sensibilities in order to more accurately perceive the assorted
features of the natural world and of socio-institutional and interpersonal rela-
tionships and to guide one’s actions in a responsible manner.207
While discernment of spirits is, in a narrower sense, a special gift of “occa-
sional perspicuity” into a feature of the world, it is more commonly and
broadly a hermeneutics of life as attested to in the biblical words used for
judgment and knowledge.208
If this is so, then by paying close attention to the concrete outer entities
which humans experience, one is able to identify their inner realities.
The spiritual is revealed in the concrete actualities of human life in an
empirical process. In contrast, the charismatic gift of discernment is a spe-
cifijic gift for identifying the Spirit of God as diffferentiated from other spirits.
Yong thus understands his phenomenology of discernment as resulting in a

205 Ibid., 130, 149–161.

206 Ibid., 154. Regarding the demonic, as with other spirits, they are revealed in concrete
actualities and are not “unverifijiable noumenal entities wholly removed from, unconnected
with, and uninfluential on the concrete world in which we live.” Yong considers that “the
demonic consists of both an inner dynamic fijield of force and an outer concrete form that
enables discernment and also engagement and resistance, not by human might but by the
power of the Spirit of God” (Ibid., 155). The demonic is a destructive fijield of force which has
as its chief characteristic inauthenticity in relationships and aspires any thing to “overreach
its divinely appointed reason for being” (Ibid., 138).
207 Ibid., 149.
208 Yong cites the use of krinō and its cognates (in terms of judgment, selection, decision
and assessment), and dokimazō (in terms of testing) in the Greek New Testament as well as
the Hebrew nākar (in terms of discernment and recognition) and bînâ (in terms of discern-
ment, insight, perception and understanding) in order to biblically justify his theology of
discernment (Ibid., 139–149).
240 chapter five

prescriptive call for a rejection of spiritual/material dualism, but also

the cultivation of discernment and submission to God in all things.209
A key issue for Yong then becomes the recognition of divine presence
and absence, especially in recognizing the presence (or lack thereof) of the
Holy Spirit.
Regarding the presence and activity of the Spirit in other religions, Yong
diffferentiates between objective religion and subjective religion. Objective
religion is institutionalized religion while subjective religion is what is prac-
ticed by individuals. He implies greater potential for the Spirit’s presence
and activity in subjective religion but also holds that there is the possibility
of the Spirit’s presence in objective non-Christian religions. This process of
discernment begins with empirical experiences, but these religious experi-
ences are inevitably categorized.210 Yet a comparative theology cannot
proceed through purely neutral categories. Rather, helpful religious and
theological comparisons should: “lift up what is important in the things
compared as determined by criteria identifijied in their own terms, and
they should elicit, via categories that are neutral to the things compared,
an analysis of similarities and contrasts.”211 Yong holds that proper compari-
son is achieved through comparison of not only texts but subtexts, of
contexts, including the practices and purposes which give meaning to
texts.212

6.3. The Trialectic Movement of Spirit-Word-Community

Yong’s proposal seeks to bring together what he considers to be the basic
Christian convictions of Spirit, Word and Community. He intertwines these
“moments” in an interplay of “the activity of an interpreting subject, the
data of an interpreted object or a set of interpreted objects, and the
various contexts which interpreting communities fijind themselves.”213 And
the function of what he calls the “pneumatological imagination” is the
place of human freedom in which the fallible and provisional work of
discernment occurs. In theological interpretation, the Spirit brings new
signifijications of Word, as Yong conceives of Spirit and Word as both interde-
pendent and independent from one another (though the former is primary).

209 Ibid., 160–61.
210 Ibid., 139–49.
211 Ibid., 180.
212 Ibid., 180, 303–305.
213 Ibid., 219.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 241

The latter, which relates to his denial of the fijilioque, allows new signifijica-
tions of Word to occur in the “pneumatological imagination.”214
But there is also the constant issue of error in interpretation of the tran-
scendent. Yong considers transcendence not just psychologically or socially
but theologically as well, in the sense of Kierkegaard’s “infijinite qualitative
distance.” However, he argues that such an afffijirmation of transcendence
does not require a strict subject-object dualism where the subject, the
human interpreter, seeks to be a neutral observer of the object, the divine.
For “it is important not to exalt the human imagination as an autonomous
faculty or human freedom as an autonomous activity.”215 Rather, the human
interpreter who truly sees the theologically transcendent sees “in the Spirit”
who indwells the interpreter. Pneumatic moments in interpretation thus
serve correctively in one’s theological work as the Spirit resists the normal
givens of theological knowledge, providing the possibility of newness in
theological interpretation.216
Further, Yong notes that the given objects of interpretation are not static
but fluctuate in time and space in their biological, natural, cultural and
ecclesial worlds, thus necessitating dynamic categories of understanding.
This requires that the mediation of cultural traditions with biblical and
theological traditions goes both ways:
Theology no longer proceeds either formally from the data of revealed
Scripture alone (as in Protestant fundamentalism) or only deductively from
Scripture as discerned by the community of faith (as in Catholic or Orthodox
traditionalism). Rather, it is just as crucial to discern what kinds of interpre-
tive lenses, besides that of one’s faith tradition, are brought to the reading of
Scripture.217
Social, natural, economic, political and other forces influence, shape and,
even at times, dictate interpretation, and these forces can be for both the
good and bad.

214 Ibid., 226–227. Yong explains that:

“The interdependence of Spirit and Word in the divine economies means that we
should take Scripture seriously as the primary means through which the Spirit’s libera-
tive activity is accomplished…The relative independence of Spirit and Word also
points to the distinct possibility of being led to novel readings or applications of
Scripture by the Spirit, even as the Spirit preceded the Word in hovering over the
waters, and as the Spirit conceived the Word in the incarnation. Here, it is crucial to
distinguish between the Spirit creating new signifijications of the Word, rather than
bringing about a completely new word altogether” (Ibid., 226).
215 Ibid., 229.
216 Ibid., 228–229.
217 Ibid., 232–233.
242 chapter five

Yong holds that the primary objects of theological interpretation (that is,
Word) are experience, the Word of God and ecclesial and theological
tradition. Because he holds that experience is both phenomenologically
and logically prior to the second-order activity of reflection, of which the-
ologizing is a form, he considers it as both the entire spectrum of human
evaluative responses as well as all uncritical or pre-reflective cognition.
Thus to consider language as inextricable from perception, Yong accounts
for the category of “experience” as both the medium of interpretation and
an object of interpretation. Consciously or not, all of us exegete our experi-
ences. Humans consciously carve out slices of experience for categorical
reflection so that thinking itself is a matter of interpretation. Since “mental
objects (thoughts) are always-already semiotic interpretations of percep-
tual experience from the start…our ‘pure experiences’ are unavailable for
reflection.”218 This includes the experience of God’s presence. Throughout
Yong’s writings, he has a strong sense of God’s continual presence in the
world, as both Spirit and Word among us. Yet not to be missed are Yong’s
continual remarks about divine absence as well, the experience of which is
also a matter for exegesis.219
For Yong, the Word of God is found in the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ, who can be “interpreted only insofar as he is engaged con-
cretely, interpersonally, and intersubjectively,” and in the normative Word
of Scripture.220 Following J.L. Austin and speech act theory, he understands
that the Word of God “confronts us as an other, a locution. It also makes
demands of us, as an illocution. Finally, it actually transforms us as a perlo-
cution.”221 Taken as such, the divine Word is not an object to be manipu-
lated but, rather, it interprets us by the power of the Spirit, standing over
and against us as an other. The world of the text of the Word of God, as
Scripture, then sets parameters based on the original meaning as intended
by the author and received by the original audience, but this is met by the
world created or opened up by the text, including transformations brought
about by the text in its readers.222 While holding to the original intent and
reception of a text as a center of gravity for its meaning, he also claims that
a pluralizing hermeneutic is needed to handle the biblical texts because of

218 Ibid., 247.
219 Ibid., 246–253.
220 Ibid., 257–258. Yong holds that Scripture makes the Word of God present, though it is
not itself the Word of God. Authority for Christians is not in the text but is in the person of
Jesus Christ “by, in, and through the Spirit” (Ibid., 260–262).
221 Ibid., 256.
222 Ibid.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 243

the plurality of their sources, as well as his openness to the multiple read-
ings inherent in many texts.223 Since theological interpretation is thus a
way of accounting for reality, he fijinds that the Word of God brings about
proper engagement with it:
The Word of God understood as the story or narrative of the Church mediates
reality (the world of the text emergent or reflecting the world “behind” the
text), enables the ongoing experience of that reality (the world “within” the
text), and funds the ongoing (re)construction of reality (by providing possi-
bilities for another world, one which lies “in front of” the text)…Keeping all
three worlds together – the world behind the text and the world in front of the
text being connected by the text and the world of the text – is the crux of all
interpretive activity; otherwise, we would be fantasizing or dreaming, not
interpreting…The upshot of this discussion is that theological knowledge
consists not just in a simple arrangement of scriptural proof texts according to
certain categories. Rather, theology emerges as an arena of knowledge con-
strained by reality as objectively given to us.224
In engaging the biblical materials, Yong thus rejects “arbitrarily” systematiz-
ing biblical materials through a single theme or motif in favor of doing so
pluralistically. Yet he constrains this pluralizing hermeneutic by arguing
that authorial intention prevents the interpreter from understanding a text
in ways the original author may never have intended nor the original audi-
ence conceived. And, further, he argues that there is sufffijicient coherence to
the Christian canon, which the original canon-forming Christian commu-
nity itself recognized, so that Christian faith has internal coherence.225
Ecclesial tradition, too, is an object of theological interpretation. As the
“unending endurance in and transmission of the past to the present,”226
tradition accounts for both stability and change in human experience, so
that the past is sustained in the present through connections with what
has preceded it. This means that changes are always discontinuities within
continuities. Yong considers the Christian tradition itself to be “one
continuous work of the Spirit,” but this in terms of it being “the cumulative
sum total of its sequentially ordered local theologies.”227 A hermeneutics
of Christian tradition is then, in part, a tracing of the development of the

223 Ibid., 260–262. Yong holds that texts vary on a continuum between closed readings
(those closely connected with the author’s intention) and more open readings (those
directed toward the reader’s response).
224 Ibid., 264.
225 Ibid., 286–289.
226 Ibid., 265.
227 Ibid., 265, 268.
244 chapter five

interpreter’s local present horizon as well as those of other local present

horizons. This situation of locality within tradition provides a tension
between the local and the universal which needs to be respected without
collapsing either pole. A variety of local confessions serve to provide
accountability for one another, criticizing the parochial, ideological or
partisan agendas of other local theologies. Further, this also means that “no
one event, creed, doctrine, etc., can carry the weight of the entire Christian
theological tradition.”228 Using such as criteria would only be to provide
fallible guidelines from within the horizon of the tradition since no criteria
are available except those developed from within a tradition.229 That is why
Yong considers the need for an account, such as his of the trialectic move-
ment of Spirit-Word-Community, to deal with the dynamic and shifting
nature of reality, and thus criteria as well. This further entails a de-essential-
izing of theological claims or events. Thus no time and place, not even the
fijirst decades of the modern Pentecostal movement, should become abso-
lutely normative for a tradition. Doctrinally, he follows Ormond Rush in
holding that the meaning or content of a dogma or doctrine is incomplete
until it is received.230 This means that judgments should be considered
both necessary and tentative until the eschaton.
In the meantime, Yong considers “ecclesiality” to be the distinctively
Christian way of being in the world, a way of life that is birthed, sustained,
led and consummated by the Spirit. Since the objects of interpretation are
dynamic and continually emerging realities, there will always be “slippage”
between what was once meant and what the interpreter takes the current
meaning to be. But rather than bemoan this, like Smith Yong recognizes
that this is the human condition, even as it is divinely intended.231 This is
reflected in his understanding of Scripture and tradition, where even
Scripture “reflects interpretive accounts of a people’s experiences with God

228 Ibid., 271.
229 Against aspects of Lindbeck’s notions of the constraints which tradition places on
one’s ability to criticize and be criticized from outside of one’s tradition, Yong claims that
while cultures and traditions do operate according to certain grammars, narratives and
assumptions, humans encounter others in their strangeness and diffference to us. Since oth-
erness is not completely other, it can be bridged through encounter which implies that these
grammars are never homogenous but are a complex of multiple histories, traditions, sources
and experiences. Yong fijinds this type of encounter to obtain often in the current era of glo-
balization (Ibid., 302–305).
230 Ibid., 265–273. See Ormond Rush, The Reception of Doctrine: An Appropriation of Hans
Robert Jauss’ Reception Aesthetics and Literary Hermeneutics (Tesi Gregoriana Serie Teologia
19; Rome: Editrice Pontifijicia Università Gregoriana, 1997).
231 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 234–235.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 245

along with subsequent re-interpretations of these experiences.”232 And the

Church has been led by the Spirit over time to recognize these texts as the
Word of God, as trustworthy for life and faith in the diversity of the canon.
The post-canonical community, in turn, engages in a process of tradition-
making so that the people of God are transformed through the Spirit in
encounters with the biblical and later traditions, though even the “content”
of Scripture itself is dynamic as the Church develops in its understanding of
it as the Church engages the world.233
The interpretive acts of the community of faith have specifijic goals, “teloi,”
in approaching Scripture and tradition. Yong holds that the three basic
“teloi” are orthopraxis, orthodoxy, and dealing with cognitive doubt.
Interpretations are posited in order to sound the alarm as to what is broken
and how it may be fijixed. It is the Spirit that alerts the interpreter to these
concerns so that theological interpretation is not just an attempt to gain
right conceptual truths about God, but to also cultivate right afffections for
God and to develop proper orientations, attitudes, and approaches to God.
However, this occurs in the context of “the tension of a God who has
revealed himself and yet always remains unknowable.”234 But Yong consid-
ers doubt to be part of the “genius of Christian faith” in that “it is open to
critical questioning and even encourages and delights in the process of
inquiry,” so that, unlike cultic groups, “doubt drives theological inquiry until
our hearts fijinally fijind rest in God (Augustine).”235 On this side of the
eschaton, at least, interpretation “is an open-ended and ceaseless task in
the Spirit through whom we live, move, have our being, and interpret.”236
On the other hand, the historical engagements of Christian theology
ideally seek to produce doctrines which are to be “believed everywhere,

232 Ibid., 235.
233 Ibid., 234–236.
234 Ibid., 240. Still, Yong contends that the Spirit’s work is deeply epistemological: “the
Spirit’s inner soteriological work includes epistemological efffects. This comes about in part
through the Spirit’s reversing the noetic and afffective consequences of the fall into sin,
thereby restoring proper functionality to the believer’s epistemic capacities” (Ibid., 242). His
nod, here, to the epistemology of the Reformed tradition (and Reformed Epistemology) is
still balanced by his claim that all theological statements, being of a second-order, arise from
particular contexts. When interpretation is “extracted from the context of the socio-histori-
cal problematic it was originally intended to address, misunderstanding inevitably results”
(Ibid., 243).
235 Ibid., 242.
236 Ibid., 244. Theologically, Yong claims that truth will only be known in its fullness
eschatologically. Philosophically, he uses the language of Peirce’s “infijinite long run.” For
instance, see Ibid., 305.
246 chapter five

always and by all.”237 He thus allows for a signifijicant tension to remain

between these two insights.
Reversing the order of David Tracy’s tripartite division of the theological
task from The Analogical Imagination, Yong divides the theological task
into practical theology as theology for Christian praxis, semiotically enga-
ged with God’s Word; systematic theology as theology for ecclesial self-
understanding, truthfully engaged with God’ Word; and fundamental
theology as theology for the academy, normatively engaged with God’s
Word. He also correlates this division of theological tasks with tests for truth
based upon pragmatic results, coherence and correspondence.238 The
attempt here, and elsewhere, in Yong’s theological hermeneutics to bring
various theoretical approaches together, in this case, criteria for truth,
reveals the tendencies in his thought to see truth in almost everything and
everyone. Theological interpretation “proceeds upon the conviction that all
truth is God’s truth, wherever it may be found, and that all persons are cre-
ated in the image of God and therefore possibly reflect aspects of the truth
in and through their lives and thinking.”239 This tendency toward pluralism
is met, however, by the strong sense of unity that Yong’s Trinitarian ontol-
ogy provides as he sets this project against essentializing method since this
dynamic reality is what drives it.240 His paradigm leads him to see the legiti-
macy of starting from particular and local approaches, though always held
in dynamic tension with the global. Yong is thus free to approach theology
from his particular Pentecostal vantage point.241 It is right for Pentecostals,

237 Ibid., 294.
238 Ibid., 275–310. See David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the
Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981).
239 Ibid., 306.
240 That Yong is essentially “against method” is evidenced by his citation of Paul
Feyerabend’s Against Method, rev. ed. (London and New York: Verso, 1990) in the “Conclusion”
of Spirit-Word-Community, 311.
241 In arguing for the legitimacy of Pentecostal theology deriving, as it has, a great deal of
its content from Luke-Acts, Yong argues that “pentecostals are justifijied in reading the narra-
tives of Luke-Acts theologically and doctrinally not over and against Paul but alongside Paul
(and the other New Testament authors)” (Ibid., 85). Not only does he follow Stronstad and
Robert Menzies in holding that Luke was a theologian in his own right, but he further advo-
cates that Luke legitimately provides Pentecostal theology with its own perspective on the
remainder of the Scriptures similarly to the manner in which Paul has been dominant in the
Protestant tradition. Still, he signifijicantly departs from Stronstad and Menzies by arguing
that the Spirit’s work is not just a matter of empowerment for witness but also salvifijic. See
Ibid., 28–34; and Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh, 88–120.
This notion of a pneumatological soteriology is crucial to Yong’s soteriological inclusivism
as seen in his Discerning the Spirit(s) and Beyond the Impasse. Such reading of the biblical
texts provides a fuller biblical theology, and it brings to light the recognition that there is no
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 247

as Fee accuses, to “exegete their experiences.”242 And the symbol of Pente-

cost has provided Pentecostals with the image of a universal community of
nations, tribes, peoples and languages living in a reconciled relationship to
God – the inverse of Babel.243

7. Conclusion: Evaluating the Development of the

Contextual-Pentecostal Hermeneutic

In the current situation of Western intellectual culture, it is becoming

indefensible to not account for hermeneutical assumptions in the process
of making claims concerning beliefs, including those of the highest order,
as is the case here. But it is not only as a matter of being persuasive or
deemed credible that Pentecostals have turned to a contextualized herme-
neutic. This insight about the contextual nature of all human claims to
understanding is compelling. That things can be seen, at least in some
respects, otherwise, and credibly so, and at least in part as the result of
difffering contexts and approaches, is something that needs to be taken into
account by Christian theologians. It is thus considerably better to take the
interpreter’s context, presuppositions and agenda as part of the constitu-
tion of a given theological account than to not do so.
In some circles, the movement toward the contextual-Pentecostal herme-
neutics has turned into a debate where representatives of this hermeneutic
have accused those of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic of prob-
lematically striving for an illusory goal of pure objectivity, followed by
rejoinders from representatives of that hermeneutic accusing their critics
of coming near (or falling into) an abyss of unconstrained relativism. While
this debate illustrates the problems inherent in the matter of hermeneutics,
continuing it on these terms is not the most helpful way forward. I will

biblical theology without experiential traditions of interpretation (idem., Spirit Poured Out
on All Flesh, 86). He illustrates this point by the manner in which Spirit Christology can act
in a complementary manner to the dominant tradition of Logos Christology. Such traditions
of interpretation thus enrich biblical theology rather than diminish it in favor of some pur-
ported objective or neutral interpretation.
242 For example, Pentecostal ritual, although quite “low church,” is designed to enable
worshippers to encounter the movements of the Spirit as they have been previously experi-
enced in Pentecostal worship. Pentecostals also have interpreted biblical and theological
symbols of the Spirit. Glossolalia, for instance, has become a symbol of the sanctifijied and
empowered life, of praise, and of the language of prayer. The book of Acts has especially
shaped Pentecostal identity as found in ushering in the kingdom of God (idem., Spirit-Word-
Community, 250–251).
243 Ibid., 282–285.
248 chapter five

recommend in Chapter Seven that Pentecostals should turn to the emerg-

ing category of “hermeneutical realism” for a general trajectory from which
to approach these issues.244 I consider Smith and Yong, as well as Arden
Autry (see Chapter Seven), as Pentecostal representatives of this broad
approach. While Archer’s approach attempts to be both hermeneutical and
realist, he does not sufffijiciently provide an account of human understand-
ing that employs a function for judging interpretations as invalid regarding
the real world behind a text.
For hermeneutical realists, not only are the questions we are asking
about what is true open, so also is the matter of the fore-structures from
which we proceed, our hermeneutics. The hermeneutics themselves can be
more or less fruitful, successful or degenerating paradigms (see Chapter
Seven). Smith’s suggestion that interpretation itself is a prelapsarian good,
including the multiplicity of hermeneutics from which we proceed to
interpret God’s world, is a vital theological afffijirmation that provides a basic
contour for this general trajectory. It afffijirms the humanness of our under-
standing, which is always an interpretation, as a good created by God and
gives us reason to stop attempting the impossible. Practically speaking, the
desire for good theology need not be devoured by a quest for the one and
only pure theology. But such a hermeneutical realism also provides an afffijir-
mation of the real which underlies all understanding while recognizing its
constant mediation in language, categories, concepts and contexts. This
afffijirmation proceeds from the conviction that, on the one hand, reality
does not exist in simple correspondence to the language and concepts with
which we construe it. Yet, on the other, our understandings of it are in
fact accounts of reality that are not only just diffferent but, in some respects,
better or worse, true or false, valid or invalid, fair or unfair. That which is
real is dynamic, even as we, who are ourselves becoming, stand in relation
to the realities which we interpret. It is thus the most respectful thing to
do to recognize our interpretations of it as just that, interpretations or
understandings.245

244 I diffferentiate “hermeneutical realism” from a similar concept known as “critical real-
ism” in that the former stresses that both our human noetic structures and the things we
seek to understand are dynamic and are rooted in culture and tradition, whereas the latter is
more concerned with developing a proper epistemology, including proper noetic limits, in
its method.
245 I will provide a more thorough articulation of this approach in Chapter Seven. But
I now note that I contend that the implications of the alterity of texts (i.e., things we inter-
pret) are not uniform. The respect that needs to be given to a text is based upon a host of
concerns about the text’s purpose for being. And this means that there is always an ethical
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 249

To embrace the hermeneutical realism I fijind compelling means that

aspects of the modern assumptions embedded in much of Pentecostal the-
ology be reconsidered, particularly the application of the methodology of
scientifijic objectivity to virtually all other forms of inquiry, including theol-
ogy, just as the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic has begun to do. To bet-
ter do this, however, Pentecostal thinkers will need to more carefully
account for modernity – and postmodernity – than the brief accounts
which have preceded their programs for addressing this situation.
On this point, the work of Charles Taylor on modernity and its relation to
secularism offfers a strong account with which to work.246 Pentecostals
would benefijit from a more sustained engagement with the complex set of
realities which constitute modernity, which itself is not a simple and
bounded entity, through engaging accounts of it like Taylor’s.247 From such

dimension related to hermeneutics, not just a structural dimension. The range of interpreta-
tion of a text is not only based upon how open or closed the language (parole) or sign is. But
it is also a moral question of responsibility to its reason for being.
The responsibility to honor the reason for being of a word written on the sand at a beach
stumbled upon would difffer greatly if it is the result of children’s play as opposed to a mar-
riage proposal. Responsibility is usually required to carefully interpret the intent of, say, a
communicative action of one’s spouse when s/he wishes to express his/her desires on a mat-
ter. But one is freer to interpret a song heard on the radio with less or no regard for what the
songwriter(s) intended. My metaphysical and ethical claim here is that meaningful actions,
which are all communicative, need to be interpreted with regard for their origination and
those who produce such actions. Responsibility in understanding them, as much as they can
be understood, is much the responsibility of the interpreter, whose understanding of mean-
ing in them should not be an act of manipulation or plagiarism.
In Chapter Seven, I will incorporate into my proposal an understanding of “meaning,” fol-
lowing Pol Vandevelde, as three-fold, of (1) the author’s intention as it can be ascertained
through the author’s tending to his/her words in the (2) literal meaning of the text which
provides the referential and grammatical use of language within the given language and (3)
the content in the real world to which the text refers [Pol Vandevelde, The Task of the
Interpreter: Text, Meaning, and Negotiation (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2005),
9–10].
246 It is important to note that Taylor refers to three types of the “secular” [Charles Taylor,
A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA and London, UK: Belknap Press, 2007), 1–4]. While “Secularity
1” refers to the lack of connection between a concept of God or ultimate reality to the state
or other political and communal institutions in modern states, privatizing belief, “Secularity
2” refers to the spread of unbelief itself. Taylor, in A Secular Age, focuses on “Secularity 3,” the
condition where “Belief in God is no longer axiomatic. There are alternatives” (Ibid., 3). He
argues that there is an excess in the interpretive grid of “subtraction theories,” that is, theo-
ries about the rise of modern exclusive humanism which see it as the inevitable result of
peeling away layers of unneeded superstition from the Western “social imaginary,” as these
theories go beyond being a good account of this secularization. It actually fails to account for
other data, such as the value of previous metaphysics or the spiritual experiences of saints,
and it brings its own philosophical baggage into the reading of these “texts” of the becoming
of secularization.
247 Other accounts which engage this development from a theological perspective
include Michael Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1987);
250 chapter five

a longer, more sustained engagement, Pentecostal theology might gain a

way of better understanding the various streams of modernity, assess the
critiques of these streams, from both one another and from postmodern
sources, and thus address the relationship between Pentecostalism and
both modernity and postmodernity. Christian theology done this way can-
not help but be recognized as an enculturated articulation of faith, with
some enculturations existing in a more hospitable relationship to the spiri-
tual realities to which Pentecostals confess, and others less so.
For instance, the debate about the legitimacy of postmodern Pentecostal
hermeneutics seems to be, in part, a reaction against what Taylor calls the
“bufffered self” or the “disengaged subject.” Well known through the projects
of Descartes and Locke and their resultant trajectories, these notions con-
sider the best standpoint to know reality as that of a disembodied or unaf-
fected subject which could examine the thing objectively. This correlates
with a conception of reality as an impersonal order which is mechanistic
and can be objectifijied in a manner that, in contrast to the inherent teleol-
ogy in the Platonic-Aristotelian conception of the forms invoked by much
of Patristic and Medieval theology, results in the construal of the thing as a
neutral object “without meaning or normative force.”248 Taylor thus
criticizes the application of the method of modern natural science to all
fijields of inquiry: “We ought to hold that method and stance be adapted to
the nature of the reality concerned, whereas here, albeit unwittingly, reality
is being arraigned before the bar of Method; what doesn’t shape up is con-
demned to a shadow-zone of the unreal.”249 This modern project has thus
been problematic for Pentecostals in terms of modernity’s conception of
the knowing subject. The “enthusiasm” of the Pentecostal speaks of an
afffected, and thus biased, status on the part of the knower. In their practice
of faith – even if, at times, they have failed to do so in their theological artic-
ulations – Pentecostals have sought to express their experiences of the
indwelling of the Spirit which reveals an anthropology in which the believer
is porous to, not disengaged from, the transcendent. Certain religious expe-
riences are thus aids toward reading Scripture and the world because the
human stands in relationship to that which she seeks to know before any
formal investigation of them commences. And relating closely to certain
realities provides for a better interpretation of them than does distance

and John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford, UK;
Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1990).
248 Taylor, A Secular Age, 283, also 280–286; and his Sources of the Self, 143–176.
249 Idem., A Secular Age, 286.
 the contextual-pentecostal hermeneutic 251

from them – or, just as often, a dismissal that rules them out of court before
they even get a fair hearing.
However, while following a line of critique of modernity, some postmod-
ern Pentecostals have, on the other hand, and perhaps unwittingly, fallen
into the manner in which postmodernity has continued, as Taylor calls it,
the “immanent frame” of modernity.250 Among some, like Cargal and
Archer, the lack of accounting for that which is transcendent understates
the interpreter’s place of moral responsibility in the task of interpretation.
This postmodern logic tends to opt out of hermeneutic responsibility on
the grounds of false epistemic humility. What Cargal and Archer are pro-
posing are hermeneutical strategies which, probably inadvertently in
respect to their fuller implications, employ a semiotics of immanence.
The transcendence of the things which are interpreted (even the self can
be considered transcendent to our conscious interpretations)251 ought to be
respected in its otherness. But their approach to hermeneutics lacks the
appropriate moral impetus for seeing the purpose of a communicative act
(as far as such can be construed based upon a previous interpretation in the
form of an appraisal of the situation of its origination) or the nature of the
being of the thing interpreted as something to be respected in an interpre-
tation, where the interpreter is reticent to give himself permission to ignore
it, only doing so when it is deemed appropriate.
Interpretation is both act and event, and it includes an ethical dimension
(see Chapter Seven).252 The form of postmodern logic that sees the lack of
certainty, no neutral standpoint, and temporal distance between the
origination of a text and its reading as entailing a solely or dominantly

250 I fijind this to be the case even if these postmoderns have renounced modernity’s dis-
engaged, atomistic anthropology. Taylor explains the “immanent frame” in light of this
anthropology:
“So the bufffered identity of the disciplined individual moves in a constructed social
space, where instrumental rationality is a key value, and time is pervasively secular. All
of this makes up what I want to call ‘the immanent frame.’ There remains to add just
one background idea: that this frame constitutes a ‘natural’ order, to be contrasted to a
‘supernatural’ one, an ‘immanent’ world, over against a possible ‘transcendent’ one.
Now the irony is, that this clear distinction of natural from supernatural, which was an
achievement of Latin Christendom in the late Middle Ages and early modern period,
was originally made in order to mark clearly the autonomy of the supernatural” (Ibid.,
542).
251 See Smith, Speech and Theology, 135, for his claim that this is an Augustinian
afffijirmation.
252 I am also drawing the afffijirmation that interpretation is both act and event from
Vandevelde’s Task of the Interpreter, 4–5.
252 chapter five

constructivist understanding of meaning overstates the implications of

the ubiquity of interpretation and the fijinitude of the interpreter.253 It is
reflective of the ways in which this form of postmodernism is a hyper-
modernism, the negative corollary to the modern logic of all or nothing
standards in some accounts of the nature of knowledge.
Smith and Yong, on the other hand, account for that which is other to us
through, respectively, an incarnational approach and a triadic metaphysics.
I fijind these to be fruitful alternatives which are part of an emerging set of
hermeneutical realist approaches for which I advocate in Chapter Seven.
But before I do so, I must account for another important emerging
Pentecostal theological hermeneutic that develops the conviction found in
the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic that the quest for theological
understanding is more benefijicial when it listens to and works with voices
from outside of the theologian’s own context – the ecumenical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic.

253 I do not fijind Archer’s theory of meaning to be a “solely constructivist” approach since
meaning is produced through the interaction between text and reader. The text does bound
interpretation. But I do fijind that it leans in that direction. It fails to account for, and therefore
respect, the agency and external context associated with the origination of a text and its
reason for being. And its overemphasis on the limitations of our abilities to know anything
of the intention of the actual authors of a text efffectively ignores them.
 chapter six

THE ECUMENICAL-PENTECOSTAL HERMENEUTIC

Theology and the work of doing theology belongs to the whole Church.
It cannot be done without dialogue. It must be done in relation to the whole
Church in the whole world…It is time for Pentecostals and Charismatic
Christians of all kinds to look at the masses around them and ask what kind of
theology the whole Church needs. Only when we come to that point will it
ever become possible for us together to “attain to the unity of the faith
(Ephesians 4:13)” [sic]. Sectarianism is only as good as its ability to lose itself
once again in the whole Church while it raises to our consciousness a long
overlooked truth of the Gospel. To dwell too long in the land of sectarianism
is to move toward the horizon of heresy.
– Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., “Doing Theology in Isolation” (1990)1

The last major hermeneutic in the typology I have been developing is the
ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. While the tendency to articulate the
faith with an eye toward Christian unity has deep roots in the Classical
Pentecostal tradition, this emerging hermeneutic adds tradition itself as
well as other Christian traditions and their theologies as resources for
Pentecostal theology. These Pentecostal theologians have hence sought to
interpret God, themselves and their world in relation to other theologies
coming from the wider Christian oikumene, yet still as Pentecostals. They
have thus also sought to unify Pentecostals with other Christians and to
theologically contribute a Pentecostal voice to the broader world of
Christian theology.
A key element of this approach has then been the afffijirmation of tradition
and prior theological reflection themselves as sources for theological truth
in the face of their marginalization, even denial, in the original Classical
Pentecostal hermeneutic and their very limited roles in the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic. The role for tradition that is afffijirmed in this her-
meneutic includes the process of transmission of the faith in its various
contexts, and thus the rise of various Christian traditions, as well as the con-
tent of the faith itself as it has been passed down. This has included an

1 Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., “Doing Theology in Isolation,” PNEUMA 12:1 (Spring 1990): 3.
254 chapter six

increased recognition of the context for theology that tradition provides

plus its usefulness and, even necessity, as a source for theological
understanding.
This hermeneutical approach stands in both continuity and discontinu-
ity with the origins and development of Pentecostalism and its theology. On
the one hand, it stands in continuity with the original unifying and non-
sectarian vision of early Pentecostalism. This original unifying impulse,
seen above (in Chapter Two) in the theological hermeneutics of William
Seymour and even beforehand in Charles Parham, envisioned God’s new
outpouring as a Pentecost and was unconcerned with previous ecclesial
boundaries as it sought for the simple, unifijied and true Christian faith. This
impetus, though, actually led to the anti-creedalism of most early
Pentecostals since creeds were seen as a source of the divisions of Christian
faith rather than as points of unity, though such claims made sense in the
situation of early-twentieth century American Protestantism. On the other
hand, as seen earlier with Daniel Kerr (in Chapter Three), early Pentecostals
were, themselves, quickly compelled to form doctrinal boundaries as they
followed common American Evangelical notions of the role of theology. Of
early Pentecostal theologians’ role in sectarianism and the emergence of
new Pentecostal denominations in the 1910s and 1920s, Douglas Jacobsen
recounts their self-understanding as “champions of truth locked in battle
with other theologians (some pentecostal, some non-pentecostal) who
were spreading erroneous views among the faithful.”2 And as noted earlier
(in Chapter Two), they closely linked moral or spiritual rightness before
God with proper beliefs.
Against this element of the sufffijiciency of the Pentecostal’s own theologi-
cal understanding found in many representatives of the original Classical
Pentecostal hermeneutic, as well as the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneu-
tic, the advocates of the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic have assumed
the value of the theology of other Christian traditions so that Pentecostals
might both benefijit from and contribute to a dialogue with them. On this
matter, then, it ratifijies and applies the conviction found in the contextual-
Pentecostal hermeneutic that multiple approaches from diffferent contexts
are not only legitimate but benefijicial. The ecumenical-Pentecostal herme-
neutic can thus be understood as one way of working out some of the core
convictions of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic. As a result, it is

2 Douglas G. Jacobsen, Thinking in the Spirit: Theologies of the Early Pentecostal Movement
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003), 13.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 255

essentially also a dialogical hermeneutic. This is not to say that its advo-
cates, as will be seen below, hold to anything less than strong theological
convictions on matters such as the authority of Scripture. Its theological
method will be conceived of dialectically, as it often seeks to deal with
conflicting convictions on a theological subject matter. In the ecumenical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic, difffering convictions are often regarded as the
result of legitimate interpretations of Scripture and the content of Christian
faith and experience. This involves the recognition that Scripture is read
and theology is constructed from within traditions of understanding, and
this in no way entails the illegitimacy of these readings and constructions.
This dialectical theological style wrestles with contrasting ideas concerning
an issue in order to form a new or renewed conviction about the truth of the
matter. Yet the ethos of this hermeneutic is found in the spirit of mutually
enriching dialogue which recognizes the work of the Spirit elsewhere
beyond the Pentecostal tradition itself.

1. Classical Pentecostalism and Ecumenism: A Brief Historical Overview

Given the history of Classical Pentecostalism and the development of its

theological hermeneutics, it is remarkable, though not entirely surprising,
that a major hermeneutic has arisen within the tradition which draws on
theological resources from other Christian traditions. Despite its original
ecumenical orientation, the Classical Pentecostal tradition has spent much
of its history in a relationship of antipathy toward or in isolation from other
Christian traditions and formal ecumenical effforts.
Walter Hollenweger has offfered a basic chronology of the history of
Pentecostal attitudes toward ecumenism in four phases. In the fijirst phase,
Pentecostalism began as a renewal movement with an ecumenical spirit,
breaking through racial and denominational barriers. Such an initial orien-
tation leads Hollenweger to consider “the ecumenical root” as one of the
fijive “roots” of Pentecostalism. But this did not last long past Azusa Street as,
in the second phase, Pentecostals organized themselves locally in the face
of criticisms from those in the early-twentieth century Evangelical (much of
which had become Fundamentalist) tradition; in doing so, their apologetics
often unwittingly assumed the categories of their antagonists, and this
included denunciations of other Christian traditions. In the third phase, full
blown national and international denominations formed and developed
with their attendant institutions in the early- to mid-twentieth century.
At that point, according to Hollenweger, Pentecostalism was no longer an
256 chapter six

ecumenical renewal movement. In the fourth phase, Pentecostals began to

return to their ecumenical roots in the late-twentieth century as they
started to dialogue and collaborate with other Christians. This did not occur
without contention, though, particularly when it came to the initial effforts
at Pentecostal participation in the Roman Catholic-Pentecostal dialogue.3
As already seen above (in Chapter Two), early Pentecostals’ typically
understood themselves as having simply revived original New Testament
Christianity in which there were no denominational divisions. Allan
Anderson cites William Seymour as an advocate of “Christian unity every-
where,” and he recounts that “strong ecumenical convictions abounded in
the early years.”4 He cites fijigures such as Frank Bartleman, W.F. Carothers,
T.B. Barratt and Alexander Boddy as representatives of these convictions.
Hollenweger has concluded that “Pentecostalism started in most places as
an ecumenical renewal movement.”5 He notes that this was true not just in
North America, but also in Europe within the smaller Pentecostal move-
ment there.6
The scholar of world Christianity Dale T. Irvin has worked out some of
the theological and ethical implications of this early Pentecostal orienta-
tion towards Christian unity. He argues that the Azusa Street Revival, and
early Pentecostalism in its wake, had found this “trans-linguistic experience
of the baptism of the Holy Spirit both a sign and a means of bringing down
the walls of separation that divide the global human community, a dimen-
sion of glossolalia.”7 This originating vision of Pentecostalism therefore
operated at the intersection of unity and holiness. Typical early Pentecostal
logic held that the divisions of the churches were the result of confessions
and creeds which were “man-made” and not a part of the “apostolic faith.”
Irvin cites the statement in the fijirst edition of the Mission’s The Apostolic
Faith that, “we are not fijighting men or churches, but seeking to displace
dead forms and creeds and wild fanaticisms with living, practical
Christianity, ‘Love, Faith, Unity’ are our watchwords, and ‘Victory through

3 Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Development Worldwide (Peabody,

MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 355–56.
4 Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 249.
5 Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 334.
6 Ibid., 334–349. Pioneering European Pentecostal fijigures like the Anglican Alexander
Boddy, German Lutheran Jonathan Paul, French Reformed Louis Dallière and Dutch
Reformed Gerrit Roelof Polman each strove to stand in unity with their original traditions, as
much as they could.
7 Dale T. Irvin, “ ‘Drawing All Together in One Bond of Love’: The Ecumenical Vision of
William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival,” JPT 6 (1995): 27.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 257

the Atoning Blood’ our battle cry.”8 The tongues of Pentecost were to give
expression to the restoration of the original confession of Christian faith
that “Jesus is coming,” a strong tenet of faith found in the imminent escha-
tological orientation of the early Pentecostals.9 That this was true was evi-
denced by the way God had begun this new experience of unity and
inclusion from those at the margins of society, in an interracial setting
where those from across Christian denominations were being drawn to this
unity.10
Despite this emphasis, as the early years of Pentecostal revival came to a
close in the late-1910s, the Pentecostal movement increasingly became sec-
tarian and isolated, often over matters of doctrinal precision (see Chapters
Two and Three). A layer of sectarian doctrinal division came to overlay the
more basic conviction of unity among all true Christians.11 William Menzies
characterizes the period between 1928, when the Fundamentalists offfered
their formal condemnation of Pentecostals (see Chapter Three), and 1942 as
one of isolationism.12 Yet, as will be demonstrated below, a fijigure such as
Ernest Swing Williams, General Superintendent of the A/G from 1929–1949,
was standing in continuity with the ecumenical impulse of early
Pentecostalism, even during this era.
In April 1942 this began to change. Four A/G leaders, including Williams,
attended the organizational meeting in St. Louis with other conservative
Protestants for what would become the National Association of Evangelicals
(NAE).13 J. Roswell Flower of the A/G and J.H. Walker of the COG were

   
8 Ibid., 37, cites The Apostolic Faith 1:1 (September 1906): 2. It is signifijicant, however, that
this statement comes at the end of an unsigned article which articulates the Mission’s theo-
logical positions in terms of the “fijive-fold” version of the Pentecostal “full gospel.”
   
9 Irvin, “ ‘Drawing All Together,’ ” 41.
10 Ibid, 43–50.
11 Edith Blumhofer fijinds three central reasons for the pre-1942 isolation of Pentecostals,
even from each other. First, other Christians were deemed to be “cold” or “dead” because of
their insensitivity to the Holy Spirit; Pentecostals were convinced that they had a more accu-
rate perception of New Testament Christianity than did others. Second was their sense of
alienation from wider culture. Ridiculed and rejected, the movement’s sermons, songs and
publications perpetuated this sense in response to the wider culture along with
Fundamentalist and Holiness Christians who condemned them and Modernist and Mainline
Christians who dismissed them. Third, the opposition to centralized authority among
Pentecostals found them lacking the inclination and the need to associate with other
Christians. See her The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism,
vol. 2 (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1989), 13–14.
12 William W. Menzies, Anointed to Serve: The Story of the Assemblies of God (Springfijield,
MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1971), 178–182.
13 The other three were J. Roswell Flower, Noel Perkin and Ralph Riggs. See Blumhofer,
A/G, vol. 2, 13.
258 chapter six

appointed to the fijirst executive committee of the NAE. COGIC was not
represented.14 The NAE was formed in 1940–1943 by an emerging coalition
that sought to represent conservative American Protestantism as some-
thing other than Fundamentalists.15 Yet this coalition still stood in opposi-
tion, though not nearly as militantly as the Fundamentalists, to the Federal
Council of Churches (FCC), the predecessor to the National Council of
Churches (NCC). Harold John Ockenga, the fijirst president of the NAE,
insisted that Pentecostals be recognized as fellow Evangelicals, and he came
under heavy criticism for this position from Fundamentalists and conserva-
tive Reformed Evangelicals.16 Yet Pentecostals also gave the NAE strength in
the numbers of adherents they brought to the coalition. This alliance repre-
sented both a new openness to other Christians and acceptance from them.
This move also represented an incremental but important change in
approach to diffferences in theological understanding for both Pentecostals

14 Racial separation in Pentecostal ranks thus largely continued during this era. Darrin J.
Rodgers characterizes 1939–1962 as an era of both “cultural and institutional racism” for the
A/G. In 1939, the A/G afffijirmed a national policy which denied ordination to African-
Americans which lasted until 1962 when it was overturned. See his “The Assemblies of God
and the Long Journey toward Racial Reconciliation,” A/G Heritage 28 (2008): 50–61.
The post-WWII era saw the emergence of interdenominational cooperation among
Pentecostals. In 1948, eight almost entirely white Trinitarian Pentecostal denominations
formed the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America (PFNA) in order to provide a forum for
American Pentecostals to work together. J. Roswell Flower of the A/G was its fijirst secretary
and David du Plessis was a key participant. In the previous year, the World Pentecostal
Fellowship (WPF) was organized in which the leadership of du Plessis and Donald Gee came
to the fore.
In North America, racial reconciliation and organizational afffijiliation between predomi-
nately white and black Pentecostal churches did not occur until the early-1990s. In 1991,
Bishop Bernard E. Underwood of the predominately white International Pentecostal
Holiness Church, was elected to head the PFNA, and he instigated a program for reconcilia-
tion. With the consultation of white and African-American scholars from the the Society for
Pentecostal Studies (SPS), the PFNA initiated a program of repentance, healing and recon-
ciliation from 1992–1994 toward African-American Pentecostals in general, and COGIC in
particular, which culminated in the October 1994 meeting in Memphis, declared the
“Memphis Miracle.” Part of the effforts at reconciliation was the transformation of the PFNA
into the Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches of North America (PCCNA), which has since
included COGIC. See Vinson Synan, “Memphis 1994: Miracle and Mandate,” http://www
.pccna.org/history.php.
15 Blumhofer, A/G, vol. 2, 19, cites the Evangelical theologian and leader Carl F.H. Henry,
United Evangelical Action (1 June 1947): 3, 5, as arguing that the NAE was needed because
Fundamentalism was no longer able to express “the inherent genius of the great evangelical
tradition.”
16 Ockenga received the heaviest criticisms from Carl McIntire, the leader of the
Fundamentalist coalition known as the American Council of Christian Churches (ACCC),
Blumhofer, A/G, vol. 2, 26–27.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 259

and their Evangelical siblings.17 This is evidenced by the statement of

the Evangelical statesman J. Elwin Wright that, while they should still
speak out against apostasy, Evangelicals ought to be “wise and gracious
enough to recognize that there are diffferences of doctrine among
Bible believing Christians upon which there is little hope that we will see
eye to eye.”18
Membership in the NAE was seen as a legitimate outlet for ecumenical
engagement as cooperation with the NCC and WCC were not valid alterna-
tives. In the 1950s and 1960s, the NAE’s anti-communist stance contributed
to its rejection of the NCC and WCC since communist sympathies were
suspected in those bodies and among several of their key leaders. The
Pentecostal stance was reinforced when the A/G passed a resolution at its
1965 General Council stating: “The General Council of the Assemblies of
God disapproves of ministers or churches participating in any of the
modern ecumenical organization on a local, national, or international level

17 While it would be possible to argue that Pentecostal involvement in the NAE is not
actually an ecumenical endeavor, I would concur with Cecil M. Robeck Jr.’s judgment that it
is since it,
“Provides cross-denominational fellowship, shares common doctrinal and social agen-
das, and it raises a visible voice that is demonstrative of the Christian character and
commitments of those involved. These factors are indicative of its basic ecumenical
nature. The most signifijicant diffference between what is normally identifijied as the ecu-
menical movement and the NAE is the list of candidates that are welcomed into mem-
bership” (Robeck, “National Association of Evangelicals,” in DIPCM, 634).
In 1960, the A/G’s Thomas F. Zimmerman became the fijirst Pentecostal to serve as president
of the NAE. The Pentecostal constituency of the NAE has continually made up of more than
half of the organization’s adherents with the A/G representing its largest member denomi-
nation throughout its history. Both the A/G and COG adjusted their statements of faith to
clarify their afffijirmations of plenary verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, the virgin birth and
substitutionary atonement as a result of involvement with the NAE. Cooperation from white
Pentecostals with the NAE had ramifijications far beyond formal meetings among denomina-
tional leaders. It resulted in common cause in religious broadcasting, Sunday School, evan-
gelistic campaigns and missions work, among others.
18 These comments were part of Wright’s call to unity in the organizational meetings of
the NAE in 1942 which are cited in Blumhofer, A/G, vol. 2, 25, from an unpublished manu-
script housed at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. Menzies cites
three practical reasons for the newfound acceptance of Pentecostals by many Evangelicals in
the early 1940s: 1) the mutual respect that was engendered through denominational coopera-
tion in support of American soldiers in WWII, 2) the recognition of the success of Pentecostal
missionary work, and 3) the sense that Pentecostals “were here to stay,” that the movement
was not passing (Anointed to Serve, 188–189). For more on Pentecostal participation in the
formation of the NAE, see Blumhofer, A/G, vol. 2, 16–46; and Menzies, Anointed to Serve,
180–202.
260 chapter six

in such a manner as to promote the Ecumenical Movement.”19 Only a few

Pentecostal groups worldwide joined the WCC between the 1950s and the
1980s.20
Representation of Pentecostalism in the wider ecumenical movement
during this era was found foremost in the person of David du Plessis
(1905–1987), a Pentecostal leader of the South African Apostolic Faith
Mission (AFM) who came to America in 1948 and became an A/G minister
in 1955.21 On account of his ecumenical endeavors, and as a result of the
above statement in the A/G Bylaws, du Plessis was forced to relinquish
his ministerial credentials with the A/G from 1962–1980, though he kept
his credentials with the AFM.
Du Plessis had already been a leader in unifying Pentecostals – he was
named the fijirst secretary of the Pentecostal World Conference (PWC) in
1947 – when he began an outreach toward Christians of the “historic
churches.” In the early 1950s he began relationships with leaders of the
NCC/WCC and mainline churches through bold acts.22 During the post-
WWII era, as Pentecostal denominations were forming alliances with
Evangelicals, opposition to participation in the WCC and other ecumenical

19 Article VIII, Section 11 of the Bylaws of the Assemblies of God, cited in Minutes of the
Forty-Second General Council, August 6–11, 1987 in Robeck, “World Council of Churches,”
DIPCM, 902. This remained as the A/G’s offfijicial statement on ecumenism until the early-
twenty-fijirst century.
20 The fijirst two were the Iglesia Pentecostal de Chile (Chile) and Misión Iglesia
Pentecostal (Chile); later denominations to join were Igreja Evangélica Pentecostal “O Brasil
para Christo” (Brazil), International Evangelical Church (USA), La Iglesia de Dios (Argentina),
Eglise du Christ sur la Terre par le Prophète Simon Kimbangu (Zaire/Congo) and Union of
Evangelical Christian Baptists of USSR (USSR/Russia) (Ibid.).
21 Another important fijigure in Pentecostal effforts toward ecumenicism during this era
was the British Pentecostal leader Donald Gee. Gee was an international Pentecostal states-
man who engendered resentment from denominational leaders for his overtures toward
other Christian groups and for his criticisms of the anti-intellectualism present in much of
the Pentecostal movement. In a signifijicant incident, Gee was put under heavy pressure at
the 1961 PWC conference to not attend the WCC conference that year. He did not do so as a
result. He also came under criticism for his positive comments about Karl Barth in a 1948
editorial in the journal he edited, Pentecost. See David D. Bundy, “Gee, Donald,” in DIPCM,
330–332; and “Donald Gee: The Pentecostal Leader Who Grew in Wisdom and Stature,” A/G
Heritage 12:3 (Fall 1992): 9–11, 28–30.
22 Du Plessis’ uninvited, unannounced visit to the WCC offfijices in New York City in the
early 1950s “began a lifelong association with mainline denominational leaders marked by
mutual respect” (Blumhofer, A/G, vol. 2, 91). He also began a relationship with John Mackay,
president of Princeton Theological Seminary, when he responded in a letter to harsh words
he heard from Mackay about Latin American Pentecostals. The two became friends and
offfered mutual support to each other. See Ibid. and Robeck, “Du Plessis, David Johannes,”
DIPCM, 252.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 261

organizations was largely founded on what was considered to be the doctri-

nal infijidelity of some of its member denominations and, even more damn-
ingly, the identifijication of the WCC with the false “superchurch” of
dispensationalist eschatology. But du Plessis claimed that the Holy Spirit
transformed his attitude toward other Christians, fijilling him with God’s love
for them. Throughout his ecumenical career he “discovered the inadequacy
of stereotypes and rejected them with winsomeness that won him wide
acclaim, actions that helped mitigate stereotypes of Pentecostals as well.”23
He became known as “Mr. Pentecost” in ecumenical circles, known as a
“Pentecostal ambassador at-large.”24 However, his rejection as an offfijicial
ambassador by Pentecostal denominations and his strained relationship
with Thomas F. Zimmerman, General Superintendent of the A/G from
1959–1985, exemplifijied the state of Pentecostal ecumenical participation
during this era.25 Du Plessis, as an unofffijicial ambassador, sought to build
cooperation in the name of Christian unity, while Zimmerman, the offfijicial
leader of many Pentecostals, looked to thwart and marginalize those effforts
in the name of the purity of the gospel.

23 Blumhofer, A/G, vol. 2, 101.

24 Ibid., 90–106; and Robeck, “Du Plessis,” 250–254. Du Plessis left little formal theological
work behind as most of his writings were informal and pastoral. His reception by three popes
(John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II) and his attendance as an offfijicial guest for the third
session of Vatican II (1963–1965) serve as evidence that he was received as an ambassador for
Pentecostals, even if he was not formally sent as one (Ibid., 252–253).
25 Despite the outward refusal to participate in the ecumenical movements, the A/G had
quietly sanctioned participation in several cooperative effforts. In the mid-1950s, J. Roswell
Flower, then General Secretary of the A/G, and Ralph Riggs, then General Superintendent,
attended some NCC events with little notice and positive feelings about what they had
observed. Robeck, “The Assemblies of God and Ecumenical Cooperation: 1920–1965,” in
Pentecostalism in Context: Essays in Honor of William W. Menzies, eds. Wonsuk Ma and Robert
P. Menzies (JPT Supplement 11; Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 1997), 129–132.
Robeck fijinds that Flower had been attending ecumenical events concerning world mis-
sions since the 1920s and that at least three General Superintendents of the A/G, Eudorus N.
Bell, John W. Welch and Ernest S. Williams, had accompanied him, though Welch was some-
what bothered by the lack of spiritual power he saw in those of other denominations (Ibid.,
110–115). Even further, Robeck has shown that the A/G had been quietly cooperating with the
Foreign Missions Council of North America (FMCNA) since the 1920s and continued to
cooperate with it as it became the Church World Service (CWS) under the auspices of the
NCC, keeping a New York City offfijice nearby the ecumenical missions offfijice until the A/G’s
offfijice was closed in 1965 under pressure. The A/G offfijice worked with the FMCNA and CWS
offfijices in order to supply aid to Christians throughout the world but especially to refugees
after WWII and those who were under duress from communist governments. After coming
under heavy criticism from articles in Christianity Today and the Fundamentalist Christian
Beacon for cooperating with the NCC, it ceased almost all cooperation with the CWS (Ibid.,
134–148).
262 chapter six

Yet Du Plessis still became the Pentecostal catalyst for bringing about, at
least from the Pentecostal side, the most important formal ecumenical dia-
logue in which Pentecostals have participated. The Roman Catholic/
Pentecostal Dialogue began in the early-1970s largely through his relation-
ships with Augustin Cardinal Bea, then president of the Roman Catholic
Church’s Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (SPCU; later the
Pontifijical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the PCPCU) and the
American Benedictine Fr. Kilian McDonnell. Because Pentecostal participa-
tion in the Dialogue was initially rejected by the PWC and most Pentecostal
denominations, the Pentecostal participants in the First Quinquennium
were comprised of a network of Pentecostal scholars and leaders who chose
to participate on their own, usually with the discouragement of their church
bodies.26 Much of this Pentecostal contingent also included Protestant
Charismatics. The Roman Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue thus began
as a dialogue on spirituality and renewal rather than negotiations for a
measure of union. Du Plessis and McDonnell served as the co-chairs of the
First (1972–1976) and Second Quinquenniums (1977–1982). The Third
Quinquennium (1985–1989) and the Fourth (1990–1997) and Fifth (1998–
2006) Phases of the Dialogue have increasingly seen Pentecostal denomina-
tions and institutions offfering more supportive stances, though the attitudes
of denominational leaders is still one of caution.27 Other signifijicant formal
dialogues Pentecostals have participated in have been the International
Dialogue between Representatives of the World Alliance of Reformed
Churches and Some Pentecostal Churches and Leaders (1996–2000) and the

26 According to Jerry L. Sandidge, “a major reason that the classical Pentecostals refused
to cooperate with du Plessis is that Thomas Zimmerman, general superintendent of the
Assemblies of God, was opposed to the Dialogue,” [Sandidge, Roman Catholic/Pentecostal
Dialogue (1977–1982): A Study in Developing Ecumnecism, vol. 1 (Studies in the Intercultural
History of Christianity 44; Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1987), 331]. Since 1961, du
Plessis and Zimmerman’s relationship was strained (Ibid., 367–368). In part because of this,
the PWC and PFNA refused to sanction the original Dialogue. In their stead, the Society for
Pentecostal Studies, established in 1970–1971, became a source of support and offfered per-
sonnel for the Dialogue. Thus those who represented the Pentecostal side did so without the
ecclesial sanction or authority of their respective church bodies (Ibid., 331–335).
27 Sandidge, Roman Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue, 320–390; and “Dialogue: Roman
Catholic and Classical Pentecostal,” in DPCM, 240–244; Hollenweger, “Roman Catholics
and Pentecostals in Dialogue,” PNEUMA 21:1 (Spring 1999): 135–153; and Pentecostalism,
165–180.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 263

Oneness-Trinitarian Pentecostal Dialogue (2002–2007).28 While the latter

is an intramural dialogue, its occurrence demonstrates a signifijicant change
in dealing with theological diffferences among Pentecostals – talking to one
another has replaced simple denunciations. This is also exemplifijied in the
current statement found in the A/G’s Bylaws on “Interdenominational or
Ecumenical Relationships,” the result of a measurable shift in attitudes
among many Pentecostals toward other Christians which have become
apparent at the turn of the twenty-fijirst century:
The General Council of the Assemblies of God encourages ministers or
churches to fellowship with other Christians of like precious faith who hold to
the inspiration of Scripture, the deity of Christ, the universality of sin, the
substitutionary Atonement, the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead, and His second coming.
The General Council of the Assemblies of God shall not belong to any interde-
nominational or ecumenical organization that denies the evangelical beliefs
stated in the above paragraph, and urges its ministers and churches to avoid
entanglement with such interdenominational or ecumenical organizations
except as opportunity may arise to support biblical values in the culture or
provide opportunity to bear witness to our evangelical and Pentecostal faith
and experience.29
This more recent approach looks positively on a form of ecumenism within
certain boundaries as it “encourages…fellowship with other Christians of
like precious faith.” And while it urges the avoidance of “entanglement”
with ecumenical organizations, it qualifijies this with the caveat that partici-
pation that provides “opportunity” to “support biblical values” or “to bear

28 The Pentecostal-Reformed Dialogue took place between representatives of the

World Alliance of Reformed Churches and some Pentecostals, begun largely through the
initiative of Robeck, from 1996–2000. See “Word and Spirit, Church and World: The Final
Report of the International Dialogue between Representatives of the World Alliance of
Reformed Churches and Some Classical Pentecostal Churches and Leaders, 1996–2000,”
PNEUMA 23:1 (Spring 2001): 9–43. On the intra-Pentecostal dialogue, see “Oneness-Trinitarian
Pentecostal Final Report, 2002–2007,” PNEUMA 30:2 (Fall 2008): 203–224. This issue of
PNEUMA also includes nine responses to the Final Report from denominational leaders and
theologians. Other effforts at formal dialogue with other Christian churches have begun with
the formation of the SPS Ecumenism Interest Group in 2002, largely initiated by Wolfgang
Vondey. See Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. “Pentecostals and Christian Unity: Facing the Challenge,”
PNEUMA 26:2 (Fall 2004): 331, for a brief explanation of its founding.
29 The General Council of the Assemblies of God, Minutes of the 52nd Session of The
General Council of the Assemblies of God with revised Constitution and Bylaws, Article IX,
Section 11, Indianapolis, IN (8–11 August 2007), 124.
264 chapter six

witness to our evangelical and Pentecostal faith and experience” is

legitimate.

2. Pioneering Toward an Ecumenical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic

Two Pentecostal theologians who anticipated the emergence of the ecu-

menical-Pentecostal hermeneutic as a major Pentecostal hermeneutic in
the 1990s were Ernest Swing Williams and Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. Williams,
who had received his own “Pentecost” as a young man at Azusa Street,
included an ecumenical orientation in his theology during a period when
Pentecostals had largely isolated themselves from other Christians. Robeck
has been the key catalyst for ecumenism among Pentecostals since the
1980s, offfering a theological justifijication and methodological approach for
these effforts, beyond his leadership and involvement in them.

2.1. Ernest Swing Williams: A Mid-Twentieth Century Pentecostal

Dialectician
Williams (1885–1981) was a Pentecostal leader known, on both personal and
institutional levels, for leaving a legacy of harmony and humility.30 He led
the A/G as its General Superintendent for two decades (1929–1949) before
teaching at Central Bible Institute (CBI) in Springfijield, MO, the fellowship’s
flagship ministerial training institution. He contributed regular articles

30 Raised in the Holiness tradition, as a young man Williams chose to live in poverty so he
could focus on personal evangelism. A Southern California native, he embraced Pentecostal
faith in October 1906 at Seymour’s Apostolic Faith Mission and was soon ordained into its
Apostolic Faith ministry network. After ministering in the Pacifijic Northwest until 1911,
Williams moved to pastor a church in Conneaut, Ohio followed by pastorates in Pennsylvania
and New Jersey before coming to the influential position of pastor of the large Highway
Mission Tabernacle in Philadelphia in 1920. He had joined the A/G in 1915, a year after its
founding. Williams became the General Superintendent of the A/G in 1929 after the previous
General Superintendent, William Gaston, resigned because of an inappropriate relationship
with a female pastor. Williams served as a stabilizing force for the fellowship through not
only the Gaston controversy but also through the Great Depression. He went on to lead the
A/G through a time of signifijicant growth and relative tranquility through this period of hard-
ship (Blumhofer, A/G, vol. 1, 247–267; and William Menzies, Anointed to Serve, 152–155). He
led the A/G into its alliance with the NAE and in his entire tenure as General Superintendent,
the A/G in the United States grew from 1,612 churches, 91,891 members and 1,641 ordained
ministers in 1929 to 5,950 churches, 275,000 members and 6,225 ordained ministers in 1949.
Perhaps even more signifijicantly, the number of constituents of the A/G in other countries
was approaching a quarter million at the end of this period (Ibid., 399–404).
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 265

to the Pentecostal Evangel. His penchant for concord is part of what places
him as one of the progenitors of the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic.
So is his desire to interpret God’s revelation in a manner in which all of
“God’s devout children” might fijind greater unity, as well as his rather tem-
perate use of a dialectical method.31
Williams’ most signifijicant contribution to Pentecostal theology is his
three volume Systematic Theology, originally published in 1953 while he was
teaching at CBI after his tenure as General Superintendent. Frank Boyd,
Williams’ then colleague and longtime friend, urged and assisted him
in compiling what had been merely class lecture notes into a systematic
theology.32 The motivation for their publication seems to have simply been
that, relative to other Pentecostals, Williams was highly knowledgeable and
well read in theological matters.33 Like many other Pentecostals, he was
also erudite in his knowledge of the Scriptures. But it is his ability and will-
ingness to attempt to understand and relate to others that sets him apart.
Evidenced explicitly and initially in the “Preface,” but also implicitly

31 Ernest Swing Williams, Systematic Theology, vol. 1. (Springfijield, MO: Gospel Publishing
House, 1953), viii. Williams’ dialectical style in his Systematic Theology exudes a gentleness
and respect towards those with whom he interacts. Though he contends for his convictions,
these volumes are not contentious in their orientation.
32 Williams credits Boyd for his labors in editing these volumes in an “Appreciation”
(Ibid., vol. 1, 5).
33 Williams has a basic knowledge concerning most historical fijigures in Christian theol-
ogy, though Aquinas never shows up and post-Reformation Roman Catholic thought is
ignored other than when he occasionally argues against Catholic doctrine. For example, he
argues for the truth of the invisible Church over the visible and against placing tradition over
the authority of Scripture in the face of what he understood as Tridentine Catholic theology
(Ibid., vol. 3, 98–110).
Williams seems to turn to some late-nineteenth century and early-twentieth Protestant
theologians as his favorites, particularly John Miley and Augustus H. Strong. He does not
signifijicantly engage some of his important contemporaries, citing Karl Barth only once in
arguing against double predestination (Ibid., vol. 1, 252) and Louis Berkhof only in support of
a progressive view of redemption (Ibid., vol. 2, 70). On at least a couple of occasions he even
utilizes quotes from Charles Darwin (Ibid., vol. 1, 16) and John Dewey (Ibid., vol. 1, 3) to make
more minor points on the same general subject matter that he and they were dealing with,
but in support of his own view.
Williams also gives some historical background to the development of various theological
and, occasionally, philosophical or psychological ideas. He seems to have been pressing
Pentecostals toward a life of the mind and against anti-intellectualism. In, of all places,
addressing the issue of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, he rebukes his readers, asking them to
reflect on things carefully: “Too much is too often taken for granted. Seekers are told to take
the Spirit by faith. Unfortunately, in too many instances, all they take is a consent to truth”
(Ibid., vol. 3, 41).
266 chapter six

throughout his Systematic Theology, Williams shows that his goal is to seek
to understand various doctrinal positions so that fellowship and unity may
be had among all “born-again believer(s) in our Lord Jesus Christ”:34
In so arranging these studies it was my desire that my students might receive,
not the theological thought of one school of interpreters only, but a general
view; also that they might know the various doctrinal positions, and the rea-
sons why they were believed. While doing this, the desire also has been to
hold before the students and others who might read this book that form of
doctrine which is most surely believed among us, while never attempting to
coerce anyone to my personal way of thinking. I have noticed that some attack
the beliefs of others, while they know little as to the reasons why others hold
to beliefs which difffer from their own…Students of Scripture need informa-
tion. Where there are diffferences among God’s devout children, we do well, as
far as we are able, to understand the nature of these diffferences. Such knowl-
edge ought to lead to better understanding which, it is hoped, might provoke
closer fellowship rather than separation. Much good has come to me through
reading the works of diffferent writers. On some subjects I have seen things
diffferently, but at the same time I have been enabled to understand the posi-
tion of others better. This enables me to appreciate them more. For one thing
we may all be thankful. Every born-again believer in our Lord Jesus Christ has
full confijidence in the fundamental truths of Holy Scripture and full reliance
on the efffijicacy of the redemption which our Lord Jesus came to bring.35
Williams thus both recognizes that he is, among others, an “interpreter” of
theological realities while still afffijirming “the fundamental truths of Holy
Scripture.” Thus he is seeking an ecumenism among born-again believers
living with confijident belief in the truths of Scripture and the atonement of
Christ. Yet, using language very similar to Myer Pearlman’s (see Chapter
Three), who had been his contemporary, Williams afffijirms that “sound doc-
trine requires clear-cut views. Where such views are held there will be clear-
cut convictions, with the result that the teaching will be clear.”36 This is so
that when the Christian minister or believer faces error, he or she might be
“ ‘rooted and grounded,’ ‘rightly dividing the word of truth.’ (2 Tim. 2:15). The
purpose of systematic theology is to equip the student to this end.”37
Such a set of statements may make Williams appear to be an advocate
of an Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. But Douglas Jacobsen has
concluded that to categorize him in the Evangelical mold would be an
error: “Whatever else he might have been, Williams was clearly not a typical

34 Ibid., vol, 1, viii.

35 Ibid., vol. 1, vii–viii.
36 Ibid., vol. 1, 155.
37 Ibid., vol. 1, 156.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 267

mid-century evangelical theologian.”38 With regard to his afffijirmation of

Scripture’s authority and his grounding of theological beliefs primarily in
the divine revelation of the Scriptures, he stands in the form of the
Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic.39 However, even beyond his goal of
the unity of Christians through theological reflection, he offfers a more com-
plex theological method than simply moving from exegesis to a topical
arrangement of principles drawn from it. While he spends a substantial
amount of time developing an overarching historical narrative of the
Scriptures within a timeline of biblical history, he deals with various sources
for theological knowledge throughout, and he utilizes them, in practice, in
addressing various theological loci. He uses these loci to position his theo-
logical claims in relation to other views. Fundamentally, then, he distin-
guishes his approach from that of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic
by being dialogical. In the words of Jacobsen, “rather than present his
understanding of theology primarily in terms of his own interpretation of
the biblical text, he organizes his sections and chapters on the basis of the
logical presentation of the subject matter in dialogue with the ideas of a
range of other theologians.”40 Especially in regard to developing his own
theology, he was willing to deal with and draw from a signifijicant variety of
thinkers in order to express his own beliefs. This represents an orientation
which is willing to look for theological truth as articulated by other
Christians, not just those of Pentecostal persuasion. In fact, Jacobsen
fijinds him to have been especially drawn to “progressive evangelical” and
“moderate liberal” theologians of the late nineteenth century as much as
any others.41 The development of his theological hermeneutic in general
divulges its ecumenical orientation.
This may be partially accounted for by Williams’ beliefs about human
religiosity and the nature of theological knowledge. He starts with the natu-
ral spirituality of humankind. The fijirst chapter of his Systematic Theology,

38 Douglas G. Jacobsen, “Knowing the Doctrines of Pentecostals: The Scholastic Theology

of the Assemblies of God, 1930–1955,” in Pentecostal Currents in American Protestantism, eds.
Edith L. Blumhofer, Russell P. Spittler and Grant A. Wacker (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois
Press, 1999), 99.
39 His statement that “Study of theology ought to be with the purpose of discovering and
properly arranging the truths which are found in the Word of God” (Ibid., vol. 1, 157) is the
clearest outright expression of Williams’ consonance with the category of the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic employed throughout this work.
40 Jacobsen, “Knowing the Doctrines of Pentecostals,” 96. For a brief analysis of Williams’
use of several theologians, see Ibid., 97–98.
41 Ibid., 97–98.
268 chapter six

“Introduction,” begins with the natural inclination for “man” to worship

something and to be religious. Following the nineteenth century Methodist
theologian John Miley, he argues that one needs to go beyond a religious
consciousness to a “Christian consciousness” where knowledge and charac-
ter, and thus experience, are built upon Christian truth. For Miley and
Williams, “correct theology, or Biblical understanding, is essential to
properly regulated feelings of religious consciousness.”42 Religious con-
sciousness, in general, is marred by sin, and confijidence in natural theology
must be qualifijied by the fijinitude of human existence. They must be prop-
erly qualifijied on account of their limitations for providing knowledge of
God. Natural theology may properly lead to worship of a moral creator, but
on account of the noetic efffects of sin, that natural inclination for worship
may also result in a worship of nature instead. Nature may reveal that God
is, but only a special revelation could reveal God’s purposes, particularly for
humankind.43
A revealed theology is thus needed. Yet instead of simply identifying the
Scriptures as the divine revelation of God, Williams offfers some nuance,
though he does not thoroughly work this out, to his understanding of
revelation. Divine revelation is a supernatural communication of truth
from God to man:
‘Supernatural’ means beyond the light of nature or reason. Revelation means
‘the unveiling, or disclosing, of God’s purpose to mankind.’ It includes every
manifestation of God to human consciousness. While we recognize the
Scriptures as God’s revelation, the unfolding of God’s Word and will may also
be considered revelation.44
Nature, too, is considered a revelation of God. He even cites Augustus H.
Strong’s claim that the tendency for nature and biological life to heal itself
reflects God’s desire for restoration as an example of how nature is a form of
revelation, just like human conscience is when it stands in agreement with
Scripture.45

42 Williams, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, 2–3.

43 Ibid., vol. 1, 3–7, 162–163. Williams gives little attention to arguments for the existence
of God, though he acknowledges some worth in them. He briefly recounts arguments from
the “qualities in nature which reveal that God is”: creation, design, “man’s” moral nature and
universal belief (in a Supreme Being among all tribes) as well as very briefly offfering a simple
form of the cosmological argument (Ibid., vol. 1,165–169). However, he spends a substantial
amount of space to quote and follow Strong that the Genesis creation narrative(s) is not a
detailed record but a “pictorial-summary interpretation – a rather rough sketch of the his-
tory of creation” (Ibid., vol. 1, 166).
44 Ibid., vol. 1, 43.
45 Ibid., vol. 1, 47.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 269

In identifying the special role of Scripture as revelation inspired of God,

Williams rejects a verbal dictation view, though he grants that there are
places in Scripture where this type of inspiration must have been the case.
Rather, he argues that while God directed the thoughts and word choice of
the authors, he let the personality and styles of each author come out.46
Further, he spends signifijicant time accounting for the historical back-
ground in which the Scriptures were written. He grounds the New Testament
in the Old, and he holds to a view on the progression of the biblical revela-
tion that could be well characterized as holding to a progressive revelation
of God in salvation history. He even chronicles a history of the canon from
Abraham to the King James Translation.47 So, for Williams, “the Scriptures
contain the permanent mind of the Holy Spirit, being the result of His influ-
ence and guidance. They are therefore diffferent from all other writings
whether sacred or secular.”48And he suggests that the Spirit’s inspiration
of the Scriptures necessitates a pneumatic hermeneutic:
Jesus gave assurance that, upon His departure, the Holy Spirit would be sent
to the disciples and by His guidance they should be instructed in such manner
as to be enabled to provide for future generations the infallible Scriptures of
the New Testament. It was necessary that they have the Holy Spirit in prepar-
ing the Scriptures. It is equally necessary that we have the same Holy
Spirit that we might be guided in our understanding of them, for “the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness
unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”
(I Cor. 2:14).49
This claim returns to Williams’ other claim that a Christian consciousness is
needed in order to ascertain spiritual truth, displaying a tension in his
thought between revelation and intuition. It is possible to interpret Williams
as holding to an initial level of intuition, a natural faculty of every human.
This is similar in function to a level of discernment that he characterizes as

46 Williams explains his view of inspiration:

“In verbal inspiration the writer would be free in the use of his own vocabulary and
personality, quickened and guided by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit guiding into all truth.
This method would account for the various styles found among the diffferent Biblical
writers. What about the teaching that only the thoughts were inspired by the Spirit, the
writers being left to express the Spirit’s thought in their own way? We venture this for
consideration – How can thoughts be expressed other than in words? In verbal inspira-
tion the Spirit quickens the author, his thought, and the method by which he expresses
the thought” (Ibid., vol. 1, 77).
47 Ibid., vol. 1, 9–42.
48 Ibid., vol. 1, 77.
49 Ibid., vol. 1, 44.
270 chapter six

“Christian consciousness,” which is a level of intuitive discernment that

comes after knowledge of biblical revelation and having, though not
necessarily in the fuller form of the baptism in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit in
one’s life.50 “The natural man is inclined to believe that knowledge is a fijirst
essential, then faith built upon knowledge. God says faith comes fijirst.”51
Intuition is, in fact, the fijirst of four of what Williams characterizes as
“sources for belief in God,” with tradition, reason and revelation being the
other three. Intuition, as an immediacy in knowing, is fundamental to all
other types of knowledge. He offfers a range of matters for which humans
have this type of natural intuition:
Man intuitively accepts such themes as time and eternity, space, cause, efffect,
right and wrong, self-existence, and the person of God…Among all men
there is intuitively a knowledge that a Supreme Being exists, and a certain
knowledge concerning right and wrong, as there is concerning other things.52
While intuition is the starting point for theological belief, he turns to reason
as the intelligence and harmony permeating the universe which “declares
that back of all this creation and sustaining of nature there must be a
Creator who is perfect Reason, the Being which we call God.”53 Yet he is
quick to meet Enlightenment optimism about reason with a more tradi-
tional Protestant skepticism concerning human noetic capacities: “God has
spoken through nature, but man being fijinite and biased because of his
sinful nature, has had his reasoning too often distorted by error.”54 The man-
ner in which reason is thus limited or unable to be trusted is not explicit.

50 For Williams, the presupposition of faith opens one up to biblical truth: “The skeptic
need not expect to receive anything from the Lord. That the truths which are in the Scriptures
may be made known, the student must approach his study prayerfully, with an open heart,
and in faith” (Ibid., vol. 1, 158). Williams’ anthropology also plays a role in his view of theologi-
cal knowledge:
“Religion is a belief binding the spiritual nature of man to a supernatural being. Man is
a three-fold being in whom are combined intellect, feeling and will. None of these ever
acts independently of the others. Man’s religion is the reaction of his intellect, feeling
and will to the being in which he has come to believe. He is religious when he recog-
nizes such a power: a power not of himself, a supreme personality, a spiritual deity. In
religion man seeks to adjust himself to such a power and personality. If the object of
worship is wrong, improper adjustments will result. Feelings are involved in religion
because of man’s sense of need; the will is involved in that the worshipper believes he
must submit and conform to the object of worship; the intellect is active since through
it comes apprehension of the object of worship” (Ibid., vol. 1, 290 n14).
51 Ibid., vol. 1, 158.
52 Ibid., vol. 1, 159.
53 Ibid., vol. 1, 160.
54 Ibid., vol. 1, 161.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 271

But it is clear that he understands reason as noetically redeemed by

revelation. “Tradition becoming in time perverted, and reason having been
darkened by sin, God saw the need of a divine revelation for the guidance
and good of man. This revelation God has given us in the Scriptures.”55 For
Williams, tradition is the handing down from memory the knowledge of
God and instruction found in Christian doctrine. In typical Protestant man-
ner, he qualifijies tradition’s authority that insofar as it is in harmony with the
properly preserved Word of God in the Scriptures it is helpful.56 But this
also means that there is a potentially positive role for it and that it is not
necessarily something that must be continually overcome.
Williams’ reflections on the issue of religious experience as he deals with
the baptism in the Holy Spirit also demonstrate his willingness to listen to
those of other persuasions. On this matter, he begins dialectically, acknowl-
edging that “Whether or not there is a defijinite crisis experience in which
the baptism with the Spirit is given, or whether the new birth and the
Baptism are the same, has been a matter of controversy.”57 He even acknowl-
edges that the positions of those he disagrees with have warrant. For exam-
ple, “those who believe the new birth and the baptism with the Spirit to be
one and the same are not without Biblical reasons for so believing.”58 Yet he
still concludes that “if we are to be guided by  the record in the New
Testament, the baptism with the Spirit is subsequent to conversion.”59
Williams still considered that it is the biblical pattern that has now come to
the fore in Pentecostal doctrine.

55 Ibid.
56 Ibid., vol. 3, 91–159.
57 Ibid., vol. 3, 39.
58 Ibid., vol. 3, 40.
59 Ibid., vol. 3, 42. In citing the biblical examples, which Williams understands as exem-
plars of this experience, he notes that “each experience of receiving the Baptism with the
Spirit was in some ways dissimilar” and, from this, concludes with the practical theological
judgment that “We are thankful that each of these experiences was diffferent from others.
Were it not so, man would endeavor to harness the working of the Holy Spirit to his set form
of doctrine. The Holy Spirit is free. He knows the hungry heart…He works according to His
will as He sees need” (Ibid., vol. 3, 44).
Williams fijinds the diversity of experiences of the Spirit as a reason to recognize the free-
dom of the Spirit and for our theology to not attempt to control the Spirit. Yet he ardently
defends tongues as the “initial experience” (Ibid., vol. 3, 47–52). He explicitly calls the claim
that tongues are xenolalia, not glossolalia, “erroneous” (Ibid., vol. 3, 50). With regard to the
question of the lack of this doctrine in Church history, he likens the lack of ecstatic experi-
ences to the spiritual tides of history: “When spirituality has been low, manifestations of the
Spirit have ceased. As the spiritual tide has returned, manifestations of the Spirit have reap-
peared” (Ibid., vol. 3, 52).
272 chapter six

Instead of longing for a primitive and simple approach to Christian faith,

Williams engaged the complexities inherent in a variety of theological
issues. He wrestled with questions of Christian faith primarily through the
classical loci of Protestant theology, dialogically engaging others in order to
enrich his own theology. This has led Jacobsen to conclude that he “was
aware of the extent to which the Pentecostal movement had developed
beyond its humble roots” but “did not lament this fact but accepted it as
inevitable.”60 His irenic tone and lack of antimodernist fervor set him apart
from many of his theological contemporaries.61 His approach thus stands as
a mid-twentieth century version of the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneu-
tic, an anticipation of it in its contemporary form.

2.2. Cecil M. Robeck, Jr.: Ecumenism’s Pentecostal Advocate

Since the mid-1980s, Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. has become the leading advocate
of ecumenism among Pentecostals.62 A historical theologian by training
whose research on the Azusa Street Revival is unparalleled, much of
his career has focused on prodding Pentecostals toward building relation-
ships and experiencing koinonia with Christians from other traditions.63 An
ordained A/G minister, Robeck has participated in dialogues at local,
national and international levels, from a local Evangelical-Catholic
dialogue in the Los Angeles area to work with the NCC, WCC and Secre-
taries of Christian World Communions. He has been the Pentecostal co-
chair of the Fourth (1990–1997) and Fifth (1998–2006) Phases of the
International Roman Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue.
In such roles and through his writings, Robeck has urged Pentecostals to
do theology in a dialogical manner with other Christians, with the

60 Jacobsen, “Knowing the Doctrines of Pentecostals,” 96.

61 Jacobsen determines that Williams’ theology was essentially adapted from “late nine-
teenth-century, prefundamentalist, progressive Wesleyan evangelical Protestantism” (Ibid,,
103).
62 For example, Frank Macchia has referred to Robeck as “our chief ecumenist,” Macchia,
“John Paul II and the Culture of Life,” PNEUMA 27:1 (Spring 2005): 1.
63 Robeck’s The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal
Movement (Nashville: Nelson, 2006), though a popular history, is regarded as the authorita-
tive work on the revival. Robeck has produced a three-volume scholarly manuscript that
awaits publication. His other major monograph as a historical theologian is Prophecy in
Carthage: Perpetua, Tertullian, Cyprian (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1992). But he describes
his ecumenical work as “the call that God has given me” [idem., “Roman Catholic-Pentecostal
Dialogue: Some Pentecostal Assumptions,” Journal of the European Pentecostal Association 21
(2001): 3]. He is Professor of Church History and Ecumenics and Director of the David J.
DuPlessis Center for Christian Spirituality at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, CA.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 273

Pentecostal theological tradition engaging other Christian traditions in a

mutually enriching relationship, and not in isolation:
Theology and the work of doing theology belongs to the whole Church. It can-
not be done without dialogue. It must be done in relation to the whole Church
in the whole world…It is time for Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians of
all kinds to look at the masses around them and ask what kind of theology the
whole Church needs. Only when we come to that point will it ever become
possible for us together to “attain to the unity of the faith (Ephesians 4:13)”
[sic]. Sectarianism is only as good as its ability to lose itself once again in the
whole Church while it raises to our consciousness a long overlooked truth of
the Gospel. To dwell too long in the land of sectarianism is to move toward the
horizon of heresy.64
Robeck fijinds the North American context of the origination of
Pentecostalism to have played an important role in forming Pentecostal
tendencies toward individualism and sectarianism. He specifijically cites the
history of dissent from state churches in Europe, as in the placing of reli-
gious convictions within one’s own conscience, and the rugged individual-
ism of the American frontier, as found in the historical and ideological roots
of Pentecostalism. In rural America, where such an ethos was birthed, “any
person or any group could interpret and theologize in complete isolation
from any other person or group.”65 Thus the early ecumenical orientation of
Pentecostalism was quickly drawn back into these habits as Pentecostals
came under criticism from without and recognized their own diffferences
within. From without, their rejection and marginalization by other
Christians led to “something like a persecution complex” that still persists.66
From within, Robeck observes that Pentecostals have struggled to “agree to
disagree” with one another while continuing to show love and respect. “The
intensity with which we feel what we believe makes it appear all too often
that everything that we believe is of ultimate value, and that every position
we hold is one of ultimate truth.”67 In a not too veiled criticism of his own
denomination’s recalcitrance to revise its Statement of Fundamental
Truths, despite this document’s original purpose as a temporary necessity,
he argues that this means that “the words we have adopted in our doctrinal
propositions are resistant to any rearticulation. These statements have
become for us an irreversible and unchangeable Tradition!”68

64 Idem., “Doing Theology in Isolation,” 3.

65 Ibid., 2.
66 Idem., “Pentecostals and Christian Unity,” 314.
67 Ibid.
68 Ibid.
274 chapter six

Robeck sees this sectarianism as standing in contrast to the early ecu-

menical vision among Pentecostals, but not altogether so. On his reading of
early Pentecostal history, various early Pentecostal restorationist visions
had their own pictures of Christian unity, yet they foresaw this unity as
something the Pentecostal movement itself would bring about. While it
was anti-sectarian, it came in a package that was also anti-creedal and
anti-institutional.69 Early Pentecostal ecumenism was based upon the
experience of the Spirit and interpreted in light of certain restorationist
themes. He understands the key terms of early Pentecostals in this light.
References to the “Apostolic Faith,” “Latter Rain,” “Pentecost,” and the “Full
Gospel” were utilized in order to show how the movement stood in continu-
ity with past Christians, and especially the fijirst century apostolic church,
yet their use implicitly criticized the historic churches for their failure to
live up to that original apostolic model.70
Throughout his writings, Robeck afffijirms the ecumenical orientation of a
number of early-twentieth century Pentecostal ecumenicists as well as
the effforts and models provided by du Plessis and Donald Gee, yet he
recognizes that most North American Pentecostals have tended to reject
ecumenism.71 He cites several reasons as to why this is the case. First, it is
seen as an attempt to compromise doctrinal standards to a lowest common
denominator, and then not just among Christians but, eventually, in rela-
tion to those of other religions as well.72 This means that, second, it seeks to
promote unity over truth which is seen as essentially working against
genuine Christian faith and living. The third reason is eschatological,

69 Idem., “Pentecostals and Ecumenism in a Pluralistic World,” in The Globalization of

Pentecostalism, eds. Murray W. Dempster, Byron D. Klaus and Douglas Petersen (Oxford, UK;
Irvine, CA: Regnum, 1999), 341–344.
70 Idem., “Pentecostals and the Apostolic Faith: Implications for Ecumenism,” PNEUMA
9:1 (Fall 1986): 61.
71 For example, see his “A Pentecostal Looks at the World Council of Churches,” Ecumenical
Review 47:1 (January 1995): 60–69.
72 Robeck heavily criticizes Pentecostal denominational leaders and some theology pro-
fessors for their lack of understanding of other Christians whom they criticize. He argues
that, in spreading their misunderstanding, these leaders and educators are “bearing false
witness,” that “the continued propogation of time worn stereotypes, the anamnēsis of
ancient divisions, the failure to investigate fresh evidences, and to allow in others the oppor-
tunity for growth and change, perpetuates the bearing of false witness” (Ibid., 71).
Robeck criticizes these leaders for mixing up human power and abilities with divine
power in the discernment process as having taken the experience of the baptism in the Holy
Spirit as a referendum on their own personal understanding of spiritual things (“Pentecostals
and Christian Unity,” 327–329). See also, Ibid., 321–322; idem., “Roman Catholic-Pentecostal
Dialogue,” 7; and idem., “Specks and Logs, Catholics and Pentecostals,” PNEUMA 12:2
(Fall 1990): 79–80.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 275

as the hermeneutics utilized by some Pentecostals have claimed that the

eschatological Babylon of Rev. 17–18 is a “superchurch” in which other com-
promised Christians are united with the Roman Catholic Church. True
believers, instead, ought to follow the command of Rev. 18:46 to “Come out
of her, my people, so that you do not take part in her sins.”73 While Robeck
recognizes some legitimacy to the fijirst two concerns, he rejects outright the
third as the product of a “hermeneutics of fear” that is the result of a lack of
understanding of other Christians.74
While Robeck does think it is important to reflect upon and work toward
greater understanding with those of other religions, he has seen the scope
of his work as largely limited to intra-Christian relations.75 He has under-
stood ecumenical work as not simply consisting of formal attempts at unity,
that it “does not begin and end with the World Council of Churches or with
the Roman Catholic Church,”76 but, in line with his own Pentecostal tradi-
tion, he holds to a relational and organic unity of the Church in a koinonia
among believers while still recognizing the good that does come of orga-
nized attempts at Christian unity.77 Thus any interdenominational efffort is
efffectively an ecumenical efffort.
Robeck sees such ecumenical engagement as requiring both the
integrity of those involved in relation to their own faith alongside ecclesial
commitments and the overcoming of fears which come from making one’s
self and tradition vulnerable to another. Ecumenical dialogue presupposes
that it is possible that any group of Christians’ perceptions, practices,
traditions and truths may be found less than adequate so that “the keynote
of every venture in dialogue is the truth of Paul’s assertion that all of us see
in a mirror only dimly (I Corinthians 13:12).”78 That is why such integrity
is needed beforehand, that when a group employs a hermeneutics of reeval-
uation in dialogue with another that they might maintain their own integ-
rity, fijinding their source of security in God alone who “lies outside of us.”79

73 Idem., “Pentecostals and Ecumenism,” 343; idem, “John Paul II,” 31–32.
74 Robeck fijinds such hermeneutics to “impose upon the text certain fears, prejudices,
and entire theological systems which are foreign to the earliest Pentecostal impulses toward
visible unity, rather than to allow the text to reveal its own treasures to the interpreter…
(This) reveals much more about the nature and extent of Pentecostal insecurities, fears, and
misunderstandings than it does about the ecumenical realities it attempts to describe”
(idem., “Pentecostals and Ecumenism,” 344).
75 Idem., “John Paul II,” 28–29, 33; and “Roman Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue,” 3–5.
76 Idem., “Pentecostals and Ecumenism,” 351.
77 Idem., “Pentecostals and the Apostolic Faith,” 67.
78 Idem., “David du Plessis and the Challenge of Dialogue,” 1.
79 Ibid., 2.
276 chapter six

This risk is worth taking, according to Robeck, because Christians cannot be

“arrogant in their exclusivity of their right to use the name of Jesus.”80
Robeck fijinds biblical justifijication for holding to this position in Luke 9:49–
50 where Jesus rebukes John and the other disciples for trying to prevent
someone who was not in their company from casting out demons in his
name.81 Robeck also fijinds further justifijication in the nature of the “Body of
Christ” – that certain parts cannot say to others that they are not valuable or
needed.82 But the impetus toward a dialogical approach to Christian faith
and theology appears to also be driven by Robeck’s experiences with other
Christians. He describes contact with other Christians as resulting not in
compromise of his faith but as bringing about “change which accords more
closely with the Truth as it is reflected through the Word, and through
persons who have mutual respect for one another based upon a genuine
relationship of koinōnia.”83
This justifijication and call for dialogue demonstrates that some of his
ecclesiological convictions are central to his ecumenical theological herme-
neutic. One key aspect is that while he afffijirms the relational and organic
unity of the Church in koinonia in line with his own tradition, he also holds
to the conviction that the Church is, indeed, visible, material and embodied
as well. Since Pentecostals have usually considered Christian unity in terms
of an invisible, relational and organic unity, conceiving the true Church as
invisible, they usually do not see the need for visible unity and are often
reticent to work on any such organized attempts.84 However, Robeck sees
the church as a spiritual but not an invisible reality. Working from Eph. 4:1–
6, especially 4:3 which instructs believers “to maintain the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace,” he fijinds the Pauline understanding of the Church to
be material and tangible, but also with a mystical dimension.85 The true
Church is made up of the concrete reality of actual persons past, present

80 Ibid., 3.
81 Ibid.; and idem., “Do ‘Good Fences Make Good Neighbors’? Evangelization, Proselytism,
and Common Witness,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 2:1 (January 1999): 87–89. In such
a dialogue, Pentecostals and their partners will identify agreements, emphasize continued
patience toward one another, both afffijirm each others strengths and recognize their own
weaknesses, catch a vision for the church as universal, forgive one another for past hurts, and
break down the barriers or walls to unity that can be (Ibid., 87–92; and “Pentecostals and the
Apostolic Faith,” 74–75).
82 Idem., “Pentecostals and Ecumenism,” 352; and “Roman Catholic-Pentecostal
Dialogue,” 9–12.
83 Idem., “Pentecostals and the Apostolic Faith,” 70.
84 Ibid., 67.
85 In his writings, Robeck considers the thirteen epistles usually attributed to Paul as the
Pauline corpus.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 277

and future so that it is “a physical, material presence in our reality, but it

extends far beyond that.”86 His concern is that denying the importance of
the embodiment of the Church in actual persons and communities will
lead Christians to a lack of concern for one another and for the schisms and
divisions which have developed. Even more forcefully, he argues that this
would mean that what constitutes the invisible Church is made up of those
who meet one’s own standards:
It means that all too often, our articulations of the faith, our conceptualiza-
tions of what the Gospel means, our interpretations of the biblical texts, will
be viewed as the sine qua non for all real unity, and any agreement to be in
relationship, in spite of diffferences of opinion in some of these matters, will
not be tolerated. What is worse, it means that the world will not be able to see
anything tangible of the forgiveness, reconciliation, and unity being lived out
among them that is reflective of the message of the Gospel we so proudly
proclaim to them.87
Still, there is the need to “discern what is within and what is outside of the
church” when we meet any ecclesial group that claims to be inspired by the
Spirit.88 There is a reality which is present if the Church is there and which
is not when the Church is not: the Spirit.89
To know how to determine what is within and what is outside of the
Church, Robeck turns to the Pauline concept of discernment of spirits,
especially as found in 1 Cor. 12–14. Like Yong (in Chapter Five), he also sees
continuity between the broader concept of discernment in the biblical tra-
dition and discernment of spirits, recognizing that the gift described in 1
Cor. 12 is a particular charismatic function. Robeck concludes that discern-
ment of spirits, as a particular charismatic function, is an ability to test or
weigh what is said prophetically within the Christian community, and that
it is paired with the gift of prophecy, much like the gift of interpretation of
tongues is paired with the gift of tongues. He fijinds that a broader notion of
discernment is better grounded in the wider biblical tradition in which the
people of God must discern in order to make ethical, moral and doctrinal
choices. In this broader sense, then, discernment occurs through common

86 Idem., “Roman-Catholic Pentecostal Dialogue,” 11.

87 Ibid., 12.
88 Idem., “Discerning the Spirit in the Life of the Church,” in The Church in the Movement
of the Spirit, eds. William R. Barr and Rena M. Yocum (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 31.
89 As far as can be seen in Robeck’s theology, while the Spirit is always present in the
Church, this does not exclude the work of the Spirit from taking place outside of the Church
as well.
278 chapter six

sense, shared communal values and doctrinal standards, and each of

these takes place communally in the lives of churches.90
It is these communal norms which help Christians to discern if a teach-
ing, a message or some proclamation is divinely inspired or less than
inspired – that it is from the Spirit or not. It is necessary to discern whether
“Thus saith the Lord…” is truly from the Lord or is in actuality just “I think
that…” or “I want you to…” Since claims of inspiration should not be
accepted at face value, Robeck proposes that the witness of Scripture leads
the interpreter of such claims to discern their source based upon the form
in which they have come, the “fruit” that the life of the claimant to inspira-
tion exhibits, and that the content of such does not run counter to “the
direct and clear teaching of the Christian canon.”91 But it is the witness of
the Spirit, which Robeck understands in light of Paul’s writings in terms of
its special charismatic function, that confijirms believers in koinonia and
may even transcend human rationality as “a flash of insight, a sudden
impulse of recognition, or a divine revelation even independent of rational-
ity or conceptual processes. It may be a deep-seated sense or feeling which
validates the claim.”92
Such an openness to this “trans-rational” or “intuitive” means to discern-
ing the presence of the Spirit of God is checked by several other factors.
First, though the Spirit might be found to speak through those who do not
profess Christ, “the Spirit is never separated from the One who sends
the Spirit, nor from the Christ to whom the Spirit bears witness (John 16:
13–15).”93 The inseparability of Spirit and Word is also found in the second
factor, Christ’s present lordship in the Church, which means that these intu-
itions need to stand in line with the transformative ethics of the gospel.
Third, since the discernment of the presence of the Spirit is a difffijicult task
within the Church, the partiality of human claims to understanding
must be recognized as a biblical theme (1 Cor. 13:12) and discernment
thus understood as a gift “given to the whole church.”94 Such entails an

90 Ibid., 32–35. See also Robeck’s “Prophetic Authority in the Charismatic Setting:
The Need to Test,” Theological Renewal 24 (July 1983): 4–10; “Canon, Regulae Fidei, and
Continuing Revelation in the Early Church,” in Church, Word, and Spirit, eds. James E. Bradley
and Richard A. Muller (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 65–91; and “Written Prophecies:
A Question of Authority,” PNEUMA 2:2 (Fall 1980): 26–45.
91 Idem., “Discerning the Spirit,” 41.
92 Ibid., 43.
93 Ibid., 45–46. The example Robeck gives here of the Spirit speaking through someone
who do not profess Christ is Mahatma Gandhi.
94 Ibid., 46.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 279

ecumenical orientation in Robeck’s approach to Christian discernment of

the presence of the Spirit. Since “people see and experience the hidden yet
self-revealing God in diffferent ways,” this demands that “a variety of form is
essential to a truly ecumenical theology of the church.”95 Only by properly
discerning the presence of the Spirit can the Church be discerned by those
who are  inquiring as to its presence among other communities, since
the Church is “a community of the Spirit committed to the Lordship of
Jesus Christ.”96
Because Robeck has discerned the Spirit’s presence – and thus the
Church’s – among those of other ecclesial traditions, he has worked toward
unity on behalf of Pentecostals with other Christians, particularly with
Roman Catholics. As the recent Pentecostal co-chair of the Roman Catholic-
Pentecostal Dialogue, Robeck has given leadership and theological guid-
ance to the most sustained formal dialogue with another Christian tradition
in which Pentecostals have engaged.97

2.3. Pentecostal Theological Hermeneutics in Ecumenical Dialogues

While Pentecostals have participated in other dialogues, the most sustained
formal ecumenical engagement by Pentecostal theologians and leaders has
been in the Roman Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue that offfijicially began in
1972, largely through the effforts of David du Plessis.98 The openness to
other Christian “Communions” that became manifest in the Second
Vatican Council (1962–1965) and its documents, especially Lumen Gentium
(The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) and Unitatis Redintegratio
(The Decree on Ecumenism), provided an opening for such dialogue to
take place from the Catholic side. With Lumen Gentium’s claim that the true
Church of Christ subsistit in (“subsists in”) rather than est (“is”) the Roman
Catholic Church, the presence of the true Church could be recognized in

95 Ibid., 47–48.
96 Ibid., 49.
97 Robeck succeeded Justus du Plessis, brother of David du Plessis, as the Pentecostal co-
chair in 1992 during the Third Quinquennium, and continued in that role through the Fourth
and Fifth Phases. As mentioned earlier, David du Plessis served as Pentecostal co-chair for
the First and Second Quinquennia. Justus du Plessis did so for the Third Quinquennium and
the beginning of the Fourth Phase. Kilian McDonnell, OSB, served as the Catholic co-chair
from the Dialogue’s inception until 2000, during the Fifth Phase, when Msgr. John A. Radano
assumed that role.
98 There were three exploratory discussions between David du Plessis and Cardinal
Willebrands of the SPCU in 1970–1971 before the fijirst meeting occurred in 1972 (Robeck,
“Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue,” 19).
280 chapter six

other Christian “Communions.”99 In Unitatis Redintegratio there is exhib-

ited a desire to embrace the “separated brethren” of other Christian
churches, though there is ultimately the desire to draw them all back to
the Catholic Church, which is understood as alone standing in the line of
apostolic succession in which the New Covenant has been entrusted to the
apostolic college.100 While these separated communities of Christian faith
are considered, at least in some respects, defijicient, they “have been by no
means deprived of signifijicance and importance in the mystery of salvation,”
and, if justifijied by faith in baptism, are members of Christ’s body with “a
right to be called Christian.”101 The Catholic Church thus sought to encour-
age dialogue in which competent experts from Catholic and non-Catholic
Christian “Communions” might explain their teachings to achieve more sig-
nifijicant depth of understanding in order to produce a truer knowledge and
appreciation of the teaching and religious life of both “Communions.”102
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen sees the the more pneumatologically-oriented
ecclesiology present in Catholicism since Vatican II as the key to opening
relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Pentecostals. “In terms
of ecclesiology, the most important development of Vatican II was the

     99 The most explicit place in which non-Catholic Christian churches are addressed is in
Lumen Gentium, no. 15, which reads in full:
“The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being bap-
tized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in
its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. For
there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern
of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty
and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. They are consecrated by baptism, in which
they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within
their own Churches or ecclesiastical communities. Many of them rejoice in the episco-
pate, celebrate the Holy Eucharist and cultivate devotion toward the Virgin Mother of
God. They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefijits. Likewise we can say
that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives
His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power.
Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood. In all of
Christ’s disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, in the manner
determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pur-
sue this end. Mother Church never ceases to pray, hope and work that this may come
about. She exhorts her children to purifijication and renewal so that the sign of Christ
may shine more brightly over the face of the earth.”
For the documents of the Second Vatican Council, see Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen
Documents: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations, rev. trans., ed., Austin Flannery, O.P.
(Northport, NY: Costello; Dublin: Dominican, 1996).
100 Unitatis Redintegratio, no. 3.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid., no. 4.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 281

replacement of the old ‘societas perfecta,’ institutional-hierarchic eccle-

siology, by the dynamic ‘People of God’ notion, where the church is seen
fijirst of all as a pilgrim people on the way to the Heavenly City.”103 With such
an acknowledgment, enough common ground was established that some
Pentecostals perceived this as an opportunity to consider their relation to
Catholics as a matter of common faith.
This Dialogue that emerged thus produced another major dialogue
partner, besides Evangelicals, with whom Pentecostal theologians could
reflect on their manner of understanding God’s presence and work in the
world.104 As a result, the Final Reports of each of the fijive Quinquenniums/
Phases exhibits Pentecostal theological self-understanding in relation to
the Roman Catholic tradition.105 Despite the opposition to participation in
it coming from some Pentecostal denominations, this Dialogue represents
the engagement of the two largest Christian traditions in the world, if
Classical Pentecostalism itself is understood as serving to represent the
much broader set of Christian communities that makes up “pentecostal-
ism” at large (see Introduction).

103 Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Spiritus ubi vult spirat: Pneumatology in the Roman Catholic-
Pentecostal Dialogue (1972–1989) (Shriften der Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft 42; Helsinki:
Luther-Agricola-Society, 1998), 55. The Church of Christ is understood as local, a mystery and
in terms of koinonia in the documents of Vatican II, as they acknowledged the Spirit’s pres-
ence and work among other Christians, (Ibid., 54–56).
104 The major works directly on the Roman Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue are Arnold
Bittlinger, Pabst und Pfijingstler: Der römische katholische-pfijingstliche Dialoge und seine öku-
menische Relevanz (Studien zur interkulturellen Geschichte des Christentums 16; Frankfurt
am Main: Peter Lang, 1978); Sandidge, Roman Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue (1977–1982),
2 vols.; Paul D. Lee, Pneumatological Ecclesiology in the Roman Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue:
A Catholic Reading of the Third Quinquennium (1985–1989) (Ph.D. Diss.; Rome: Pontifijiciam
Universitatem S. Thomae in Urbe., 1994); Kärkkäinen’s Spiritus ubi vult spirat; and Ad ulti-
mum terrae: Evangelization, Proselytism and Common Witness in the Roman Catholic
Pentecostal Dialogue (1990–1997) (Studien zur interkulturellen Geschichte des Christentums
117; Frankfurt am main: Peter Lang, 1999).
105 The Final Reports of the Dialogue have been published in a variety of publications.
Those from the fijirst three quineunnia are found together in the Fall 1990 issue of PNEUMA:
“Final Report of the International Roman Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue (1972–1976),”
PNEUMA 17:2 (Fall 1990): 85–95; “Final Report of the International Roman Catholic/
Pentecostal Dialogue (1977–1982),” PNEUMA 17:2 (Fall 1990): 97–115; “Perspectives on Koinonia:
Final Report of the International Roman Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue (1985–1989): 117–142;
“Evangelization, Proselytism and Common Witness: The Report from the Fourth Phase of
the International Dialogue (1990–1997) Between the Roman Catholic Church and Some
Pentecostal Churches and Leaders,” PNEUMA 21:1 (Spring 1999): 11–51. The Final Report of the
Fifth Phase has been fijinalized but not yet published: “On Becoming a Christian: Insights
from Scripture and the Patristic Writings, with Some Contemporary Reflections: Report of
the Fifth Phase of the International Dialogue Between Some Classical Pentecostal Churches
and Leaders and the Catholic Church (1998–2007),” which is soon to be published in
PNEUMA.
282 chapter six

The fijirst three Quinquennia of the Dialogue (1972–1976; 1977–1982;

1985–1989), in general, saw a maturation by Pentecostals in their ability
to engage in ecumenical dialogue and to theologically articulate them-
selves, a process that can be seen continuing in the Fourth (1990–1997) and
Fifth (1998–2006) Phases as well. The “Pentecostal” team for the First
Quinquennium was in fact made up of a number of Charismatic leaders
(Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Orthodox, Reformed) along with several
Classical Pentecostals as a result of the opposition of Pentecostal denomi-
nations and the lack of qualifijied participants. To correct this, during the
Second Quinquennium only Classical Pentecostals were invited to repre-
sent the Pentecostal side. While the fijirst two Quinquennia were a time of
development for Pentecostal ecumenism, they did explicitly engage herme-
neutical issues. And the Third Quinquennium, though its primary topic was
on the koinonia of the Church, delineated an understanding of the Word of
God.106 In assessing the Dialogue, Fr. Kilian McDonnell, OSB, the Catholic
co-chair of the fijirst three Quinquennia, placed “the hermeneutical moment”
as the fijirst of fijive “defijining issues” from those meetings. He found Pentecostal
hermeneutics as moving from a “pre-literary” culture to, at least in regard to
biblical scholarship, a “literary” one. And he observed Pentecostals strug-
gling to use the tools of the historical-critical methods without assuming
the philosophical principles which produced them, just as his own tradition
has striven to do.107
A key early element of self-assessment from Pentecostals came in
the brief preparatory statement for an initial discussion in September 1970
entitled “The Essence of Pentecostalism.” This brief statement characterizes
Pentecostalism itself as “personal and direct awareness and experiencing of
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit” (emphases added).108 Pentecostals thus

106 Kärkkäinen sees maturation in the dialogue in 1) making progress from introductory

themes to confrontation to a search for common identity; 2) the categorization of fijindings
into categories of agreement, convergence, disagreement or need for further dialogue; and 3)
in the growth of the Pentecostal team in its breadth and depth of representation (Spirit ubi
vult spirat, 76–81). See also Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 165–180; Kilian McDonnell,
“Improbable Conversations: The International Classical Pentecostal/Roman Catholic
Dialogue,” PNEUMA 17:2 (Fall 1995): 169–170; and Robeck, “Dialogue, Roman Catholic and
Classical Pentecostal.”
107 Kilian McDonnell, “Five Defijining Issues: The International Classical Pentecostal/
Roman Catholic Dialogue,” PNEUMA 17:2 (Fall 1995): 175–177.
108 The statement reads in full:
“It is the personal and direct awareness and experiencing of the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit by which the risen and glorifijied Christ is revealed and the believer is empowered
to witness and worship with the abundance of life as described in Acts and the Epistles.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 283

defijined themselves primarily by direct awareness and experience of the

Spirit and not by assent to particular doctrines, though theological content
is assumed in such spirituality. Such self-identifijication by Pentecostals led
to the unique nature of the Dialogue as a dialogue on spirituality, prayer,
common witness and theological reflection as they are shared concerns,
not a dialogue on “structural unity.”109 This has led Kärkkäinen to see
Pentecostals as participating in Catholic effforts at “spiritual ecumenism,” as
understood in Unitatis Redintegratio.110 He also looks at the Dialogue in
terms of “unity in reconciled diversity” where “confessional identities or
theological-spiritual distinctives are not to be eliminated, rather unity is
sought amidst accepted diversity, on the basis of a common ‘center’ or
‘core.’ ”111
The Final Report of the First Quinquennium saw hermeneutical issues
addressed in sections on “Scripture, Tradition and Developments” (28–30)
and “Discernment of Spirits” (38–41). In the former section, there was agree-
ment that “the Church is always subject to sacred scriptures” yet “disagree-
ment as to the role of tradition in interpretation of scripture.”112 Both sides
were at least able to mutually acknowledge that each church has past histo-
ries which afffect them and are subject to discernment as to their goodness
and value.113 The Catholic side was also able to afffijirm that Pentecostals and
the Charismatic movements “have brought to the understanding of scrip-
ture a new relevance and freshness to confijirm the conviction that scripture
has a special message, vital to each generation,” and this should challenge
exegetes.114 Such an afffijirmation implies the recognition that the religious
experiences of Pentecostals and Charismatics have dwelled on portions of
Scripture and opened up aspects of it that may have not been realized
before, at least recently so. In “Discernment of Spirits,” the Report fijinds that
the New Testament witnesses to discernment of spirits sees it as both the

The Pentecostal experience is not a goal to be reached, not a place to stand, but a door
through which to go into a greater fullness of life in the Spirit. It is an event which
becomes a way of life in which often charismatic manifestations have a place.
Characteristic of this way of life is a love of the Word of God, fervency in prayer and
witness in the world and to the world, and a concern to live by the power of the Holy
Spirit” (Sandidge, Roman Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue, vol. 1, 141n35).
109 Final Report I (1972–1976), no. 4.
110 Kärkkäinen, Spiritus ubi vult spirat, 82, cites Unitatis Redintegratio, no. 8. Unitatis
Redintegratio describes “spiritual ecumenism” as a change of heart and prayer that desires
Christian unity (nos. 7–8). It is “the soul of the whole ecumenical movement” (no. 8).
111 Kärkkäinen, Spiritus ubi vult spirat, 82 n220.
112 Final Report I (1972–1976), no. 28.
113 Ibid, no. 30.
114 Ibid, no. 29.
284 chapter six

result of cultivating a life in the Spirit which allows, as a consequence,

growth in experiences, wisdom and reason, and also as an immediate
communication of the Spirit for discernment in a specifijic situation. Yet it
also warns that criteria for discernment are needed because of factors like
human frailty and group pressure to authenticate the Spirit’s genuine oper-
ation. Criteria are found both in Scripture and through communal wisdom
of Christian communities.115 Scripture is also afffijirmed in the document as a
control on spiritual experiences. Yet those experiences are recognized as
inviting Christians to read their Bibles “spiritually,” representing an under-
standing of reciprocity in the relationship between spiritual experiences
and biblical interpretation.116
During the Second Quinquennium, the Dialogue most explicitly took
up issues of hermeneutics and theological understanding. The fijirst three
meetings (1977, 1979 and 1980) addressed “Faith and Experience” (1977),
“Scripture and Tradition” (1979), “Exegesis” (1979), “Biblical Interpretation”
(1979), “Faith and Reason” (1979), and “Tradition and Traditions” (1980).117
The participants spent much of their effforts on the roles of Scripture and
“Tradition” and their relation.118 While Catholics regard “Tradition” as

115 Ibid, nos. 38, 40.

116 Ibid, no. 43. In the Second Quinquennium, the Pentecostal team afffijirmed the com-
munitarian nature of spiritual experience: “Individual experience is seen as part of the com-
munitarian dimensions of the Gospel” [Final Report II (1977–1982), no. 16]. As the Pentecostal
participants agreed with their Catholic counterparts on an understanding of experience as
“the process or event by which one comes to a personal awareness of God,” they also con-
curred that while God’s presence or absence is a matter of “conscious awareness,” there is
also an abiding constancy in the Christian “faith-conviction that God’s loving presence (is)
in the person of his Son, through the Holy Spirit” (Ibid., no. 12). Based upon the Scriptural
witness, the Pentecostals, without Catholic concurrence, concluded that such a presence is
not found among non-Christians. And along with the Catholics, the Pentecostals diffferenti-
ated the work of the Spirit from “the forces inherent in nature,” though “In the immediacy of
the Holy Spirit’s manifestation in persons, he engages the natural faculties” (Ibid., no. 15).
Another important place where “experience” is dealt with in the Dialogue is in the Fifth
Phase. The Final Report of the Fifth Phase built upon the understanding of experience from
the Second Quinquennium while it looked to the biblical and patristic witnesses and inte-
grated them with a contemporary understanding of what religious experience is in terms of
Christian initiation and growth in Christian life [“On Becoming a Christian,” Final Report V
(1998–2006), nos. 138–191]. The perspective of the Report can be summarized in its quotation
of Kilian McDonell, OSB, that “Faith gives birth to experience; faith norms experience. But
experience gives another dimension of actuality and fijirmness to faith. Experience is another
way of knowing. What is given to experience is not taken away from faith, because experi-
ence exists only in faith” [Ibid., no. 141, cites Kilian McDonnell, OSB, “Spirit and Experience
in Bernard of Clairvaux,” Theological Studies 58 (1997): 16].
117 There was no dialogue in 1978 due to the transition in the papacy.
118 The Final Report of the Third Quinquennium (1985–1989), also addressed this matter,
fijinding that “the question of Scripture and Tradition kept surfacing in all our discussions.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 285

inseparable from Scripture, since Scripture is “responded to and actualized

in the living tradition of the Church,”119 Pentecostals expressed the normal
Protestant concern to separate them. Yet there was the acknowledgement
by the Pentecostals that there is “a broad consensus of what elements are
fundamental to the Christian faith” while not giving this consensus the sta-
tus of an authority “because of fear that religious tradition operates against
the Gospel.”120 Such an acknowledgment of a role for tradition, in contrast
to early Pentecostal anti-creedalism, can be seen in a paper given during the
Dialogue by Howard Ervin.121
During the October 8–12, 1979 session of the Second Quinquennium
in Rome, two papers were given directly on the topic of hermeneutics,
one from a Catholic participant and the other from Ervin. Ervin’s paper,
“Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” became a landmark in Pentecostal 
reflection on hermeneutics as he proposed considering Pentecostal
hermeneutics in terms of a “pneumatic hermeneutics.”122 In it, while reflect-
ing upon his own tradition and offfering a program for its future hermeneu-
tics, he begins to explore the place which tradition ought to have in them,
drawing on the thought of other Christian traditions, in particular several
Eastern Orthodox theologians.
Ervin sees Western culture as offfering two ways of knowing, through rea-
son and sensory experience. As epistemology is construed in this way, still
conforming to the mechanistic world picture of the nineteenth century,
theology is left with a dichotomy between faith and reason. And Christian
faith is left with the problematic options of, on the one hand, rationalism

We found that much of the agreement and also the disagreement stemmed from the simi-
larities and diffferences in our understandings of the ultimate bases on which doctrine and
practice of the Church should rest” [“Perspectives on Koinonia,” Final Report III (1985–1989),
no. 14].
119 Final Report II (1977–1982), no. 19.
120 Ibid, no. 20.
121 Though Ervin kept his church membership as a Baptist and is often considered a
Charismatic Baptist, his participation in the Classical Pentecostal tradition, his defense of its
key doctrines, and his importance here in developing a pneumatic Pentecostal hermeneu-
tics fijinds him legitimately representing Pentecostalism on this matter. See Patrick H.
Alexander, “Ervin, Howard Matthew,” in DPCM, 263–264.
122 Howard M. Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” in Sandidge, Roman Catholic/
Pentecostal Dialogue, vol. 2, 100–12. It was also published with minor revisions as
“Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,” PNEUMA 3:2 (Fall 1981): 11–25. Kärkkäinen evaluates
Ervin’s proposal in his “Hermeneutics: From Fundamentalism to Postmodernism,” in idem.,
Toward a Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on Ecclesiology,
Soteriology, and Theology of Mission, ed. Amos Yong (Lanham, MD: University Press of
America, 2002): 9–15. The Evangelical-Pentecostal version of pneumatic hermeneutics was
described in Chapter Four.
286 chapter six

and, on the other, dogmatism or non-rational mysticism. Instead, Ervin

seeks to propose “an epistemology fijirmly rooted in the Biblical faith with a
phenomenology that meets the criteria of empirically verifijiable sensory
experience (healing, miracles, etc.) and does not violate the coherence of
rational categories.”123 While he is sympathetic to the approaches of the
“New Hermeneutic” that fijinds a place for the numinous, he fijinds the demy-
thologization of Scripture, which is almost always attached to it, to be
unnecessary because the modern mind is more amenable to the miraculous
(and pseudo-miraculous) and to seeing a greater depth to reality than is
usually acknowledged. This, he claims, is evidenced in the revised pictures
of our world that twentieth-century science has given us.124
Ervin presses the point that demythologization of Scripture is highly
problematic as it fails to recognize Scripture as the Word of God, a revela-
tion of God who stands across an incommensurable qualitative gulf from
his creation and speaks to us:125
The Scriptures afffijirm, however, that the word of God is the ultimate word. It is
the transcendent word. It is the word beyond all human words, for it is spoken
by God (revelation). It is indeed the word that contradicts all human words,
for it speaks absolutely “of sin and righteousness and of judgment” (Jn 16:8). It
is both an eschatological and an apocalyptic word that judges all human gno-
sis. It is a word for which there are not categories endemic to human under-
standing. It is a word for which, in fact, there is no hermeneutic unless and
until the divine hermenēutēs (the Holy Spirit) mediates an understanding.126
It is this last statement that is the core conviction behind his “pneumatic
hermeneutic.” His claim is that the Word of God is an ontological reality
which requires an ontological re-creation by the Holy Spirit in his creatures
for its human reception.127 While the commonality of humanity makes
understanding in normal “word-events” possible, receiving God’s Word
requires something diffferent: “Failure to distinguish the nature of the
speaking subject in the word-event leads to confusion.”128 Thus, in inter-
preting the Scriptures, literary-historical analysis needs to be met with a

123 Ervin, “Hermeneutics,” 101.

124 Ervin sees an emerging picture of reality as existing not only on a space-time contin-
uum but also on a natural-supernatural one as well (Ibid., 111–115).
125 Ibid., 101–109. He identifijies the word of God as “indivisible from a sacred literature, the
Bible, or the Holy Scriptures (2 Tim 3:15)” (Ibid., 109).
126 Ibid., 107.
127 Ibid., 107–109.
128 Ibid., 108. Ervin fijinds “The insight…that we encounter language itself as hermeneutic
itself as salutary” (Ibid.).
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 287

human rationality that is joined in ontological union with “the mind of

Christ,” and this is quickened by the Holy Spirit, opening up one to the
divine mystery.129 Thus interpretation of Scripture is more than a matter of
semantics or linguistics: “When one encounters the Holy Spirit in the same
apostolic experience, with the same charismatic phenomenology accompa-
nying it, one is in a better position to come to terms with the apostolic wit-
ness in a truly existential manner. One then stands in ‘pneumatic’ continuity
with the faith community that birthed the Scriptures.”130 Pentecostals thus
fijind themselves reading the Bible from within its own idiom and categories.
This is not spiritual or allegorical interpretation but “a truly existential and
phenomenological response to the Holy Spirit’s initiative in historical con-
tinuity with the life of the Spirit in the Church.”131
Ervin considers the ramifijications of his “pneumatic hermeneutic” to be
ecumenical. He fijinds that the pneumatic continuity of the faith community
is much larger than the post-Reformation communities of the West. Citing
the Eastern Orthodox theologian Timothy Ware, he claims that “tradition is
the life of the Spirit in the Church.”132 And this means that tradition has its
place among Christian communions in terms of accountability and the
growth of the consensus of the Church “to the deposit of faith once for all
delivered.”133 Creeds, he fijinds, while not Scripture or the gospel itself, pro-
vide the historical succession in understanding and proclamation of the
gospel and are, hence, valuable. With this additional element of consensual
discernment, Ervin’s “pneumatic hermeneutic” seeks to be concretely phe-
nomenological as it seeks to give “empirical evidence of the impingement
of a sphere of non-material reality upon our time-space existence.”134 To
this, he proposes, is what the Church gives witness.
In the Final Report of the Second Quinquennium, there is an afffijirmation
of the role of the Spirit in exegesis and biblical interpretation which, to a
degree at least, endorsed this “pneumatic hermeneutic.”135 The Catholics,
however, insisted on the role and legitimacy of the historical-critical method

129 Ibid., 110.
130 Ibid., 115–116.
131 Ibid., 118.
132 Ibid., 116–117. Ervin cites Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (Baltimore: Penguin
Books, 1972), 253–254. He also cites the influence of another Eastern Orthodox theologian,
George Florovsky, on his proposal, especially Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern
Orthodox View (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1972).
133 Ervin, “Hermeneutics,” 116.
134 Ibid., 119.
135 Final Report II (1977–1982), no. 22–27.
288 chapter six

while the Pentecostals were reluctant to do so as they considered it

necessary to reject “the philosophical and theological principles of form
and redaction criticism as militating against the plenary inspiration of
Scripture.”136 This stance can be understood in relationship to the reliance
of Pentecostals on the hermeneutical habits of conservative and Funda-
mentalist Protestants in the early- and mid-twentieth century (see Chapter
Three). Yet the “believing criticism” found in the contemporary Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic (see Chapter Four) is seen in the way Pentecostals
draw upon Scripture, for example, in the Fifth Phase of this Dialogue (1998–
2006). Throughout the Final Report of the Fifth Phase, and in close concert
with Catholic biblical scholarship, it is possible to infer the use of these
methods by Pentecostals as tools for the formation of biblical theologies to
justify the Pentecostal side of the Dialogue’s perspectives on Christian
experience. In this Final Report, Pentecostals and Catholics together
afffijirmed Scripture’s veracity concerning matters of faith and salvation
and the depths of its meaningfulness, yet it is clear that the Pentecostal and
joint statements were signifijicantly informed by biblical scholarship and
biblical theologies. This demonstrates a substantial shift in Pentecostal
biblical hermeneutics within only several decades. Yet it also stands in
continuity with the afffijirmation of Scripture as the governing authority for
Pentecostals.
A joint statement in the Final Report on the Fifth Phase also succinctly
summarizes the stance of Pentecostals on theological sources and their
interpretation in relation to a Catholic understanding of them as they held
that:
Together we have learned that in our reading of the Holy Scripture we both
interpret the Bible within the horizon of our respective traditions. Both of us,
even if in diffferent ways, would acknowledge being governed by the Word of
God. Pentecostals tend to hold to the classical Protestant doctrine of sola
Scriptura. Both Catholics and Pentecostals honor the authority of Scripture,
and both look for ways in which Tradition carries biblical truth.137
The Fifth Phase thus marked a change, even maturation, concerning the
Pentecostal understanding of and position on the role “Tradition” might
play in Christian life and theological understanding. The Second
Quinquennium left Pentecostals able to afffijirm, along with Catholics, “that
Scripture is of necessity linked to interpretation…that scriptural content
itself includes interpretation…that it requires interpretation; and thus an

136 Ibid., no. 23.

137 “On Becoming a Christian,” Final Report V (1998–2006), no. 265.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 289

authoritative interpreter,” but in disagreement about where this authority

resides.138 Seemingly following Ervin’s lead from his paper given that
year, the Pentecostals had concluded that, rather than fijinding an authorita-
tive interpretation in the function of the teaching offfijice of the Church on
behalf of the people of God, that “it is the right interpretation under the
illumination of the Holy Spirit leading to consensus.”139 While recognizing
communal theological discernment as a part of the life of the Church, the
Pentecostals did not feel free to claim that any teaching offfijice could
function without error.140 Still, they recognized that (small-t) traditions
accumulate and often have a positive function in the history of churches,
but that “these traditions, apart from Scripture, have little authority in the
Church.”141 This led to the Pentecostals explicitly challenging the function
Tradition had in establishing the Marian doctrines of perpetual virginity,
immaculate conception and her assumption on the grounds that they
are without Scriptural basis.142 Implicit in the Pentecostal approach to
Tradition/tradition in the fijirst three stages of the Dialogue is the premise
that (small-T) traditions are just that and should not be considered (big-T)
Tradition – that no post-Apostolic person or church can have any infallible
or irrevocable say over what is defijinitively part or not part of the content of
the Gospel. Yet, from the Pentecostal side, there was not a sufffijicient account
as to how the Spirit guides Christian communities to recognize the Gospel
as such, especially in relation to their own cultural and ecclesial
traditions.143
The Fifth Phase, however, demonstrates how Pentecostals have begun to
fijind usefulness in tradition, specifijically in the witness of Patristic Fathers:144

138 Final Report II (1977–1982), no. 52.

139 Ibid.
140 Ibid., nos. 49–57.
141 Ibid., no. 57. Final Report II (1977–1982) considers “Tradition” (big-T) as “the once for
all revelation made by God in Jesus Christ, the Word of God proclaimed in oral form, and the
whole of the Spirit fijilled community’s response to the truth of the Gospel,” with both the
active element of its being handed down and the passive element of its content. And “tradi-
tions” (small-t) were considered to be the various ways in which “Tradition” is transmitted
(nos. 55–56).
142 Ibid., nos. 58–76, esp. no. 68. See also Ralph Del Colle, “Mary, the Unwelcome Guest (?)
in Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue,” PNEUMA 29:2 (Fall 2007): 214–225.
143 “Perspectives on Koinonia” explicitly states that “Pentecostals believe that some tradi-
tions express correctly the saving truth to which Scripture testifijies (e.g., Apostles’ and Nicene
Creeds), but they seek to evaluate all traditions in the light of the Word of God in Scripture,
the ultimate norm of faith and practice in the Church” [Final Report III (1985–1989), no. 23].
144 “Perspectives on Koinonia” had already recognized that “Pentecostals in recent years
have come to appreciate the importance of the faithful teachers of the Word of God through
church history” (no. 26).
290 chapter six

Like Catholics, Pentecostals view the Fathers as providing genuine and vital
testimonies to the faithfulness of God. As Christians, their testimony to what
it meant for them to love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul,
and strength, and their neighbors as themselves, is compelling. The Pentecostal
team believed that the proximity of these Christian leaders to the time in
which Jesus and his disciples lived might prove to be instructive as we sought
together to understand how the earliest Christians were moved from the
point of conversion to full participation in the life of the church.145
While certainly not considered authoritative by Pentecostals, the Christian
tradition functions as a witness and example in faith, life and thought. The
Pentecostals afffijirmed that “the writings of the Fathers are not library trea-
sures from centuries ago. Their words are vibrant witnesses to Christians of
today, and of every time.”146
This is related to the recognition, during the Fourth Phase, that the
Church’s relationship to culture is a matter of interpretation, too. As the
Fourth Phase dealt with the tense issues of evangelization and proselytism
in Catholic-Pentecostal relations, the enculturation and cultural reception
of the gospel was reflected upon.147 Both sides noted and afffijirmed that “our
proclamation and our Christian lifestyle are always embodied in a specifijic
culture. We accept that there is considerable good in cultures, notwith-
standing the fact of humanity’s fall from grace.”148 Yet the Final Report
registered a signifijicant diffference in approaches to culture. While  Pente-
costals emphasize the transformation of individuals which is to lead to the
transformation of culture, Catholics tend to attend to effforts toward
the transformation of the structures of a culture itself.149 Pentecostals cited
the emphasis on indigenous missions throughout Pentecostal history as
facilitated by the emphasis on the freedom of the Holy Spirit and its atten-
dant openness to various expressions of Christian faith, as “all members of
the community have been given the gifts or charisms of the Spirit necessary
to share the full message of the Gospel.”150 This has led to the conviction,

It is noteworthy that the two co-chairs at the beginning of the Fifth Phase, McDonnell and
Robeck, both have expertise in Patristic theology.
145 “On Becoming a Christian,” Final Report V (1998–2006), no. 10.
146 Ibid., no. 269. The use of Patristic sources in the Fifth Phase was seen as “an initial step
in dialogue between us on historical questions which are at the root of the Pentecostal views
of Restorationism” (Ibid., no. 270).
147 “Evangelization, Proselytism and Common Witness,” Final Report IV (1990–1997),
nos. 28–36.
148 Ibid., no. 28.
149 Ibid.
150 Ibid., no. 32.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 291

strongly found in Pentecostal practice, that “the everlasting message of sal-

vation” needs to be reformulated “in a convincing way for contemporary
men and women and not (to) simply repeat it in antiquated language.”151
Contemporary cultural relevance has been signifijicant to the articulation of
Pentecostal faith.
Pentecostals have also found a dialogue partner with the Reformed
tradition. In the Reformed-Pentecostal Dialogue (1996–2000),152 the herme-
neutical issue that was given primary attention was that of the relations
between Word, Spirit and community, raising a set of issues that Pentecostals
had already begun to address in the Third Quinquennium of dialogue with
the Catholics.153 But, in this dialogue too, Pentecostals dealt with interpret-
ing God’s work in and among human cultures as well. The work of the Spirit
is “broader than we think,” and not just in the Christian Church. Every
culture and church is in need of reshaping “by the Holy Spirit in accordance
with the revelation in Jesus Christ as witnessed to in Scripture.”154 In dia-
logue with the Reformed tradition’s emphasis on creation, the Pentecostals
connected the identifijication of God’s presence in the world, in relation to
human culture, to the Spirit who is, in turn, connected to Christ as the Word
of God, “the criterion for the work of the Holy Spirit.”155 “The yardstick
of Christ must judge those things ascribed to the Holy Spirit”156 in this
Trinitarian understanding of God’s activity. By parsing the function of the
Trinitarian persons in dialogue with the Reformed tradition, Pentecostals
worked toward clarifying an understanding of the relationship of Spirit and
Word. The Pentecostal position had earlier clarifijied a position on the nature
of the Word of God in the Third Quinquennium of the Catholic-Pentecostal
Dialogue.157 Whereas Christ is “the ultimate and permanent Word of God”
or “the perfect Word of God,” the Scriptural texts are the “written Word of
God” since “God used them to express God’s perfect will to God’s people.
The Scripture teaches faithfully and without error that truth which

151 Ibid., no. 36. On culture and Pentecostal interpretation, also see Hollenweger, “Roman
Catholics and Pentecostals in Dialogue,” 144.
152 “Word and Spirit, Church and World, Reformed-Pentecostal Final Report
(1996–2000).”
153 “Perspectives on Koinonia,” Final Report III (1985–1989), nos. 13–28. This section falls
under the heading “Koinonia and the Word of God.”
154 “Word and Spirit, Church and World, Reformed-Pentecostal Final Report (1996–2000),”
no. 20.
155 Ibid., nos. 15–21.
156 Ibid., no. 17.
157 “Perspectives on Koinonia,” Final Report III (1985–1989), nos. 14–18.
292 chapter six

God wanted put into the sacred writings for our salvation (cf. 2 Tim 3:16).”158
This is understood, by the Pentecostals in the Final Report of the Third
Quinquennium, as entailing a measure of perspicuity for Scripture, that
“Scripture is clear in all essential points…that each Christian can interpret
Scripture under the guidance of the Spirit and with the help of the discern-
ing Christian community.”159
In participating in formal ecumenical dialogues, Pentecostal theologians
have been drawn to the language and theological understanding of their
dialogue partners. The engagement by Pentecostals in these formal dia-
logues has helped Pentecostals to reflect and mature in their hermeneutical
self-understanding. Through them, Pentecostals have been afffijirmed in their
high regard for Scripture while they have also been challenged to reflect on
its status and function as the Word of God. Dialogue with Catholics encour-
aged Pentecostals to see the value of the tools of biblical scholarship as they
were presented with a model for using historical-critical methods while still
embracing the Scripture as God’s Word. Dialogue with the Reformed tradi-
tion has reminded them to diffferentiate Christ as the Word from the
Scripture as Word in articulating Pentecostal faith. So dealing with doctri-
nal diffferences has forced Pentecostals to begin to clarify their own, often
too vague, understandings of their own beliefs and practices. And
Pentecostals were forced, especially in relation to the Catholic understand-
ing of “Tradition,” to begin to reflect on the role in which their own tradition
functions and the way it ought to function in their own communities, and
even in relation to the communities of the wider Christian tradition.

3. The Contemporary Ecumenical-Pentecostal Hermeneutic

At the turn of the twenty-fijirst century, much of Pentecostal theology has

been oriented by the direction of the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic.
Major Pentecostal theologians are proceeding in a dialogical manner,
engaging a variety of sources within the Christian tradition in order to both
enrich Pentecostal theology and to make a contribution to the theology of
the wider Christian oikumene. Frank Macchia and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
are major fijigures who, along with Simon Chan and Koo Dong Yun, are rep-
resentative of the contemporary ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic.160

158 Ibid., no. 18.

159 Ibid., no. 26.
160 Another ecumenically-oriented Pentecostal theologian is the German-American
Wolfgang Vondey. See his Heribert Mühlen: His Theology and Praxis. A New Profijile of the
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 293

3.1. Frank D. Macchia and the Expansion of the Boundaries of Spirit Baptism

Frank Macchia’s proposal for concurrently reemphasizing and broadening
the Pentecostal doctrine of baptism in the Holy Spirit stands out as an
employment of the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. This proposal
comes to its fullest expression thus far in his Baptized in the Spirit: A Global
Pentecostal Theology.161 In it, Macchia seeks to integrate a variety of voices
in his theology of Spirit baptism. He sees the need to integrate canonical
voices, and not just Luke and Paul’s, but also Matthew and John’s.162 He sug-
gests that such an integration can occur within an eschatological and
Trinitarian framework which assumes a correlation between Pentecost and
the kingdom of God, and is essentially represented by the primacy of love:
“As a pneumatological concept, the kingdom is inaugurated and fulfijilled as
a ‘Spirit baptism.’ God’s kingdom is not an oppressive rule but the reign of
divine love.”163 Macchia considers Spirit baptism, then, as a metaphor, a
human way of describing an action of God which results in certain experi-
ences.164 Understood as such, Spirit baptism becomes an organizing and
unifying center for Pentecostal theology. But it is always a doctrine in the
making given that “the fijinal word will not be said of Spirit baptism until the

Church (Lanham, NY: University Press of America, 2004); “Presuppositions for Pentecostal
Engagement in Ecumenical Dialogue,” Exchange: Journal for Missiological and Ecumenical
Research 30:4 (2001): 344–358; and “Appeal for a Pentecostal Council for Ecumenical
Dialogue,” Mid-Stream 40:3 (July 2001): 45–56.
161 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 2006). Macchia’s other book length work is Spirituality and Social Liberation: The
Message of the Blumhardts in the Light of Wuerttemberg Pietism (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow,
1993). His several dozen articles and book chapters have primarily sought to deepen
Pentecostal theological reflection on Pentecostal experience as well as on Pentecostal
ecumenical relations. He has been the editor of PNEUMA since 2000.
The reception of Baptized in the Spirit as a major work in Pentecostal theology can be seen
in the appreciative responses from three major non-Pentecostal theologians in JPT: Clark H.
Pinnock, “Review of Frank D. Macchia’s Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology,”
JPT 16:2 (October 2008): 1–4; Henry H. Knight, III, “Reflections on Frank Macchia’s
Baptized in the Spirit,” JPT 16:2 (October 2008): 5–8; and Jürgen Moltmann, “On the Abundance
of the Holy Spirit: Friendly Remarks for Baptized in the Spirit by Frank Macchia,” JPT 16:2
(October 2008): 9–13.
Moltmann, for example, strongly afffijirms the work’s ecumenical signifijicance: “With this
work, Pentecostal theology is marching into the arena of the universal and ecumenical
conversation, conscious of itself and ready for critical discussions. Macchia’s book is a
breakthrough for Pentecostalism, showing that Pentecostal theology has something new to
offfer and must be taken seriously” (“On the Abundance of the Holy Spirit,” 9).
162 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 14–17, 26, 57–60.
163 Ibid., 17.
164 Macchia explains his understanding of this experience and the metaphor of Spirit
baptism:
294 chapter six

resurrection of the dead and the new heavens and the new earth make the
entire creation God’s dwelling place…But until God speaks that fijinal word
once and for all, we must speak penultimate words in all humility in a way
that is faithful to Christ.”165
While there is a widespread afffijirmation that Spirit baptism is a central
Pentecostal theological concern, with many recognizing that it plays a
hermeneutical role in exploring Christian beliefs as it unveils a new reality
which reorients a Pentecostal’s perspective, Macchia notes that deeper
reflection on the doctrine has largely been lacking.166 Though Robert
Menzies and Roger Stronstad have shown that Pentecostals are exegetically
justifijied in understanding it as a charismatic experience, Pentecostal con-
structive theologians “have fortunately seen that too much stress on that
which is distinctly Pentecostal can thwart the ecumenical vision necessary
to inspire creative and relevant theological reflection.”167 Even as Macchia
afffijirms the move toward a broader emphasis on pneumatology among
Pentecostal constructive theologians, he still fijinds that Pentecostals
witness to something from the biblical tradition which has been neglected.
But he considers broadening the metaphor of Spirit baptism itself to
contain the potential of both widening Pentecostal concerns and continu-
ing to witness to this neglect: “among all of Pentecostalism’s theological
distinctives, Spirit baptism has the greatest potential for connecting to
other traditions toward the formation of an ecumenical pneumatology.”168
He explains that:

“Though a divine act not dependent on human standards of experience, this clothing
with power certainly involves experience. Both Luke and Paul liken the state of some-
one gripped by the Spirit in this way to a kind of ‘God intoxication’ (Acts 2:13; Eph. 5:18).
I do not refer here to a drunken state but rather a consciousness wholly taken up with
God so that one feels especially inspired to give of oneself to others in whatever gifting
God has created within. It is essentially an experience of self-transcendence motivated
by the love of God. Experience is certainly culturally mediated and will vary in nature
from person to person, from context to context. But I simply cannot imagine this cloth-
ing with power unless some kind of powerful experience of the divine presence, love,
and calling is involved, one that loosens our tongues and our hands to function under
the inspiration of the Spirit. On the other hand, in the broader context of the New
Testament, Spirit baptism is a fluid metaphor surrounded by ambiguous imagery that
suggests broader boundaries pneumatologically than Spirit empowerment” (Ibid., 14).
165 Ibid., 19.
166 Ibid., 20–22.
167 Ibid., 25.
168 Ibid., 22. See also idem., “The Kingdom and the Power: Spirit Baptism in Pentecostal
and Ecumenical Perspective,” in The Work of the Spirit: Pneumatology and Pentecostalism, ed.
Michael Welker (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 109–125.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 295

The ecumenical challenge for Pentecostals, therefore, will be to develop their

central distinctive in a way that cherishes what is most important to their
understanding of the Christian life and the church while contributing to a
broader ecumenical pneumatology. Such a task cannot be confijined to North
American Pentecostal voices. The need is for Pentecostals globally to reflect
on the ecumenical challenge behind their understandings of Spirit baptism as
focused on a vocational or charismatic empowerment, as well as on how that
notion relates to the greater breadth of the Spirit’s work in the Scriptures and
among other world Christian communions.169
As the Pauline charismata are distributed to each for edifijication in the body
of Christ, so also are the theological and spiritual accents of the Christian
families: “We do other Christian families a disservice if we do not preserve
and cherish these and seek to bless others with them. Thus, ideal would be
a reworking of our distinctives in a way that cherishes our unique accents
but expands them in response to the broader contours of the biblical
witness and the diversity of voices at the ecumenical table.”170
Macchia’s own reworking of this Pentecostal distinctive of Spirit baptism
occurs through his use of a hermeneutical strategy that seeks to, likewise,
account for more voices in the conversation. He “expands the boundaries of
Spirit baptism” by, fijirst, as already mentioned, looking to a wider Scriptural
witness than just the Lukan and Pauline corpuses.171 All four canonical
gospels and Acts are each read as a witness to the Spirit’s work in baptism
as the initiation of God’s ushering in of the kingdom of God.172 His under-
standing of Spirit baptism becomes especially informed by the Matthean
baptism of Jesus (Matt. 3:1–17) as connecting Spirit baptism with the
presence of the kingdom of God as John the Baptist proclaims that “He will
baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fijire” (3:11b).173 Yet he not only turns
to a wider use of the canon. He also dialectically interacts with three
major understandings of the metaphor of Spirit baptism: the Reformed
tradition’s understanding of it as regeneration; Catholic and other sacra-
mental traditions’ understanding of it as sacramental initiation; and the
Classical Pentecostal tradition’s understanding of it as empowerment for
witness.174 Fruitfully for his own constructive proposal, he draws upon

169 Idem., Baptized in the Spirit, 22.

170 Ibid., 25.
171 See Chapter Four for how the Menzies/Stronstad-Fee debate centers around Lukan
and Pauline pneumatologies.
172 Ibid., 59, 61.
173 Ibid., 89–91; idem., “The Kingdom and the Power,” 123–124.
174 Idem., Baptized in the Spirit, 64–85.
296 chapter six

other constructive theologians, especially Jürgen Moltmann.175 He consid-

ers placing a theology of Spirit baptism fijirst in relation to the eschatological
presence of the kingdom of God and then, only secondarily, to the Church.176
He draws on Moltmann and other theologians as legitimate sources who
have aided him in forming this understanding. But it is clear that he consid-
ers God’s self-revelation in the Scriptures as primary for adjudicating theo-
logical disputes. For example, he argues for the eschatological link to the
kingdom of God in Spirit baptism as opposed to the Church on the basis of
what he fijinds to be the best integration of the biblical theologies of the New
Testament authors.177 In his theological hermeneutic, then, the Scriptures
act authoritatively, even though he recognizes the role of his own pre-
understanding. It has been formed by his own tradition and his own prior
theological judgments. Such pre-understanding is implied to be helpful.178
Elsewhere, Macchia has argued that Sola Scriptura ought to be revised to
“Word and Spirit alone” in a response to Pentecostal Old Testament scholar
Rickie Moore’s suggestion of “Solus Spiritus.”179 In this model, he suggests
that “the Spirit reveals Christ as the living Word through a variety of chan-
nels in the church, and the Scripture plays a subordinate role to Word
and Spirit among these channels as the standard for these channels but

175 Macchia forms this eschatologically-oriented understanding of Spirit baptism in Ibid.,

91–112, in dialogue with Motlmann’s eschatology found in The Trinity and the Kingdom
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981); The Spirit of Life: A Universal Afffijirmation (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1992); and The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996).
He also draws signifijicantly from Oscar Cullmann, James D.G. Dunn, Stanley Grenz, Walter
Kasper, George Eldon Ladd, Kilian McDonnell and Wolfhart Pannenberg in forming this
orientation.
176 Macchia rejects understanding the kingdom of God in terms of only a present ethical
and communal reality, as in liberal Protestant theology, or as exclusively as apocalyptic with
the New Testament scholars following Albert Schweitzer and Johannes Weiss, siding with
Ladd’s “already” and “not yet” in The Gospel and the Kingdom (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1959), and Moltmann’s cosmic and ethical eschatology. See Baptized in the Spirit, 91–95.
Regarding the relationship between the kingdom of God and the Church, he considers this
relationship, and paradoxically so, dialectical, that the Church is “witness” or “sign” to the
kingdom (Ibid., 190–199).
177 Ibid., 85–88.
178 This can be seen in the instance in which he specifijically afffijirms John Christopher
Thomas’ utilization of the hermeneutic of Acts 15 (see Chapter Five) in order to legitimize
the role of women in ministry positions. Because of that hermeneutic in Acts 15 in which the
apostles discerned which texts to apply to the right situations, Pentecostals legitimately read
texts which limit women’s roles, such as I Cor. 11:1–16, 14:34–35 and I Tim. 2:12, as matters
which are contextualized to their ancient situations, overridden by Pentecost which “means
that sons and daughters prophecy” (Ibid., 219–220).
179 Rickie D. Moore, “A Letter to Frank Macchia,” JPT 8 (October 2000): 12–14; and Frank D.
Macchia, “A Reply to Rickie Moore,” JPT 8 (October 2000): 15–19.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 297

not as the sole channel through which Word and Spirit reveal Christ.”180
Thus theological interpretation involves interpreting Scripture, but not
only Scripture, as the Word. The Word is more fundamentally Christ who is
revealed by the Spirit. Just as the Spirit led and empowered Christ’s redemp-
tive work, he fijinds Irenaeus’ “two hands of God” model rightly emphasizing
“a mutual working or perichoresis of the economies of Word and Spirit,”
encouraging a complementary role for Spirit Christology with a Logos
Christology.181 The breadth of the Spirit’s witness in the world is as the Spirit
of creation as well as the Spirit of Christ: “Texts such as Ps. 19, Acts 17, and
Rom. 1 do imply that there is a witness to God in all of creation that can be
known to a degree by all. This witness is surely the witness of the Spirit. This
witness points indirectly to Christ but directly to God the creator.”182
Although Macchia stresses that Spirit baptism is primarily an eschato-
logical outpouring of God’s divine love which empowers participation in
God’s presence in his reign, the kingdom of God, it also entails unity in the
Church based upon the koinonia of God.183 This koinonia, in turn, entails
the Church’s diverse yet unifijied witness to the gospel: “Speaking in tongues
as a sign of Spirit baptism (Acts 2:4; 10:46) symbolizes this diffferentiated

180 Ibid., 19. Macchia led the Pentecostal team during the Reformed-Pentecostal Dialogue
(1996–2000) that, as noted above, clarifijied the distinction between Christ as Word and the
Scriptures as Word.
181 Idem., “Toward a Theology of the Third Article in a Post-Barthian Era: A Pentecostal
Review of Donald Bloesch’s Pneumatology,” JPT 10:2 (April 2002): 8–9. Macchia gives a bibli-
cal justifijication for his understanding of Spirit Christology through appealing to the Spirit’s
work in a variety of canonical New Testament sources:
“Through the yielding of Jesus to the Spirit, the Spirit has played a vital and founda-
tional role in the Word’s redemption of creation. The Spirit brought about the concep-
tion of the holy Son of God in Mary’s womb (Lk. 1.35), anointed Jesus at the Jordan (Mt.
3.16), led him into the trial of the wilderness (Mt. 4.1), empowered him for his mission
(Lk. 4.18), led him to the cross and was the agent of Christ’s self-giving in death for our
atonement (Heb. 9.14), and raised Jesus from the dead for our justifijication (Rom. 4.25,
8.11). Indeed, Jesus was ‘justifijied in the Spirit’, especially in his Resurrection (1 Tim.
3.16), which is why we are justifijied in him and ‘in the Spirit of God’ (1 Cor. 6.11). Jesus is
also the sanctifijied man in the Spirit and we are sanctifijied in him (Jn. 17.16–19). Even
now, the ministry of the Word follows the leading of the Spirit into new contexts of
human need and striving after God. This ministry has continuity with its foundations
in the Christ event but is also new and ongoing” (Ibid., 9).
182 Ibid., 11. Though Macchia often draws upon Barth in his work, he sides with Emil
Brunner in their debate over natural theology, both here and in his Baptized in the Spirit,
262–263.
183 Idem., Baptized in the Spirit, 211–222. Macchia’s link between the Spirit and the king-
dom of God is based upon his use of Gregory of Nyssa’s principle that Christ is the king and
the Spirit the kingdom (Ibid., 89).
298 chapter six

unity.”184 It represents a unity which “respects otherness and diversity, even

creative tension.”185 These tongues of Pentecost stand in contrast to the
tongues of Babel which are the result of judgment upon the desire for an
idolatrous greatness. At Babel, “The use of their unifijied language toward
this efffort at absolutizing their social structures and sense of historical des-
tiny is telling, for it implies that all human language has the potential of
becoming the language of disobedience.”186 Yet God’s judgment at Babel,
Macchia suggests, was used to fulfijill the divine plan of fijilling the earth (Gen.
1:27–28) and thus there is not just contrast but also promise and fulfijillment
in the relationship between Babel and Pentecost:187 “But the scattering of
Babel also held out the promise that humanity might rediscover a unity that
does not dissolve but rather embrace the diversity of idioms, backgrounds,
and stories that God willed to providentially release in history. This is the
unity witnessed penultimately in the church.”188 This is not only witnessed
to in Acts 2 among Diaspora Jews but also at the Gentile Pentecost of Acts
10. He fijinds the Spirit being “poured out on all flesh” (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17) as
“implying a reality that is not just spiritual but also physical and social. It
cannot even be just ecclesiastical but also secular.”189 He fijinds, in line with
Yong, that Spirit baptism includes a respect for others outside Christian
faith and the Spirit’s work among them.190
Still, Macchia holds to a Christological criterion for the work of the Spirit
in and outside of the Church – that its end is loyalty to Jesus as God
and Savior. His conviction that the relationship between the Church and
the kingdom of God is paradoxically dialectical has implications for the

184 Ibid., 212.
185 Ibid., 213.
186 Ibid., 215.
187 Macchia also suggests that Babel and Pentecost be read in relation to Acts 17:24–27
which speaks of God’s intention among the peoples of the world in their dispersion
(Ibid., 225–227).
188 Ibid., 218.
189 Ibid., 219.
190 Of the Spirit’s work outside of the Church, Macchia explains that:
“Though I believe Christ to be the only Lord of all creation and salvation, I also regard
him as more inclusive and expansive in signifijicance through the witness of the Spirit
than many of us wish to admit. As the Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong has taught us,
there is signifijicant ‘breathing room’ in the eschatological Spirit’s witness to Jesus in
history for respecting the otherness of folks we meet outside the boundaries of the
church. The presence of the Spirit amongst these people is real, bearing implicit and
unique witness to Jesus. We simply bring that witness to explicit expression, some-
thing we cannot hope to do with compassion, respect, and understanding, if we have
never sat at the table with them to discuss afffections, beliefs, and practices” (Ibid., 221).
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 299

catholicity of the Church and ecumenism.191 While his understanding of

the Church is both pneumatological and eschatological, he is also com-
pelled to recognize its Christological and institutional makeup. He recog-
nizes, thus, a measure of validity to the Roman Catholic Church’s claim as
“mother church” and an undeniable recognition of the mediation of theo-
logical understanding through tradition.192 Yet Pentecost and Spirit bap-
tism are not one time events in history but are ongoing so that all Christian
communions are born through their continuation in history: “Catholicity is
consequently polycentric, subsisting within all of the world communions
by virtue of the presence of the Spirit.”193
Thus Macchia considers that theological understanding is not so much a
matter of developing uniform and correct propositions, but of a discourse
of multiple faithful witnesses to the truth of the gospel. It is not to be uni-
form and abstract but pluriform and personal. On this matter, he draws on
the emphasis on afffections and relationship in the Pentecostal tradition
and considers that “Spirit baptism is a baptism into divine love”194 since
“love is absolute to the nature of God. It is the essence of God and the sub-
stance of our participation in God.”195 Since the Spirit is the “bond of love”
between Father and Son, Spirit baptism is a participation in the self-giving
love of God. Christian faith is thus a relational matter and Christian
theological reflection cannot be merely rational. “Without divine love, our

191 Macchia elaborates that “we as the church are the church because of the presence of
Christ and the kingdom allowing us to participate in, and bear witness to, the kingdom of
God in the world. But this embodiment and witness are fallible and weak, eclipsed some-
what by our fallen existence” (Ibid., 225).
192 Of the relationship between other churches to the Roman Catholic Church, Macchia
claims:
“The Roman Catholic Church has a certain ‘parental’ role in the family tree of the
Christian church in the world. Simply seeking to rediscover the church of Pentecost in
the latter rain of the Spirit in a way that ignores this history is unwarranted in my view.
We cannot simply live in the biblical narrative as though hundreds of years of church
tradition had not transpired. The family of God has a history that cannot be ignored.
Children who have left their mother, even if for understandable reasons, and have
spawned their own children should not now in concert with them despise their mother
in favor of a future destiny conceived apart from her. There is a lifeline historically that
leads us to view ourselves in relation to her and in appreciation for her, despite legiti-
mate complaints that we might be able to recall against her (and she against us!).
Nevertheless, her claims in relation to us cannot simply be accepted uncritically. As
adult children and grandchildren, we are responsible to decide for ourselves concern-
ing the legitimacy of her claims on us” (Ibid., 227).
193 Ibid., 228.
194 Ibid., 258.
195 Ibid., 259.
300 chapter six

categories become abstract and fall into a state of fragmentation. In a sense,

theological reflection seeks to develop the logic of divine love and to speak
about it with all of the spiritual reverence and devotion appropriate to the
subject.”196 Yet God’s self-impartation in revelation can only be seen dimly
now “until it is experienced ‘face to face’ with our Lord (I Cor. 13:12).”197
Macchia has employed an ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic in his
willingness to draw from other traditions and their theologians to enrich his
own interpretation of God’s work in the world through Spirit baptism. In
doing so, he has utilized a certain ecumenical tendency to listen to multiple
voices, both canonical and theological, to expand this doctrine. And he
does so in a manner that provides an understanding of Spirit baptism which
both enriches his own Pentecostal tradition and also invites the wider
oikumene of Christian faith to draw upon this Pentecostal contribution for
understanding God’s work in the world.

3.2. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen and the Development of Consensual Doctrines

Another version of the contemporary ecumenical-Pentecostal theological
hermeneutic is found in the theology of the Finnish Pentecostal systemati-
cian Kärkkäinen. Even beyond his engagement with the Roman Catholic-
Pentecostal Dialogue, his writings represent a wide interest in the major
topics of theology, engaging the historical development of Christian doctri-
nal loci alongside global effforts at articulating them.198 Likewise, his own
constructive work, found primarily in a variety of ecumenically-oriented
articles and essays, draws from a wide range of traditions and theologians.199
One special interest found within several of these articles –developing an

196 Ibid., 261.
197 Ibid.
198 Kärkkäinen’s works that introduce the historical development of Christian theologi-
cal loci and then offfer a series of global and contextualized contemporary articulations of
them are: Kärkkäinen, An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Global, and Historical
Perspectives (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002); Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in
Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,
2002); Christology: A Global Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003);
An Introduction to Theology of Religions: Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Perspectives
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003); The Doctrine of God: A Global Introduction
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004); Trinity and Religious Pluralism: The Doctrine of
the Trinity in Christian Theology of Religions (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004); and The Trinity:
Global Perspectives (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2007).
199 A number of Kärkkäinen’s important articles and essays are collected in Kärkkäinen,
Toward a Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on Ecclesiology,
Soteriology, and Theology of Mission, ed. Amos Yong (Lanham, MD: University Press of
America, 2002).
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 301

ecumenical understanding of salvation in terms of union with God – is the

subject of his monograph One with God: Salvation as Deifijication and
Justifijication.200 His strategy in this book exemplifijies his employment of a
version of the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic.
Kärkkäinen fijinds the notion of salvation as union to be a point of conver-
gence for Christian soteriologies when considered in terms of theosis or
deifijication. Yet he also sees a wider basis for this in the human religious
impulse: “the deepest desire of the human person is to get in contact and to
live in union with his or her God.”201 He connects this desire with the
pre-Christian, Greek roots of theoō. And he links this desire for union with
the ecumenical vision of the Church in koinonia with one another and
God.202 He hopes that the Christian witness of such fellowship can be
achieved through “a consensual understanding of salvation,” though he
contends this does not imply a naïve quest for doctrinal unity: “The richness
of Christian theology and witness is the symphony – even though too often
a cacophony – of various legitimate voices concerning the saving works of
their God and Savior. While no homogenous testimony is to be expected or
desired, a hope for a common perspective on salvation could be realistic.”203
He fijinds union with God to be that common motif that can draw a number
of these voices together, including Orthodox, Lutheran, Anabaptist,
Methodist, Evangelical, Catholic and Pentecostal soteriologies. He bibli-
cally justifijies this move by drawing on readings of the Pauline corpus which
fijind a more relational understanding of justifijication, even in terms of
covenant, rather than with a forensic understanding.204 This leads him to
conclude that “justifijication is a new status and relationship to God by faith
in Christ through the Spirit. It means union between the human person and
her Creator.”205

200 Kärkkäinen, One with God: Salvation as Deifijication and Justifijication (Collegeville, MN:
Liturgical Press, 2004). See also idem., “Grace and the Ecumenical Potential of Theosis,” in
Toward a Pneumatological Theology, 149–165. This article most directly addresses this issue
prior to his fuller elaboration in One with God.
201 Idem., One with God, 1.
202 Ibid., 3.
203 Ibid., 5.
204 Kärkkäinen works with the biblical theologies of E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian
Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977); and Paul,
the Law and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983); James D.G. Dunn, “The
Justice of God: A Renewed Perspective on Justifijication by Faith,” Journal of Theological
Studies NS43 (1992): 1–22; and N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 1991). See Kärkkäinen, One with God, 10–16.
205 Ibid., 16.
302 chapter six

Kärkkäinen’s sympathies with this understanding of salvation as union

are also rooted in his heritage in the Mannermaa School, under the guid-
ance of Tuomo Mannermaa and Risto Saarinen, at the University of
Helsinki.206 Their sympathy toward the Orthodox doctrine of theosis is
found alongside a rereading of Luther’s understanding of salvation among
these Finnish Lutherans. They see common ground between the presence
of Christ in faith, as found in Luther’s writings, and participation in God, as
found in the Orthodox doctrine of theosis.207 While he recognizes the seem-
ingly stark diffferences found in confessional Lutheran theology with this
Orthodox doctrine, especially as articulated among German Lutherans, and
especially on account of their underlying anthropologies, he nevertheless
sees space for consensus to form. In line with the Mannermaa School,
Kärkkäinen connects an understanding of theosis as an ontological restitu-
tion of the human nature with Luther’s understanding of Christ’s presence
in the believer in faith bringing about regeneration. In doing so, he seeks to
simultaneously reject notions of salvation that would either imply a super-
human transformation in a version of the doctrine of theosis, or one that
would deny the holiness and transformation which salvation applies in
favor of a strictly forensic version of the doctrine of salvation. He then sees
further potential for consensus to emerge through the afffijirmation of the
experience of the Spirit of Christ as the fijirst point of contact between God
and the human in salvation, as witnessed to by the Orthodox, Charismatic,
Wesleyan-Holiness and Pentecostal traditions.208 He sees the potential for a
cosmic understanding of salvation emerging here in line with Moltmann’s
eschatology.209 In forming these judgments, Kärkkäinen diffferentiates what
he considers truthful and ecumenically helpful doctrines from those which
unnecessarily divide Christians and do not witness to Christian truth.
As a Pentecostal, Kärkkäinen fijinds his own tradition to be sympathetic
toward the understanding of the goal of Christian life as union with God.
Working with Edmund Rybarczyk’s analysis of the convergences between
Orthodox and Pentecostal Christianities on Christian salvation and

206 Kärkkäinen’s links to the Faculty of Theology at the University of Helsinki have con-
tinued beyond his doctoral studies and habilitation there as he continues as Docent of
Ecumenics there beyond his regular position as Professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller
Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.
207 They cite the thirty times in Luther’s writings in which he uses deifijico/vergotten/
durchgotten, which, though admittedly not frequent in his massive corpus, are found to be
integral to Luther’s theology and are seen in connection to his understanding of Christ’s real
presence in the believer (idem., “Grace and the Ecumenical Potential of Theosis,” 156).
208 Idem., 152–165; and One with God, 96–98, 108–115.
209 Ibid., 98, 129–130.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 303

transformation, he suggests that the common thread of experience of Christ

and the Spirit which brings about a real transformation in the life of the
Christian points to important aspects of the consensual doctrine he envi-
sions.210 While trying to avoid downplaying the real diffferences in Orthodox
and Pentecostal theologies, he fijinds special hope in their “synergistic
soteriologies” which allow for the operation of divine and human wills and
actions not so much in structural conflict with one another as potential
harmony.211
Kärkkäinen believes his ecumenical strategy for understanding salvation
as union with God is a model or “good textbook example of the challenges
and fruits of a real ecumenical theologizing.”212 Diffferences, he claims, need

210 Kärkkäinen works with Edmund J. Rybarczyk, “Beyond Salvation: An Analysis of the

Doctrine of Christian Transformation Comparing Eastern Orthodoxy with Classical
Pentecostalism” (Ph.D. Diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 1999) which has been published,
with some revision, as Beyond Salvation: Eastern Orthodoxy and Classical Pentecostalism on
Becoming Like Christ (Carlisle, UK and Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2004).
In Beyond Salvation, Rybarczyk provides a comparative study of the Pentecostal doctrine
of sanctifijication with the Orthodox doctrine of theosis, especially as they relate to their
underlying theological anthropologies. He argues that while these traditions’ understand-
ings of becoming like Christ or experiencing union with God can and ought to be compared,
they must be understood in relation to their “meta-contexts,” that is, the histories, anthro-
pologies, theological foundations, and means of achieving theosis or sanctifijication within
each tradition (Ibid., 15–16). While he carefully studies each and its approach to the culmina-
tion of the Christian life on its own terms, placing them side-by-side, he offfers only a modest
project for a constructive convergence. In doing so, he fijinds a special point of convergence
in the mystical or existential encounter with God shared by this very new tradition with this
very old one: “Within their own historical contexts, the one informed by Greek ontology, and
the other informed by North American existentialism, these two traditions emphasize a per-
sonal encounter with God that not only does not fijind mystical-existential manifestations
embarrassing, both see them as normal and necessary” (Ibid., 349–350). Both traditions
emphasize that the human was created for transforming fellowship with God, and he sees
this as a way forward for Orthodox-Pentecostal relations.
211 Kärkkäinen explains that “not only with regard to sanctifijication but also justifijication,
Pentecostals argue, not unlike the Orthodox, that God always works in line with the human
will. For the Orthodox, freedom (of will) belongs to the ontological constitution of the
human being; for the Pentecostals, the human being without a real capacity for choosing
means resorting to a dead ritualism” (Kärkkäinen, One with God, 112).
212 Ibid., 7. Another place where Kärkkäinen makes a similar move to fijind a consensual
theological understanding is with the Lord’s Supper (idem., “The Spirit and the Lord’s
Supper,” in Toward a Pneumatological Theology, 135–146). He seeks to reconsider Christ’s
presence in the Supper or Eucharist as a work of the Spirit to cause a re-presentation of the
paschal mystery, as anamnesis. Such anamnesis has meant “that the transformative power of
past events could be brought to bear on present realities, as in the Eucharist” (Ibid., 138). He
links this with the Eastern Orthodox epiclesis, or prayer for the descent of the Spirit at the
Eucharist, so that “the prayer-cry of the primitive church, ‘Come Lord Jesus’ (maranatha, I Co
16:22) not only requests the eschatological coming of the Lord, but also calls for his coming
for table fellowship in anticipation of the coming Kingdom. In this way anamnesis becomes
epiclesis, both depending so much on the Spirit” (Ibid., 139–140).
304 chapter six

not be softened but ought to stand together as “difffering yet complemen-

tary Christian testimonies,” akin to the New Testament canon itself.213 In
the case of Western and Eastern soteriologies, he fijinds that generalizations
of these historical positions too often oversimplify them into opposing
camps. Kärkkäinen claims that there are elements of theosis and justifijica-
tion found within each. When this is met with the understanding that doc-
trine is revisable, since “all Christian doctrines are responses to contextual
and existential needs and challenges,”214 then conceptions of salvation are
contextual and need to be reappropriated as present contexts call for
them.215 A recognition of diversity, even a proclivity towards seeking out
and celebrating “otherness” is a part of “post-/late modernity,” our present
context. And thus it is imperative for Christian theology to address the
relationship between unity and diversity.216
If we believe – as Christians do based on biblical teaching – that ‘Christian
unity is given by God through the Holy Spirit,’ then that is also the key to
afffijirming unity-in-diversity and diversity-as-unity. More than a convenient
ecumenical catchword, this expression speaks both to the heart of Christian
seeking for oneness and late modern appreciation for the Other. Only unity
which embraces and honors the otherness of the other is worth the name.217
Yet he suggests that not all diversity ought to be celebrated. There is valu-
able diversity but there is also sinful and deplorable diversity, though he
does not specify or give examples as to what constitutes each.218
Kärkkäinen thus maintains that ecumenical thinking cannot simply be a
matter of developing a more appealing mixture of Christian theology using

This convergence, Kärkkäinen suggests, is a place where Western and Eastern, Orthodox,
Pentecostal, Lutheran and Catholic Christians might agree and give common witness. He
notes that the identifijication of healing in the atonement among Pentecostals provides room
for an understanding of the Lord’s Supper as a place where the “gift of healing,” as a charism,
might be manifest (Ibid., 143–144). He sees this as a point of commonality with the Catholic
understanding of the healing power of the paschal mystery in the Eucharist, a point
which was already recognized by the Roman Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue (Final Report II
(1977–1982), no. 40).
213 Kärkkäinen, One With God, 7.
214 Ibid.
215 Ibid., 8–9.
216 Idem., “Unity, Diversity, and Apostolicity: Any Hopes for Rapprochement between
Older and Younger Churches?” 6th International LEST Conference, “Believing in Community:
Ecumenical Reflections on the Church,” Leuven, Belgium (7–10 November 2007), 1–2.
217 Ibid., 1–2. Kärkkäinen quotes from In One Body through the Cross: The Princeton
Proposal for Christian Unity, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2003), 2.
218 Ibid., 2.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 305

elements from various traditions. The reason for this is that “so often major
Christian doctrines in their specifijic denominational and/or ecclesio-
cultural forms are connected with deeper underlying orientations…that
doctrines do not emerge in a vacuum should alert us to contextual factors
in shaping the form and content of Christian ideas.”219 His link between the
contextual and cultural nature of human understanding with the formation
of doctrines within Christian traditions, in which those factors obtain as in
any other human situation, entails the need to relate ecumenical inquiry to
“specifijic contexts, thought forms, and cultural patterns.”220 This means that
the appropriate line of guiding questions for ecumenical theology should
ask: “Is there something we may learn from other Christian traditions?
What really are the underlying diffferences? What are the potential contact
points?”221 He thinks that this will take experimentation and patient
conversation to fijind what unites us and to discover if our “difffering language
games still have a common reference point.”222 This may mean that sharp-
ening diffferences is a legitimate result, too, of ecumenical inquiry, though
that recognition should occur within the context of mutual respect. Like
the biblical canon, itself a rich plurality, “unity-in-diversity” ought to be the
goal of Christian theology.
Kärkkäinen’s attempt to fijind a consensual understanding of the goal of
Christian life in union with God highlights how even theological endeavors
which seek to fijind broad agreement still inevitably minimize or reject other
ways of understanding a Christian doctrine. This can be seen from the main
example above. Kärkkäinen rejects the primacy of guilt and forensic justifiji-
cation in the orientation for the doctrine of salvation, with particular refer-
ence to its Medieval Western and confessional Lutheran contexts and
language. He rejects it in favor of a doctrine of salvation which afffijirms the
centrality of transformation and union. And he does so in relation to not
only Orthodox language and tradition but also to the streams of the Western
tradition which have emphasized them, as the Mannermaa School has
claimed to have discovered within Luther’s own corpus. An ecumenical
theological hermeneutic emerges from the conviction that such engage-
ment not only might produce good results in the form of a profijitable con-
sensual understanding but also because it is a divine and biblical mandate.

219 Idem., One with God, 116.

220 Ibid., 117.
221 Ibid.
222 Ibid.
306 chapter six

3.3. Simon Chan’s Call for Pentecostal “Traditioning”

The Asian Pentecostal theologian Simon Chan has maintained that
Pentecostals need to embrace the process of “traditioning.” This means that
Pentecostals need to recognize that they are not just individuals but mem-
bers of communities. It also entails that explicit awareness of tradition is
better than ideas whose origins are not reflected upon.223 He claims that a
lack of awareness among most Pentecostals of their being a part of their
own tradition, let alone the larger Christian tradition, is at the root of what
he considers to be their declining spiritual vibrance. He sees this as a theo-
logical failure. Though Pentecostals have done well at narrating testimonies
of their spirituality, they have largely failed to integrate their understanding
of the “Pentecostal reality,” that is, “a certain kind of spiritual experience of
an intense, direct and overwhelming nature centering in the person of
Christ which they schematize as ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit,’ ” into the larger
Christian spiritual tradition.224 Out of fear that a focus on formulating theo-
logical concepts will reduce spiritual vitality, Pentecostals have failed to
engage in integrative thinking, in systematic theology:225 “The failure in tra-
ditioning could also be seen as a failure in systematic theology.”226 He thus
pushes Pentecostal theology towards integration and systematic inquiry.

223 Simon Chan, Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition (JPT Supple-
ment 21; Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 2000), 17–18. Chan explains the importance
of recognizing that we understand in light of our traditions: “We are all creatures of habit,
and the most binding habits are those that we hold unthinkingly and subconsciously. But
when values are embodied in a clearly defijined and coherently developed system of thought,
we can become more self-critical. It is when ideas are not well reflected upon that they
tend to play on our unconscious fear of losing them: we begin to hold on to them with blind
tenacity” (Ibid., 17).
224 Ibid., 7. Chan fijinds continuity between Pentecostal reticence concerning theological
formulations and the mystical tradition in Christianity as they both have a problem speaking
about the inefffable. He suggests that Pentecostals ought to follow the lead of mystics, though,
and use the language of the Christian tradition to, in fact, try to make sense of these experi-
ences (Ibid., 20). Citing the work of Peter Hocken, [“The Meaning and Purpose of ‘Baptism in
the Spirit,’ ” PNEUMA 7:2 (Fall 1985): 125–134], Chan fijinds that the refusal to turn to the wider
Christian tradition to fijind conceptual formations for Pentecostal experience has resulted in
ones which have done more to reduce the experience rather than to open space for it
(Pentecostal Theology, 21).
225 Chan fijinds another root of this problem in the use of a Fundamentalist understand-
ing of inerrancy among some Pentecostals in their offfijicial statements of faith, and thus this
has trickled-down into their understanding. He fijinds this to difffer from Pentecostal practice
in biblical hermeneutics where Bible reading is an experience in which the Spirit illuminates
the reader. Instead of either (though he is more sympathetic towards the latter), he recom-
mends a Barthian understanding of Scripture as “an authoritative witness to or vehicle of
God’s revelation. The Word of revelation exists in a dialectical relationship to the words of
Scripture” (Pentecostal Theology, 21).
226 Ibid., 12.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 307

The need for integration also extends to resources from other Christian
traditions as they confess the Christian Tradition.227 This requires a difffer-
ent ecclesial self-understanding, away from a socially defijined or overly
localized free church ecclesiology for one of the Church as a “supremely
spiritual reality which, though existing in space and time, transcends space
and time,” one which will eschew, he contends, modern Enlightenment
individualistic notions that impoverish the traditioning process.228 In addi-
tion, the theologians of the Church, from the Pentecostal tradition and
otherwise, ought to view the task of theology as including prayerful
reflection as essential: “Spiritual theology” is “a way of training our minds to
refocus on the truth so that the truth comes alive…a return to holistic
thinking.”229 This method of “spiritual theology” connects Christian spiritu-
ality with systematic theology as it is concerned with life in relation to
God.230 It seeks to integrate afffections, beliefs and practices, following
Land’s seminal thesis.231 And it must seek to integrate the originating afffijir-
mation of the Pentecostal reality with the Trinitarian faith of the Church
and its worship. Worship, he contends, opens up this space for understand-
ing theologically life as it is “communal practice involving reenacting
certain truths concerning who God is, as a result of which certain
virtues are formed,” and these realize, working from Alasdair MacIntyre’s

227 Idem., Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1998). Chan holds that “Tradition” is:
“What unites the churches in all places and times from what are the churches’ neces-
sary but conditional responses to changing situations in the world. This does not mean
that what belongs to the Tradition is timeless and what does not is time bound.
Tradition, after all, exists in time and expands dynamically through time. What it does
mean is that we must not be too quick to elevate a belief to the status of Tradition
when, over time, it may turn out to be only a passing fashion” (Ibid., 23).
228 Idem., Pentecostal Theology, 14. Chan goes on to specifijically blame a Cartesian episte-
mology and method (Ibid., 12, 30–31).
229 Ibid., 31.
230 Chan articulates his understanding of the relationship between systematic and spiri-
tual theologies:
“The systematic theologian seeks a clear understanding of the Christian faith and uses
precise terms and defijinitions to achieve it. The mystery of the faith remains in the
background as rational formulations are put forward. The spiritual theologian reverses
this scenario by focusing on the mystery of the faith or of Christian life and leaving the
theological formulations to provide the backdrop…spiritual theology is concerned
with life in relation to God (the supernatural life)…spiritual theology seeks to discover
the transcendent within every sphere of life and every area of experience” (idem.,
Spiritual Theology, 19).
231 Chan specifijically cites Land’s argument for the integration of orthopathy, orthodoxy
and orthopraxis in his Pentecostal Spirituality (idem., Pentecostal Theology, 32).
308 chapter six

defijinition of “practice,” “goods internal to that form of activity.”232 For Chan,

then, theological understanding is interconnected with ecclesial practices
which form the theological hermeneut as she engages in conceptual reflec-
tion upon God’s revelation. Working within a Christian tradition in doing so
is necessary and good, and engaging other Christian traditions provides a
more comprehensive framework for confessing the living Tradition of faith
in the Triune God.233

3.4. Koo Dong Yun and a Dialectical Approach to Baptism in the Spirit

The Korean-American Koon Dong Yun has sought to develop a theology of
Spirit baptism through interacting with other signifijicant “constructs” of the
Christian doctrine in his Baptism in the Holy Spirit: An Ecumenical Theology
of Spirit Baptism.234 That these constructs come from sources other than
Classical Pentecostal ones gives this project what he refers to as “ecumeni-
cal substance.”235 He draws upon Bernard Lonergan’s Method in Theology in
maintaining that “theologians propose various views because they stand
within diffferent horizons. Each theologian stands within a particular eccle-
siastical and theological tradition and tends to look at Spirit baptism from
that perspective, which results in a particular horizon.”236 This in no way
precludes real conflicts among these views.

232 Chan (Ibid., 36) cites Alasdair MacIntyre, After Vitrue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre
Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, 1981), 175.
233 Chan’s three formal criteria for “an adequate spiritual theology” are comprehensive-
ness, a sufffijiciently large framework to account for the variety of spiritual experience, coher-
ence, or its internal consistency, and evocability, its ability to direct attention beyond the
rational to the spiritual realities which they express (Spiritual Theology), 22–24.
234 Koo Dong Yun, Baptism in the Holy Spirit: An Ecumenical Theology of Spirit Baptism
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2003).
235 Ibid., 147. The nine constructs Yun engages include two Classical Pentecostals (Charles
Fox Parham and Ernest Swing Williams), two Charismatics (Kilian McDonnell, a Catholic,
and Larry Christenson, a Lutheran), two Dispensationalists (C.I. Scofijield and Lewis Chafer),
two Jesuits (Donald Gelpi, who directed this project which was originally Yun’s dissertation,
and Francis Sullivan) and then Karl Barth.
236 Ibid., 130. Yun especially works with the concept of “dialectic” within Lonergan’s
methodology, see Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971),
234–266. The fourth of his eight functional specialties in theology, Lonergan considers dia-
lectic as the place of conflict and contrary understandings and approaches. Dialectics does
not refer to all opposition, especially not to that which will be eliminated through the discov-
ery of new information, nor does it refer to diffferences that are merely that of perspective.
Dialectic refers to “fundamental conflicts stemming from an explicit or implicit cognitional
theory, an ethical stance, a religious outlook. They profoundly modify one’s mentality. They
are to be overcome only through an intellectual, moral, religious conversion. The function of
dialectic will be to bring such conflicts to light, and to provide a technique that objectifijies
subjective diffferences and promotes conversion” (Ibid., 235).
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 309

Yun fijinds Pentecostal horizons to generally have three distinctive quali-

ties. First is their Lukan orientation, from which they read the rest of
Scripture. Second is their focus on an “experiential” vitality, although he
notes the limited nature of what counts as “Pentecostal experience” in
terms of particular post-regeneration charismatic experiences. And third is
their quest for the verifijiability of those experiences, the reason for their
understanding of tongues in terms of evidence, though he fijinds this to
apply to other theological matters as well.237 Similarly to Jacobsen and
Wacker (see Chapter Two), he fijinds signifijicant historic commonalities
between Pentecostal habits and American pragmatism.238 These factors
represent the basic contours for the Pentecostal horizon. Following
Lonergan as well as Gadamer (see Chapter Five) he considers human under-
standing to be mediated by one’s largely unconscious past as its horizon.239
And he contends that this is a better conception of the background to
understanding Chan’s emphasis on “tradition” and its function in “tradi-
tioning” since Chan’s understanding “lacks a present and futuristic orienta-
tion. Instead, ‘tradition’ often becomes oppressive and repressive for
allowing a new idea or a movement.”240
Once again following Lonergan, Yun distinguishes between three types
of diffferences in horizons for understanding varying constructs of Spirit
baptism. He sees “complementary” diffferences, those that are the result of
diffferent contexts and approaches which can be integrated for a fuller pic-
ture. “Genetic” diffferences pertain to stages in development. However, “dia-
lectical” diffferences represent fundamental ones which force choice of one
or the other and cannot be amalgamated as the other two types of difffer-
ences can.241 All three types of diffferences obtain between the Pentecostals

237 Yun, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, 131–145. Yun makes an attempt to descriptively name
the sources of Pentecostal theology as 1) revelation, in three forms: general, special and ongo-
ing, 2) Scripture, though, like Chan, he suggests that Pentecostals might better fijind afffijinity
with a Barthian understanding of the relationship between Scripture and the Word of God
than the Fundamentalist/Evangelical one they have largely aligned themselves with, 3)
“Pentecostal experience,” 4) Pentecostal culture, 5) Pentecostal tradition, and 6) human rea-
son (Ibid., 137–138).
238 Ibid., 152–155. Yun goes so far as to say that “the essence of the Pentecostal movement
lies in its ‘pragmatic’ method” (Ibid., 154). He supports this claim on the basis of
Pentecostalism’s American origins at the turn of the twentieth century, “the Pentecostal
movement should be interpreted as a product of American culture, and this movement
embodies many traits of American pragmatism” (Ibid., 155).
239 Ibid., 149. Yun notes the epistemological emphasis in Lonergan’s use of the term as
compared to Gadamer’s use of it as the becoming of being.
240 Ibid., 148.
241 Ibid., 155–156. Here Yun works from Lonergan, Method in Theology, 235–237.
310 chapter six

and others in his study. To work towards an ecumenical understanding, he

challenges Pentecostals to engage the larger canon rather than just Luke-
Acts.242 Further, in line with Land and Chan, he fijinds a holistic approach to
the theological task that conceives of knowing in experiential terms, and
includes the validity of the afffective, to be the way forward. And in line with
George Lindbeck’s postliberalism, his “cultural-linguistic approach,” he
holds the primary task of  theology to be descriptive for a faith commu-
nity.243 Thus the best construct of Spirit baptism “depends on one’s ecclesial
context or horizons” and “doctrine cannot be formulated by one individual
alone. Rather, it demands a communal operation.”244

4. Conclusion: Tradition, Systematic Theology and Pentecostalism

The subject matter of Pentecostal theological hermeneutics is presented

with a signifijicant challenge when it comes to the matter of tradition as a
source of theological understanding. As seen through the lens of the origi-
nal Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic in Chapter Two, tradition is what
stood in the way of a contemporary Pentecost. Modern Pentecostalism, at
its birth, understood itself as a recovery of an aspect of the life of the Church,
of the work of the Spirit, that was at the essence of the Church and the
Spirit’s work in the world but had been forgotten and repressed. An implica-
tion of this claim was a denial of the history of the Church – apart from a
faithful remnant – as representing a proper full witness to the truth of the
gospel, the “full gospel.” In the process, the Pentecostal movement, become
tradition, failed to recognize its own earthly roots in several Christian tradi-
tions and movements within late nineteenth century Anglo-American
Protestantism (see Chapter One). And these, in turn, were themselves
rooted within the longer and larger Christian tradition. The four-/fijive-fold
“full gospel” thus assumed a great deal of theological understanding based
in historical Christianity, even as it came to new articulations of and experi-
ences in Christian faith with early Pentecostalism.
The proponents of the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic represent
an important break from the Pentecostal attempts to overcome and ignore
tradition. Instead, they fijind various historic theologies to be both good and

242 Yun, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, 156–157.

243 Ibid., 160–161. Here Yun works from George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion
and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 14–25.
244 Yun, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, 160.
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 311

bad, helpful and unhelpful, and promising and problematic. There is in

Christian history and in all traditions much of both the work and fruit of the
Spirit as well as “works of the flesh.” This includes a further recognition that
Pentecostalism is itself a tradition, the Classical Pentecostal tradition,
which is both a theological community and socio-cultural network of con-
tinuity and discontinuity, contextual, fijinite and ever-changing. It is itself a
wider community representative of many smaller communities that, in
their aggregation, constitute it. As such, its members rightly look back to
the self-understanding of the past to discern the essence of this tradition,
along with what may be subtracted or added, or what is considered compat-
ible. So the advocates of this hermeneutic work with the assumption that
the Spirit has been present in the past, is doing new things in the present,
and will do so in the future. However, even in the ecumenical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic, tradition is diffferentiated from Scripture in its role as a source
for theology, even if it does legitimately and inevitably function as one.
Though tradition is formative of any hermeneutic, in the ecumenical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic tradition must always still bow to and be
corrected by Scripture. However, as I will claim in Chapter Seven, this does
not entail that one’s preunderstanding, shaped by tradition, cannot be
subject to criticism and revision.
As illustrated throughout this chapter, the ecumenical-Pentecostal her-
meneutic legitimizes a great deal of engagement with other Christian tradi-
tions. It recognizes that these other traditions themselves represent
continuity between Pentecost and Pentecostalism rather than an abyss to
be supernaturally overcome, no matter the historical failings of the Christian
tradition at large. There is much to gain from attending to the tradition.
Thus there is an overcoming of the ahistoricity that has continued even into
some versions of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic, especially those
cases which seek to overcome tradition and context in the interpreter to get
to the “thing itself.” It is thus closely related to the contextual-Pentecostal
hermeneutic. Macchia and Kärkkäinen both exemplify the embrace of their
own contextuality without giving up on their ability to speak meaningfully
about the universality of the gospel for humankind. Both of their strategies
can be characterized by movements to simultaneously broaden and deepen
understanding.
So the hermeneutics of tradition is a question that is opening up in
Pentecostal theology. Yet, as I have also sought to demonstrate, this orienta-
tion towards drawing from and relating to the Christian oikumene is
not without precedent in the Pentecostal tradition; it is representative
of the original orientation towards unity and purity in faith. Further, the
312 chapter six

afffijirmation of tradition as a source of theology in the Wesleyan Quadrilateral

stands as a historic precedent from the tradition which was the main tribu-
tary to early Pentecostalism, and reflection on its historical role may be one
fruitful starting point for developing a Pentecostal hermeneutics of tradi-
tion.245 Perhaps counter-intuitively, looking toward the way Evangelicalism
has drawn on tradition might provide another way forward. D.H. Williams
has argued that Evangelicals, of whom Pentecostals have held as their clos-
est theological partners, have had their own way of drawing on the tradition
of the early Church.246 And this can also be seen in the way the Pentecostals
involved in the Fifth Phase of the Roman Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue
considered the patristic fathers as well. Amos Yong, too, though I have cat-
egorized him primarily as a contextual-Pentecostal theologian, has already
found a more thorough approach to Pentecostal hermeneutics of tradition
in his Spirit-Word-Community (see Chapter Five).247 And even the Roman
Catholic tradition, because of both its history of formal dialogue on this
matter with Pentecostals and the importance it places on “Tradition” as a
single reality with the Scriptures, even provides a partner with which to
continue reflecting on this matter.248 A fuller hermeneutics of tradition is

245 See Winfijield H. Bevins, “A Pentecostal Appropriation of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral,”

JPT 14:2 (April 2006): 229–246. He holds that “The contribution of John Wesley’s theological
method for Pentecostals is not that it is exclusively Wesleyan, but that it is exclusively ecu-
menical” (Ibid., 230).
246 See D.H. Williams, Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early
Church (Grand Rapids, MI: BakerAcademic, 2005).
247 See Yong, Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective
(New Critical Thinking in Religion; Burlington, VT and Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing
Ltd., 2002), 265–273.
248 One Catholic approach to the matter of the role of tradition in theological under-
standing from which Pentecostals might helpfully draw is John E. Thiel’s “senses of tradition.”
[Senses of Tradition: Continuity and Development in Catholic Faith (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000)]. Comparing these senses to the four “senses of Scripture,” whose his-
tory goes back to John Cassian in the fijifth-century, he applies a similar set of senses to “the
time honored faith and practice of the Church”(Ibid., 13). Like Scripture, the sense with
which one must begin to interpret tradition with is the literal, which Thiel considers a “com-
munally held meaning.” That is, and here he is referring to the literal sense of Scripture in
comparison to that of tradition, “If the literal sense presents scripture’s ostensible meaning,
then its ostensibility requires believers’ eyes and a vision already shaped by faithful commit-
ment” (Ibid., 9). Tradition, like Scripture, holds the continuity of its meaning through conti-
nuity in the contexts of belief maintained by the believing community. Scripture and tradi-
tion are the Church’s Scripture and tradition.
The three other “senses of tradition” offfered by Thiel have the potential to be helpful
for future Pentecostal hermeneutics of tradition, both of the Pentecostal tradition itself and
in relation to the totality of the greater Christian tradition. The second sense, “development-
in-continuity,” considers the truth of tradition as growth that occurs in ecclesial history
that preserves the “literal sense” of tradition as it develops it further (Ibid., 56–57).
 the ecumenical-pentecostal hermeneutic 313

needed for Pentecostal theology and is becoming increasingly warranted as

a matter of priority for the Pentecostal theological agenda.
Not only does the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic provide legiti-
macy for and declare the necessity of a hermeneutics of tradition. It also
can be characterized as a dialectical hermeneutic. It develops further theo-
logical understanding by moving between difffering understandings in order
to bring about this further development. This can be seen in the exemplars
of this hermeneutic illustrated above. Yun, in particular, explicitly utilizes
Lonergan’s conception of dialectics as a point of choice between funda-
mentally diffferent understandings. This thus becomes a further step
toward developing Pentecostal systematic theology.249 In the ecumenical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic, there is a wider range of questions being asked in
providing topics for Pentecostal theology, and this includes questions about
theological concepts themselves.250

The third sense, “dramatic development,” is a euphemism used to describe situations in

which the authority of a belief, doctrine or practice, once held by the tradition, is lost (Ibid.,
100–102). The fourth sense, “incipient development,” is “tradition’s imagination” (Ibid., 130).
It expands a tradition to new ideas and possibilities.
While the context of this approach to tradition is that of the Catholic understanding of
tradition, Pentecostals might still benefijit from use of these four “senses.”
249 For a call for a move toward developing systematic theology among Pentecostals at
the cusp of the emergence of the contemporary form of the ecumenical-Pentecostal herme-
neutics, see David R. Nichols, “The Search for a Pentecostal Structure in Systematic Theology,”
PNEUMA 6:2 (Fall 1984): 57–76.
250 A somewhat diffferent understanding of dialectics has also come into the discussion
of Pentecostal theological method through Terry L. Cross’ use of Karl Barth’s version of dia-
lectics in his “The Rich Feast of Theology: Can Pentecostals Bring the Main Course or Only
the Relish?” JPT 16 (2000): 27–47. In dialogue with the Charismatic Baptist theologian Clark
Pinnock’s doctrine of God, that of God’s “openness,” Cross suggests that Pentecostals might
just be able to bring the “main course” (that is, the doctrine of God) to the theological feast
by engaging in a form of dialectics.
This form of dialectics does diffferentiate and take stands, but it also holds seemingly con-
tradictory truths together in paradox without entirely negating each other. Cross afffijirms how
the later Barth “used dialectic as a tool to hold the attributes of God together in spite of their
sense of contradiction” (Ibid., 45). He considers this to be a helpful approach for Pentecostals
in continuing to form a doctrine of God in light of the debate between openness and classi-
cal theists: “Using the philosophical language of dialectic may allow us to keep the best of
both models” because, Cross claims, as I will in the next chapter, theology is a second order
task which inquires and reflects upon the primary event of God’s revelation. “Theology is a
human construction of reflection on God and his relationship with his creatures” (Ibid., 36).
Further, he holds that “our speech of God is always broken, always marred by the inadequacy
of human attempts to encompass God with our words” (Ibid., 45). While he sees Pentecostal
theology as able to bring the “main dish” to the banquet in a nourishing meal of a doctrine of
God, it will eschew rationalism and be infused by the Pentecostal experience of God through
the Spirit: “Pentecostal theology will reflect the reality of God’s encounter with humans,
developing the recipe with a special ingredient that flavors the whole dish” (Ibid., 34). He
also states that Pentecostals ought to make this meal palatable to those who are not accus-
tomed to the Pentecostal style of cooking, and it must be nutritious (Ibid., 46–47).
314 chapter six

In the concluding chapter of this project, as I afffijirm theology’s status

as a second order matter – as sustained reflection, inquiry and criticism
concerning God’s revelation and human faith in God, I will suggest that
multiple horizons for Pentecostal theology found in difffering paradigms for
this second order task are legitimate. I fijind this approach to be biblically
justifijiable in light of the narratives of creation, Babel (and Abraham) and
Pentecost.251 And it is philosophically justifijiable in light of the strength of
the understanding of human belief systems as paradigms, as competing
best accounts of the totality of human experience. Yet, for a Pentecostal
theological hermeneutics, each of these accounts must be responsible to
the reality of God and God’s revelation, as well as of others and our world.
They must be both hermeneutical and realist.

251 See Section 3, “Resources (and our Guide) for Pentecostal Theological Hermeneutics,”
in Chapter Seven.
 chapter seven

TOWARD A HERMENEUTICAL REALISM FOR PENTECOSTAL

THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there
are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the
imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a
child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind
me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to
face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And
now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
– 1 Corinthians 13:8–13

This study has utilized a typology to account for the development of

Pentecostal theological hermeneutics since the inception of modern
Pentecostalism at the beginning of the twentieth century. After summariz-
ing these categories, I will make the case for turning towards a herme-
neutical realism for the continued development of Pentecostal theological
hermeneutics.

1. Theological Hermeneutics in the Classical Pentecostal Tradition:

Summarizing a Typological Account

In line with several of the key accounts of the theological roots of

Pentecostalism, especially Donald Dayton’s account, I held that these roots
came primarily from the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. Yet I also noted that
they came from the thought and tendencies of American revivalists and
“radical Evangelicals” in general, Keswick revivalism in particular, and from
the coalition that advocated a premillennial eschatology.
I then considered the fijirst major hermeneutic that emerged as the
original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic. I sought to demonstrate its
function as a hermeneutic of origination, of newness. On this particular
matter, I followed Douglas Jacobsen’s insight. Along with Jacobsen, I also
found a signifijicant amount of diversity among early Pentecostal theology
and its hermeneutics. This diversity can be accounted for especially as it
316 chapter seven

relates to these early hermeneut’s roots in other religious, theological and

cultural patterns. Nevertheless, I still found signifijicant continuity in their
theological hermeneutics.
I argued through demonstration that the original Classical Pentecostal
hermeneutic had at least four key identifijiable hermeneutical assumptions
by examining the particular hermeneutics of Charles F. Parham, William J.
Seymour, Charles H. Mason and Garfijield T. Haywood. The fijirst of these
assumptions was that of a dialogical interaction between the authority of
Scripture and lived Pentecostal experience. They served to mutually rein-
force the novel theological interpretations that these early Pentecostals
were developing. They worked dialogically in order to produce new under-
standings and experiences, mutually opening up conceptual and experien-
tial space for one another. Second, in line with Kenneth Archer’s assessment
of early Pentecostal hermeneutics, I found the narrative of the Latter Rain
at the core of this hermeneutic. It provided an eschatological horizon from
which they interpreted Scripture and their current state of afffairs in relation
to God’s work of restoring and reviving the Church at the cusp of the end
times. This also meant that the rest of the Church’s history was usually con-
sidered merely tradition which stood in the way of the true “apostolic faith.”
Its third characteristic was the four-/fijive-fold “full gospel” that formed the
doctrinal grid from which they interpreted Scripture and experience.
Though I afffijirmed Archer’s additional claim that these early Pentecostals
are best characterized as “paramodern,” they did take on modern habits in
utilizing these doctrines like explanatory hypotheses. Thus, fourth, they
employed a form of naïve realism in their reasoning within this hermeneu-
tical paradigm. Their logic could be compelling, if one granted the prem-
ises. And they usually thought these premises indisputable, as they could be
clearly seen as long as one’s disposition toward God was right. Further (and
this has been implicit throughout my account), this hermeneutic of new-
ness and of revival that is the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic
has not been sustainable for Classical Pentecostalism’s development into a
tradition because it engenders continual discontinuity. Just as the later
Seymour turned back to Holiness habits of interpretation, the tradition
itself needed a more sustainable hermeneutic than this hermeneutic of
origination, though elements of it remain in the convictions, patterns and
habits of the subsequent hermeneutics which have since developed.
The Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic is the primary hermeneutic to
which Pentecostals then turned. This second major hermeneutic has
become the more sustainable hermeneutical home for a majority of
Classical Pentecostals, at least in North America. I claimed that the turn to
 toward a hermeneutical realism 317

this hermeneutic occurred, at least in part, very early on in Pentecostal

history, much earlier than when many Pentecostals formed an alliance with
the reemerging Evangelical coalition of the early-1940s. Daniel W. Kerr,
a fijirst generation Pentecostal, was my critical exemplar here. Kerr grounded
the new Pentecostal doctrines in a classical Protestant appeal that
they were biblical doctrines. I also noted that the era preceding this
stronger alliance between Pentecostals and Evangelicals in the 1940s saw
uneasy relationships between Fundamentalists and Pentecostals, as well as
Dispensationalist and Pentecostal hermeneutics. And these created awk-
ward attempts at hermeneutical integration. But Pentecostals like Myer
Pearlman found the hermeneutical habits of the longer Evangelical tradi-
tion more amenable for integrating the habits coming from the original
Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic into more traditional Protestant and
Evangelical approaches to doing theology. And thus his Knowing the
Doctrines of the Bible came to be the most important Pentecostal theologi-
cal text of this era.
From the middle of the twentieth century through the present, a con-
temporary version of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic has emerged.
I identifijied three major subtypes of this hermeneutic: one focusing on the
principle of inerrancy, another on author-centered hermeneutic theory,
and a pneumatic version. I also recalled the debate within this hermeneutic
concerning Gordon Fee’s criticisms of the biblical justifijication of distinctive
Pentecostal doctrines. It served to recall the contributions to Pentecostal
hermeneutics which have recently come from Roger Stronstad and Robert
Menzies. Overall, I considered the contemporary Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic as employing “believing criticism” to develop biblical theolo-
gies which seek to recount the intention of biblical authors in order to
systematically integrate them. And this has become the standard approach
for doing theology for the main North American Classical Pentecostal
denominations.
The third major type, the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic, has arisen
as both a critique of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic and as a con-
structive engagement with current concerns in philosophical hermeneu-
tics. Some of its advocates identify their approach in relation to criticisms of
the author-centered hermeneutics found in the Evangelical-Pentecostal
hermeneutic. Yet all of its advocates hold the conviction that the context of
the interpreter is not negligible but is, in some manner, determinative
of interpretation or understanding. Texts and language are conceived of
broadly as, respectively, every thing that is interpreted and the totality of
the human ability to conceptualize. Interpretation is thus ubiquitous.
318 chapter seven

This hermeneutic has begun to engage many important philosophical

concerns in hermeneutics and has tended to draw from the Continental
tradition in philosophy. I claimed that Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophi-
cal hermeneutics has been a key, albeit usually indirect, influence on these
hermeneuts. But I also noted that I fijind the debate between advocates of a
postmodern Pentecostal hermeneutics and those defending the Evangelical-
Pentecostal hermeneutic largely misguided and unhelpful, especially as
there has often been a failure to specifijically engage the philosophical (and
tacit theological) convictions underlying these approaches in a sustained
manner. Though most examples of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic
thus far have been oriented around general hermeneutical concerns and
biblical hermeneutics, I also cited Samuel Solivan’s work as an instance of
an ethnic contextual-Pentecostal theological hermeneutic, which is repre-
sentative of a growing set of hermeneutics which are deserving of investiga-
tion at another time. Then I turned my attention to the important projects
in Pentecostal theological hermeneutics from James K.A. Smith, Kenneth
Archer (building upon the work of John Christopher Thomas) and Amos
Yong. I assessed each project as having signifijicant value, though I brought
up several problems with Archer’s narrative approach, favoring Smith and
Yong’s approaches as examples of the type of hermeneutical realism I am
promoting in this concluding chapter.
The fourth and fijinal type I put forth was the ecumenical-Pentecostal her-
meneutic. It recalled the long and winding history of Pentecostal ecumeni-
cal tendencies, especially in relation to the long-standing attempt among
many Pentecostals to overcome tradition in the task of doing theology.
Instead, this hermeneutic has sought to incorporate a place for tradition
among Pentecostals, both as the content of faith and as its continuing trans-
mission in thought and practice. It legitimizes other Christian traditions as
theological resources as it seeks to make theological contributions to the
wider Christian oikumene. In its theological style its advocates have often
focused on dialectics and sought to form more adequate systematic theolo-
gies by engaging difffering understandings. Beyond recounting the tense
history concerning Pentecostal ecumenical engagement, I considered
Ernest Swing Williams and Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. as two key pioneers for this
hermeneutic. Then I examined the Pentecostal hermeneutics employed in
formal dialogue with other Christian churches, especially the Roman
Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue. Following this, I looked at some of the key
exemplars of the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic: Frank Macchia and
his expansion of the doctrine of baptism in the Holy Spirit; Veli-Matti
Kärkkäinen’s attempts at developing consensual doctrines, particularly the
 toward a hermeneutical realism 319

doctrine of salvation; and the turn toward other Christian traditions

and theologians found in the theologies of Simon Chan and Koo Dong Yun.
I suggested that developing a hermeneutics of tradition has become increas-
ingly necessary for Pentecostal theological hermeneutics.
With the increasing pace of development and interest in Pentecostal the-
ology, especially in relation to the explosive growth of global pentecostal-
ism, I assume that this typology will be at least somewhat outdated within
only a decade or two. Nevertheless, it provides the necessary background
for a discussion of what I consider to be the most fruitful way forward for
Pentecostal theological hermeneutics.

2. Toward a Hermeneutical Realism for Pentecostal

Theological Hermeneutics

In examining the development of theological hermeneutics in the Classical

Pentecostal tradition, and in line with the contextual-Pentecostal herme-
neutic, I have already pushed the matter of what is interpreted beyond
written or spoken texts toward a broader view of that which is theologically
interpreted. What constitutes a “text,” in this sense, is anything that is inter-
preted theologically. It is the self or anything “other” that is understood in
light of one’s faith commitments and further interpreted in inquiry, reflec-
tion and criticism upon those commitments and that which is interpreted.
The range of the “texts” cognizantly interpreted by Pentecostals has included
Scripture, the world or nature, special religious experiences, general human
experience, the human self, rationality and tradition. Even when tacit, the
uses of certain concepts of rationality and the role of tradition have each
played signifijicant parts in the interpretive ethoi of the Pentecostal tradi-
tion. This has been the case even when the philosophical assumptions were
unstated or the theologian unaware of these assumptions. Only recently
have they come to the fore to be consciously reflected upon.
Deeper philosophical reflection on human understanding and the pro-
cesses of interpretation has been and will continue to be helpful to the
future development of Pentecostal theology. My purpose here is thus to
offfer an initial constructive philosophical and theological proposal for
Pentecostal theological hermeneutics that enlists the help of several
philosophers and philosophical theologians in order to provide the best
approach for the task of Pentecostal theological interpretation that I can
propose at this time. My desire is to offfer a modest and provisional proposal
that works toward a broad afffijirmation of a “hermeneutical realism” for
future theological hermeneutics in the Pentecostal tradition, even if the
320 chapter seven

scope of the subject matter is broad. My goal is that this proposal will attend
to current and classical philosophical concerns with enough breadth to
include a variety of approaches to the task of doing theology.
The “hermeneutical realism” I am advocating difffers from a similar
approach to the relationship between human understanding and reality
which has been deemed “critical realism.” Hermeneutical realism is chas-
tened in its accounts of reality in terms of a recognition that it is operating
with a historically contingent hermeneutic rather than with a single, proper
critical method. While critical realism is typically modern, hermeneutical
realism is reflective of the concerns of late modernity or postmodernity.
This means that I afffijirm the ubiquity of interpretation. Yet this does not
mean, as I have stated and implied throughout, that I fijind one hermeneutic
as good as another. I follow Charles Taylor’s “best account epistemology”
that fijinds some accounts, and thus some hermeneutics, better than others.
And following James K.A. Smith, I fijind all accounts of theological under-
standing or knowledge to be human accounts of reality from a theological
(ad)vantage point. Thus while every account will always be limited and
always only partially adequate, they can be very fruitful and, hopefully, bear
the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22–23). This means that, with Smith as well,
I hold that those theological accounts which speak theological truth can
only do so as they are graced by God, as they participate in God’s incarna-
tional actions in the world, guided by the Spirit and gaining understanding
from the Word and through the common grace of the goodness of creation
with its cultivation in culture and tradition.
That hermeneutics is ubiquitous and that it is necessary for offfering
cogent theological accounts of our world are convictions in line with the
“linguistic turn” in twentieth century Anglo-American analytic philosophy
and the similar turn in the phenomenology of the Continental tradition.
My approach to theological hermeneutics is chastened by this conviction.
My thesis is that theological hermeneutics is best understood in terms of
holistic paradigms, our best theological accounts of the reality of our world
which intertwine the ontologies implicit in our hermeneutics, the specifijic
discernments made concerning the truths of historical existence, and what
has come to be the structures of the hermeneutics themselves.

2.1. The Linguistic Turn and the Rejection of a Foundationalism

of Indubitable Beliefs
Richard Rorty considers Anglo-American linguistic philosophy and
Continental phenomenology the results of the lack of success found in
 toward a hermeneutical realism 321

quests for neutral viewpoints or criteria external to one’s method.1 Recalling

modern attempts to transform philosophy into a science which could be
disconfijirmed, he makes the historical claim concerning modern philoso-
phers that “every philosophical rebel has tried to be ‘presuppositionless,’
but none has succeeded.”2 He further holds that “to know what method to
adopt, one must already have arrived at some metaphysical and some epis-
temological conclusions.”3 But defending them by using one’s own method
brings charges of circularity, while, on the other hand, not defending them
entails begging the question of the truth of one’s system. Yet he recognizes
that, of course, philosophy does “progress” in that ideas change. Be that as it
may, how do we know we are going in the right direction? For Rorty, there is,
essentially no solution beyond the proclivities of communities: “There is
nothing to be said to this, except that in philosophy, as in politics and reli-
gion, we are naturally inclined to defijine ‘progress’ as movement toward a
contemporary consensus…one’s standards for philosophical success are
dependent upon one’s substantive philosophical views.”4 What the focus on
linguistic philosophy in contemporary philosophy has done is to stir debates
centering around “the view that philosophical problems are problems
which may be solved (or dissolved) either by reforming language, or by
understanding more about the language we presently use.”5
This has entailed a turn to tradition and a contextualized understanding
of rationality. And it has led, in the theological world like others, to
approaches which understand theological discourse in relation to commu-
nities and language. For example, the postliberalism of George Lindbeck
holds that doctrines function for the Church like “idioms for the construing
of reality and living of life.”6 Not just for postliberals, but also for others who
have made the “linguistic turn,” language is not just designative – a tool for
putting labels on objects – but also constitutive of the social nature of
human existence.7 As Kevin Vanhoozer puts it, “ ‘language’ thus stands
for the socially constructed order within which we think and move and

1 Richard Rorty, “Introduction: Metaphilosophical Difffijiculties of Linguistic Philosophy,”

in The Linguistic Turn: Recent Essays in Philosophical Method, ed. idem. (Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press, 1967), 1–39.
2 Ibid., 1.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., 2.
5 Ibid., 3.
6 George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), 18.
7 The use of the terms “designative” and “constitutive” here follow Charles Taylor’s
approach to language and philosophical anthropology as explained below.
322 chapter seven

have our being.”8 He links the “linguistic turn” to postmodernism which, as

a “philosophical and theoretical” turn, is identifijiable by its rejection of
“reason” as a neutral and disinterested perspective for the pursuit of justice:
“Specifijically, postmodern theory rejects the following modern postulates:
(1) that reason is absolute and universal (2) that individuals are autono-
mous, able to transcend their place in history, class, and culture (3) that
universal principles and procedures are objective whereas preferences are
subjective.”9 In Jean-François Lyotard’s famous phrase, the postmodern
condition is “incredulity toward metanarratives,” as there is no one true
master story that is substantiated by autonomous and universal reason.10
Vanhoozer, though, questions Lyotard’s dismissal of grand stories in a man-
ner similar to my approach. Is not Lyotard’s dismissal itself a “performative
self-contradiction”? As Vanhoozer puts it: “Lyotard dismisses metanarra-
tives, but does he not present his own account in metanarrative terms, that
is, as the ‘true’ story of knowledge?”11 Is it actually not more consistent and
honest to recognize one’s own accounts as ultimately relying on a grand
story, though without holding that it is the only story that can be told which
has been provided by universal, autonomous reason?12
Murphy and Brad Kallenberg consider this situation in the Anglo-
American context, but in reference to its Cartesian background. Descartes’
image of human nature as a thinking thing, somehow distinct but residing
within the extension of the human body, is at the root of modern epist-
emological foundationalism: “the real ‘I’ is an observer in the mind, looking
at mental representations of what is outside.”13 The “Cartesian theater” of
the solitary knower, they contend, was the result of the socio-political
conditions as well as the corpuscular physics of his day.14 They fijind that

   
8 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Theology and the Condition of Postmodernity: A Report on
Knowledge (of God),” in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. idem.
(Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 13.
   
9 Ibid., 8.
10 Ibid., 9–12. Vanhoozer cites Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report
on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).
11 Vanhoozer, “Theology and the Condition of Postmodernity,” 10 n14.
12 James K.A. Smith argues that Lyotard’s criticism of metanarratives (grand reçits) is not
simply of all grand stories. It is of those which “also claim to be able to legitimate or prove the
story’s claim by an appeal to universal reason” [Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking
Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006), 65]. See Ibid.,
59–79,
13 Nancey Murphy and Brad J. Kallenberg, “Anglo-American Postmodernity: A Theology
of Communal Practice,” in ed. Vanhoozer, Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, 27.
14 Ibid., 27–28. Murphy and Kallenberg succinctly explain the socio-political background
to Cartesian epistemology:
 toward a hermeneutical realism 323

the critique of this picture of knowing and its attendant referential notion
of language by Ludwig Wittgenstein has been key for the reconsideration of
language and human understanding in the Anglo-American philosophical
and theological worlds:
Wittgenstein’s point is that language does not refer, or picture, or correspond
to, some nonlinguistic reality; there is no way for us to imagine that to which
language corresponds (“a state of afffairs,” “the world,” “reality,” etc.) except in
terms of the very language that this “reality” is supposed to be considered in
isolation of. Rather, learning a language is an irreducibly social enterprise by
which a child is trained in a communal mode of living.15
Rather than trying to overcome language, a futile efffort, “clarity begins with
an acknowledgment of the irreducibly social character of human experi-
ence and the intrinsic relation of human experience to the real world.”16
But does this make theology impossible? Is God merely a grammatical
construction? This is one possible outcome. But the ubiquity of interpreta-
tion and the status of language as essential to human understanding do
not entail this. Smith’s claim that these are simply part and parcel of the
fijinitude of human existence as a creation of God (recalled in Chapter Five)
is an alternative account, and one which I fijind to be considerably more
plausible.
But does this also rule out realism, that is, the philosophical conviction
that has been traditionally construed as holding that our knowledge is
reflective of a reality existing outside of our minds?17 My contention here
is that one would have to answer in the afffijirmative if, by realism, what is
meant is one correct account produced by the engagement of a universally
available reason, autonomous from culture, tradition or special revelation
that corresponds to reality as it actually and statically is, even if it comes in

“Stephen Toulmin and others provide a plausible account of why Descartes’s quest for
absolutely certain foundations seemed so important in his historical location: social
and political life could no longer be based on the authorities of the past because these
authorities’ divergent claims had led Europe into the chaos of the Thirty Years War.
The desire to fijind rational agreement beyond the bounds of religious and political
parties led to a quest for knowledge that was general and timeless rather than local and
timely – in other words, to the quest for universal theory” (Ibid., 27).
Murphy and Kallenberg cite Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: the Hidden Agenda of Modernity
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990) and Theo C. Meyering, Historical Roots of
Cognitive Science (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989).
15 Murphy and Kallenberg, “Anglo-American Postmodernity,” 34.
16 Ibid., 35.
17 Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke, Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a
Postmodern Context (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 31.
324 chapter seven

a “critical” form. But such a version of realism and its correlating rejection
found in non-realism are not the only options. They could be exhaustive
options if we take as the universally true perspective that of the tradition of
modern philosophical anthropology with its attendant disengaged and
atomistic notions of human agency, which, in turn, have given greater cre-
dence to the naturalist worldview.18 A hermeneutical realism, I maintain,
could answer this question negatively as it insists on the fallibility and fijini-
tude of human interpretation, of all understanding as creaturely and rooted
in traditions, while still insisting on the reality of dynamic presences which
are known, in some aspects or others, more adequately or less, honestly or
deceitfully, helpfully or problematically, and in vast and complex mixes of
the above. We conceptualize our worlds diffferently and thus categorize our
experiences diffferently, experiences which we are able to have in the fijirst
place because of our ability to relate to that reality through language. So, in
the fijirst place, we have diffferent experiences based on our pasts and present
agendas. This means that multiple true things can be said. But also, untruths
and distortions can still often be distinguished from truths. And almost all
of our claims require contextual qualifijication, though theology is the
domain in which the most universal truths are spoken, even as they always
come from particular contexts.
However, Stanley Grenz and John Franke fijind that much of conservative
Protestant American theology has not taken this route but rather has
embraced the foundationalist approach of overcoming uncertainty by
fijinding unquestioned beliefs or fijirst principles from which to begin.
Whereas liberal modernists looked to experience to ground these princi-
ples, conservatives grounded the truth of Christian doctrine by a simple
appeal to the Bible’s inerrancy.19 The naïve form of this appeal can be seen
in each of my exemplars of the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic
(see Chapter Two), though the Bible’s inerrancy or reliability tends to be,
but is not always, argued for in the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic
(see Chapters Three and Four). The foundationalist and common sense
approach is not so simply naïve. It seeks to avoid getting hung up on episte-
mological problems so that real claims about the content of what is true
about our world can, in fact, be made.20 And its insights that some beliefs

18 See Charles Taylor, “Introduction,” Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers,
vol. 1 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 1–12.
19 Grenz and Franke, Beyond Foundationalism, 30–38.
20 This can be seen in Thomas Reid’s work where, in giving his important modern
articulation to this position, he repeatedly criticizes the hang-ups created by modern
 toward a hermeneutical realism 325

are dependent on others and that belief systems appeal back to certain
basic beliefs or afffijirmations are claims with strength. Alvin Plantinga’s
defense of a softer form of foundationalism, with others in the “Reformed
Epistemology” camp, represent a sophisticated contemporary defense of
such a position.21 But with Grenz and Franke, I fijind it compelling that what
is “basic” is not a simple entity that is given and that precedes the enterprise
of theological inquiry and reflection. Rather, “the interpretive framework
and theology are inseparably intertwined.”22 I hold this to be the case even
if what is “basic,” or, as I will model it, at the core of a paradigm, is engrained
in us by the traditions from which we come. Our traditions provide this
integration of habits and beliefs, forming in us our basic commitments.
The usual alternatives to foundationalism and its correspondence theory
of truth have been coherentism or pragmatism. Coherentism justifijies
beliefs in their fijit with other held beliefs, in their non-contradiction so that
truth is in relation to a belief system as a whole. And pragmatism fijinds truth
to emerge as predictions are followed by testing, observation and confijirma-
tion in a cooperative efffort of a community of interpreters.23 However, it is
possible that the correspondence, coherentist and pragmatic theories of
truth can and do function together.24 And I fijind that they are best conceived
of doing so in an embodied manner which recognizes the roles which
physical embodiment, context, tradition and culture play, and thus do not
problematically separate belief from experience or statically conceive of
reality. Religious believing would thus be understood as a type of experi-
ence, an encompassing and massively broad category. Religious beliefs and
all other religious experiences would then be, on the one hand, specifijic to
religious traditions and not generic, yet, on the other, not incommensurable
with the beliefs and experiences of other humans on account of our

philosophy’s system of ideas. According to Reid, holding that ideas mediate human knowl-
edge of the world creates problems which a common sense approach does not have. See
Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, ed. Derek R.
Brookes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997).
21 Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Grenz and Franke suggest that this soft foundationalism is actually a communitarian turn
(Beyond Foundationalism, 47).
22 Ibid., 49.
23 Ibid., 39–41. There are, of course, many varieties of each of these theories of obtaining
true knowledge.
24 Amos Yong argues that this is the case in Spirit-Word-Community: Theological
Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002),
164–175.
326 chapter seven

common humanity and common world to which we relate. Grenz and

Franke, working with similar convictions, fijind that:
Experience does not precede interpretation. Rather, experiences are always
fijiltered by an interpretive framework – a grid – that facilitates their occur-
rence. Hence, religious experience is dependent on a cognitive framework
that sets forth a specifijically religious interpretation of the world…Christian
theology, in turn, is an intellectual enterprise by and for the Christian com-
munity. Through theological reflection, the community of those whom the
God of the Bible has encountered in Jesus Christ seeks to understand, clarify,
and delineate its interpretative framework informed by the narrative of God’s
actions on behalf of all creation as revealed in the Bible. In this sense, we
might say that the specifijically Christian-experience-facilitating interpretive
framework, arising as it does out of the biblical narrative is “basic” for Christian
theology. As the intellectual engagement with what is “basic,” theology is a
second-order enterprise, and in this sense theological statements constitute
second-order language.25
My claim is that it is inevitable that we operate with beliefs central to our
understanding of the world, beliefs which function to help us gain faithful
understanding of our world, through our epistemic, hermeneutic grid. Faith
is at the core of a paradigm, though it is not an indubitable foundation.
I fijind such paradigms as not only functioning to account for our world but
also as constructive of it as they consider the goal of theology to be the com-
munity’s response to God’s call to participation in constructing a world that
reflects God’s own will for creation.26 Likewise, my approach would be con-
sistent with Vanhoozer’s canonical-linguistic approach to Christian theol-
ogy in that the relationship between beliefs and the experiences of Christian
life are held to be embodied together in their interrelation:
Doctrine seeks not simply to state theoretical truths but to embody truth in
ways of living…The Christian way is fundamentally dramatic, involving
speech and action on behalf of Jesus’ truth and life. It concerns the way of
living truthfully, and its claim to truth cannot be isolated from the way of life
with which it is associated.27

25 Grenz and Franke, Beyond Foundationalism, 49.

26 Grenz and Franke afffijirm the constructive human aspect in developing theology and
the practice of Christian living as it participates in God’s work in the world: “We participate
with God as we, through the constructive power of language, create a world that links our
present with the future, or, we should say, as the Holy Spirit creates such a world in, among,
and through us” (Ibid, 53).
27 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian
Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 15. Vanhoozer further explains
that “the main purpose of doctrine is to equip Christians to understand and participate in
the action of the principal players (namely, Father, Son, and Spirit)” in this drama as they
insist on audience participation (Ibid., 16).
 toward a hermeneutical realism 327

The approach to theological hermeneutics in terms of paradigms which

I am proposing is then not merely cognitive. It is what gives shape to the
embodied and practiced lived experience of Christian faithfulness to the
Triune God.

2.2. Paradigms and Best Accounts of Our World

Though I maintain that Pentecostal theology should not pursue a correla-
tionist strategy, privileging other disciplines above itself and necessitating
that it meet their criteria, I hold that it is clear that theology can
(and should) learn from other disciplines and incorporate their fijindings
into its own paradigms. Indeed, the understanding of theological herme-
neutics in terms of paradigms I am proposing here draws from philosophy
of science.28
Thomas Kuhn’s publication of The Structure of Scientifijic Revolutions in
1962 was a watershed moment in contemporary philosophy of science. It
was in this book that Kuhn coined the use of the term “paradigm” as a view
of some portion of the natural world which includes a set of beliefs, meth-
ods and values.29 Paradigms thus provide not only the theories from which

28 The Pentecostal biblical scholar Jerry Camery-Hoggatt has already begun to apply a
paradigmatic approach to biblical hermeneutics. Contending for the gravity for meaning
provided by the origin of the biblical texts, he nonetheless notes the selectivity, inherent
ambiguity, polyvalence and linear nature of human language in Reading the Good Book Well:
A Guide to Biblical Interpretation (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), 76–81. This entails that we
interpret the Bible in terms of paradigms of interpretation (Ibid., 23–36). He cites Thomas
Kuhn’s influence on paradigmatic thinking here without noting his attendant claim to the
ultimately irrational basis for construals of reality.
Camery Hoggatt fijinds paradigms as including four categories in their functionality: pre-
dispositions, presuppositions, background information and protocols. Some, he argues, are
wrong while others are right. And while he gives compelling examples of better and worse of
each, he only claims that what diffferentiates the good from the bad ones are that the good
are critical, that is, rigorously examined, and that collegial consensus is important for recog-
nizing right ones from wrong ones (Ibid., 32–34). The standards of scientifijic inquiry – pre-
dictability, repeatability, explanatory power and consistency – cannot work as well in bibli-
cal interpretation. He argues that, instead, the “master paradigm” for biblical interpretation
should be one that seeks to have “replicated the activities the authors expected their readers
would engage in” (Ibid., 35).
29 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientifijic Revolutions, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1996). Structure seeks to play out Kuhn’s understanding of the progression
(but not progress) of the human scientifijic endeavor. In it, he fijinds the history of science to
be particularly informative. He utilizes the progression of physics from Aristotle to Newton
to Einstein, of cosmology from Ptolemay to Copernicus and Galileo, of chemistry from
phlogistic to modern chemists, and other such examples of paradigm shifts to provide pause
for the contemporary scientist or philosopher to not be overconfijident in the correspon-
dence of her own paradigms with nature itself. Other great paradigms which were held up as
328 chapter seven

the scientist works, but they also provide the rules of the game. As a result,
this approach does not consider facts and theories as categorically and per-
manently distinct. New paradigms emerge to confront the state of crisis
“normal science” fijinds itself in by reshaping theories and thus reinterpret-
ing facts.30 What is theory in one paradigm may become understood as fact
by a new one. Importantly, he sees sociological factors as also being crucial
to this process. Ptolemaic astronomy had had its chance to solve its prob-
lems, but then a competitor was given the chance at replacing it. He claims
that in the history of science, a loyalty to paradigms exists so that the falsi-
fijication of theories simply by a direct comparison to nature does not really
occur. Instead, another candidate must fijirst emerge. The decision to reject
a paradigm is the decision to accept another. The comparison that occurs
between the two competing paradigms is a judgment between the two as
well as one between each paradigm and nature itself. Often times, adher-
ents to a dominant paradigm simply have to die out for a new one to take its
place because of the strength of their loyalty to the dominant paradigm.31

representing reality in their own day have been the subjects of scientifijic revolutions which
have overthrown the old paradigms, thus one should be careful not to regard current para-
digms as beyond being usurped.
30 Kuhn fijinds paradigms to be closely identifijied with what he calls “normal science”
which is the accepted science given in a culture. He fijinds paradigms to account for nature at
multiple levels, although he is vague in articulating this point. He notes that there are para-
digms within paradigms. Further, he refers to pre-paradigm activity as a mode of human
inquiry that has not yet attempted to pull together a vision of nature into a coherent whole
but is instead fragmentary, thus acknowledging that human understanding does not always
exist in paradigms that are, at least in part, coherent (Ibid., 10–51).
31 Ibid. Ultimately, Kuhn denies recourse to rationality for adjudicating between para-
digms. That does not mean that there is not a basis for faith in a paradigm. Rather, he asserts
that it cannot be appealed to as rational or ultimately correct. Yet he still claims that there
are logical factors involved, although he is vague about their place. But the decision for one
paradigm over another must be attributed, primarily, to aesthetic, sociological and psycho-
logical factors. His understanding of a paradigm focuses the crucial adjudicator for epistemic
decision-making within human communities, and not on some inherent rationality or
autonomous reason. Epistemic decisions by individuals are usually the ramifijications of
these values found in his or her community (Ibid., 144–210).
Yet Kuhn does not adhere to a strong notion of incommensurability between paradigms,
recognizing some place of contact between competing ones. He most explicitly does this
when he identifijied fijive “characteristics,” not criteria, for making judgments between com-
peting paradigms: accuracy, consistency, scope, simplicity and fruitfulness [Thomas S. Kuhn,
“Objectivity, Value Judgment and Theory Choice” in eds. E.D. Klemke et al, Introductory
Readings in the Philosophy of Science, 3rd ed. (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1998), 435–450].
However, there is an inconsistency in his theory because, in the end, his claim to an atel-
eology of the progression of scientifijic paradigms is supported by his belief in the ateleology
of the evolutionary process, itself a belief formed within a paradigm of scientifijic inquiry.
Yet he privileges this belief in ateleology in forming his theory concerning paradigms as
functioning prior to them and not as an understanding itself derivative from a paradigm to
which he subscribes.
 toward a hermeneutical realism 329

My conception of theological hermeneutics is similar to this “hermeneu-

tics of nature.” Kuhn has seen that the methodological structures of investi-
gation of the natural world and the content which this methodology
accounts for are mutually informative. He was reticent to deem one para-
digm better than another because of the human inability to ultimately
adjudicate this, until he was pressed by accusations of relativism. So, in his
1969 “Postscript” to Structure of Scientifijic Revolutions, added to its second
and third editions, he clarifijies his position by stating: “Later scientifijic
theories are better than earlier ones for solving puzzles in the often quite
diffferent environments to which they applied. That is not a relativist’s
position, and it displays the sense in which I am a convinced believer in
scientifijic progress.”32 But he does not work this out. Thus the modifijication
of this approach produced by Imre Lakatos in his methodology of
scientifijic research programs is a more valuable resource for developing a
philosophically-informed Pentecostal hermeneutical realism.
Lakatos’ proposal is that of his methodology of scientifijic research
programs (SRPs) which provides a centripetal model of the structure of
beliefs.33 As someone who also drew his ideas from the later Karl Popper, he
fijinds “unscientifijic metaphysics” to most often serve as the stimulus for new
scientifijic theories. This allows for both metaphysical and thus irrefutable
cores as well as refutable ones. In either case, philosophical assumptions
are understood as informing the hard inner core of a SRP. The hard inner
core of a SRP includes the methods, theories, and core beliefs of that
program that are non-negotiable. To give up a part of the hard core is to
surrender the program itself. The hard core also serves as the positive
heuristic of the program; the positive heuristic tells the program which
paths to pursue, setting the agenda. Around the hard core of the program is
the protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses which serve as the negative
heuristic of the program. The negative heuristic protects the hard core from
objections, whether theoretical or experimental. It seeks to forbid the
directing of a modus tollens directly at the hard core. The auxiliary hypoth-
eses thus adjust and adapt or are even replaced in order to defend the core
of the research program. A SRP is judged by being deemed either progres-
sive or degenerating. It is progressive if it is able to predict novel, new
facts. Thus good empirical predictions reflect theoretical progressiveness.

32 Kuhn, Structure of Scientifijic Revolutions, 206.

33 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientifijic Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers,
Volume 1, eds. John Worrall and Gregory Curie (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1978).
330 chapter seven

For him, this is not justifijication but corroboration. It constitutes what

he calls a progressive “problemshift.”
But all of this is not a description of what happens to an isolated scien-
tifijic theory. It is a description of what happens to a series of theories – to
entire systems or research programs. A SRP begins to degenerate when it is
unable to corroborate its predictions or account for well-documented
observations. It also degenerates when its auxiliary hypotheses are forced to
deal with observations in an ad hoc manner, thus displaying burgeoning
inconsistencies arising in the hard core. Yet Lakatos also warns against
reverting to falsifijicationism. The best theories live with known anomalies
and unaccounted for phenomena. History has taught us that in numerous
cases it has been unwise to kill a budding SRP because of known
anomalies.
In the case of the natural sciences, two or more SRPs should be allowed
to breathe, at least according to Lakatos, though one will usually win out. It
will win because it is able to corroborate excess empirical content over its
rival, even content that was forbidden by the rival. Yet it must also explain
its rival’s unrefuted content. Experiments do not overthrow theories; rather,
they demonstrate their inconsistency with nature. Pressing farther ahead
than Kuhn, Lakatos holds that these decisions do involve rationality and
logic as they are not just psychological or sociological matters. Thus the
Lakatosian approach afffijirms correspondence as well as coherence and
pragmatic tests for truth claims. Going beyond Kuhn’s vagueness on this
point, Lakatos sees this progression not just as a series of revolutions but as
an evolution. Research programs stand on the shoulders of others, in some
cases they stand on the shoulders of programs with which they are incon-
sistent, yet they do make progress in accounting for the natural world.34
Although Lakatos’ methodology of SRPs was formulated for a philosophy
of science, it offfers insights for understanding theological hermeneutics.
Nancey Murphy has already appropriated Lakatos’ methodology to theo-
logical method.35 Within limitations and with some augmentation, I fijind
that much of Murphy’s appropriation of Lakotos is helpful. This is so if

34 Ibid., 8–101. Of his own method, Lakatos recognizes that he stands on the shoulders of
others. He attributes three main streams of thought as sources for his reconstruction of
method: “From the empiricists it has inherited the determination to learn primarily
from experience. From the Kantians it has taken the activist approach to the theory of
knowledge. From the conventionalists it has learned the importance of decisions in method-
ology” (Ibid., 38).
35 Nancey Murphy, Theology in the Age of Scientifijic Reasoning (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1990).
 toward a hermeneutical realism 331

entire traditions and types of theological hermeneutics are understood

similarly to SRPs. They are ways of understanding reality, as programs for
accounting for it, given certain core afffijirmations and attendant agendas
which fund these programs.
Murphy sees this as providing an approach to theology that difffers from
that found in the history of religions school, where religions are studied uti-
lizing the methods of the social sciences, and that found among dialectical
theologians, for whom theology is the science of revelation.36 Murphy uses
Lakatos to show how theology can lay claim to knowledge of God “in the age
of probable reasoning.” But I can only afffijirm this with her in a modifijied
manner since I am approaching theological hermeneutics in terms of quali-
tative and linguistic categories rather than the scientifijic and quantitative
ones found in the language of “probable reasoning.”37
Much of the need to borrow from an approach such as Murphy’s is to
account for the tension inherent in the type of hermeneutical realism I am
proposing that must consider how theology is to make theological claims
about the realities of God, God’s revelation, the nature of our world, the
human self and other subjects of theological interpretation, while still tak-
ing into account the inevitable contextuality and fallibility of all claims to
theological understanding. Using aspects of Murphy’s approach is possible

36 According to Murphy, the applicability of Lakatos’ SRPs to theology is dependent

upon: (1) that the description of SRPs is applicable to theological programs (i.e., that it shows
there exists, in any given program, a coherent series of theories that have the formal proper-
ties of a research program), and (2) that, at least occasionally, some theological research
programs are empirically progressive (Ibid., 86).
With (1), I afffijirm that while theology does function as a research program, the focus of her
approach is too cognitive and I will afffijirm below an approach that focuses on human under-
standing as embodied and thus attempts to better account for the dynamic between living
faith and developing beliefs in theological inquiry, reflection and criticism. Regarding (2),
the hermeneutical part of the hermeneutical realism I am advocating entails, with Murphy’s
notion of “data,” that what counts as empirical data is in part constituted by the knower and
the relation of the knower to the known, and not just to the thing known.
37 Ibid., 86–87. Though Murphy more narrowly utilizes “science” in terms of its Anglo-
American sense, theology has been classically understood as scientia, as a certain disciplined
inquiry into what is. This is a sense which can be understood more broadly and thus is better
than the narrower Anglo-American sense which Murphy sees as, essentially, entailing an
inquiry which makes empirical progress in terms of knowledge of the world. For Murphy:
“Christian theology must begin with the Christian tradition (its revelation and the phe-
nomena of the Christian religion), it must proceed to confijirmation vis-à-vis reality
external to the tradition – that is, to contemporary sorts of data – if it is to fulfijill its role
as a science of God…if theology is to be a science at all (in the Anglo-American sense
of ‘science’), then it cannot be merely a study of the Scriptures, but must seek and fijind
some sort of grounding in contemporary empirical data (however ‘empirical’ may be
defijined)” (Ibid., 87).
332 chapter seven

even if I would not go as far as she does in her goal of making theology fol-
low procedures quite similar to those of the natural sciences and become
something akin to a social science.38 Murphy and I share the conviction
that Christian theology is not just the internal discourse of the Church that
has, in the end, no real and transcendent outside referent. But I fijind that the
contextual placement of the people groups among humankind exists “so
that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and fijind him,
though indeed he is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:26–27). So my con-
tention is that while theology is a second order reflection on reality that
occurs in programs of theological inquiry that are never neutral or objec-
tive, they are still attempts to account for the reality of God. Thus my
approach to theological discourse assumes that theological discourse is
something more than a human projection, refusing to grant the “neutral”
ground to reductionistically naturalist criteria.
Murphy’s utilization of Lakatos’ methodology seeks to distinguish “data”
that has a bearing upon the nature of God from that which bears only or
primarily on the psychology or history of religion. While I do not think that
these types of data are ever entirely distinct from one another, Murphy does
helpfully lead the theological interpreter to consider what data is suitable
for theology. But what entails data is not a neutral given: “The categories of
appropriate data must be determined by the content of the research pro-
gram itself.”39 And her categories of appropriate data which count for theol-
ogy represent a broadening of that which counts toward an account of the
world away from reductionistically naturalist ones. Her recurring sugges-
tion is that the discernment of Christian communities provides key data for
Christian theological research programs. “Insofar as devotion and morality
reflect the intentions and actions of God, they provide evidence to support
theories about the nature of God.”40 So “the crucial data for theology are
the results of Christian discernment.”41 This means that “the practice of

38 See Ibid., 168–173. For example, Murphy states that:

“(T)he judgments to which I have called attention meet all the standard requirements
for scientifijic data. They will not be of the same quality (reliability, replicability)
as those of the natural sciences; they may more justly be compared to those of the
human sciences such as psychology. Furthermore, discernment being a practice
available to any group of Christians, theological experimentation is not at all
impossible” (Ibid., 173).
39 Ibid.,130.
40 Ibid., 131.
41 Ibid., 132. For example, Murphy examines and afffijirms as “data” the practices of discern-
ment found in Jonathan Edwards’ understanding of the discernment of experience of God
from merely human experience; the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, especially in relation to
 toward a hermeneutical realism 333

making knowledge claims about God’s activity in human life on the basis of
discernment…[is a] Christian epistemic practice.”42 She holds that discern-
ment includes the one discerning and her language, and it would be a mis-
take to see data as simply external to the discernments themselves. It is also
internal and found in the relationship between the discerning community
and the things discerned.43
Murphy claims that theology’s data is always interpreted according to
the paradigm in which it is operating so that “all facts are theory laden.”44
Observations of the world are not simply observations that every other
competent observer would have; rather, they are influenced by what one
knows and by the language one uses in expressing that knowledge:45
Theories provide patterns within which data appear intelligible. A theory is
not pieced together from observed phenomenon; it is rather what makes it
possible to observe phenomena as being of a certain sort and as related to
other phenomena. This is not to say, of course, that theories create what is
seen, only that theoretical knowledge allows the observer to organize the raw
data of sensation into intelligible patterns. It does leave open the possibility,
however, that there may be more than one intelligible pattern.46
As I have contended throughout, this does not apply just to the relation of
formal theories and data but to all human understanding. Still, Murphy
accounts for the multiple languages that one can speak, within which one
sees and comes to knowledge of the world while still claiming that they are
accounts of the real world. This broadens what can count as a legitimate
inquiry into reality by not legislating criteria beforehand so that margi-
nalized inquiries, like theological ones are in contemporary Western

“consolation” and “desolation”; Anabaptist judgment for determining the Holy Spirit’s work
from one’s own opinion by relying upon the community and Scripture; the early Church’s
need to determine the truth of matters of doctrine, ethics and discipline; and the contempo-
rary Charismatic movement’s internal discernment in recognizing the Spirit’s presence in
one’s own life (Ibid., 133–157).
42 Ibid., 159.
43 This type of a relational view as similar to Yong’s in Spirit-Word-Community (see
Chapter Five). As seen in the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic, especially in the
hermeneutics of Seymour and Mason (see Chapter Two) and more recently as articulated by
Yong, such discernment has been central to Pentecostal theological hermeneutics.
44 Ibid., 163. Murphy fijinds the relationship between theory and data to be problematic in
modernistic methodology: “What appeared to be lacking in the modernist program was a
clear sense of how to isolate data that were independent enough of the theoretical structure
to count as corroboration of it” (Ibid., 175). She rejects such a possibility in order to offfer an
alternative way, following Lakatos, of justifying a theory’s claims.
45 Ibid., 164.
46 Ibid.
334 chapter seven

academic culture, might be allowed to compete.47 And theological herme-

neutics will especially use the communal data of discerning God’s
self-revelation:
Observation of God’s acts and hearing God’s word involve various forms of
perception other than vision. As in science and, in fact, knowledge generally,
we have theory-laden facts. In the clearest cases Christians do not say that they
heard the words of fellow believers and then interpreted them as God’s; rather
they hear God speaking through the human speaker; the community’s discus-
sion or response attempts simply to fijind whether others heard it as well. The
experience comes interpreted, but this is no objection since that is the regular
means by which observation becomes knowledge. The surest way to get from
observations to hypotheses or theories that explain them is to begin with
observations that are already expressed in language suggestive of the causes
or of the explanatory framework. The value for theology of observations
already communally described as acts of God is obvious. In short, if God does
not appear in the facts, his presence in the explanation will always be
suspect.48
Thus the language of observation is intimately linked to the language of
explanation. This leads to the question of how multiple coherent interpre-
tations of their respective data concerning a thing can be judged, especially
if it is given that there is no neutral arbiter.49

47 This also means that the authority of Scripture cannot be legislated beforehand either.
In a theological research program, Murphy thinks that the authority of Scripture must
be built into a program’s hypotheses which support its “hard core” of afffijirmations
(Ibid., 168–172). Thus a Christian theological research program will likely be called upon to
justify the role and authority of Scripture and cannot simply beg the truth of such.
The acceptance of the earlier claim that data is always theory-laden levels the playing fijield
for theology to claim that Scripture is an authority, but it is not a simple appeal to authority
as self-evident, but one that requires justifijication, even if this justifijication is based upon its
self-authentication, as for Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/I, trans. G.T. Thomson (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1936), 213–217.
48 Murphy, Theology in the Age of Scientifijic Reasoning, 164–165.
49 I fijind the question as to if one can participate in multiple paradigms to be an anthro-
pological question which cannot be given a simple yes or no answer. The answer is no in the
sense that, at the most basic level, one’s “faith” cannot be transcended without an evolution
of a paradigm or a conversion in a paradigm shift. That is, there are certain things which one
cannot even conceive of unless there are changes in one’s belief-forming processes. Or some-
one can have experiences which engender new beliefs which were previously thought
impossible or could have not even been conceived of beforehand.
On the other hand, the question can be answered afffijirmatively. It seems that commonly,
humans can explore diffferent approaches to reality, or even operate with diffferent belief
systems, at the same time. The depths of this psychological state could also vary. It could
range from an ability to carefully seek to understand someone else in a manner, that one
attempts to see what the world looks like based on the assumptions of another  – what
Miroslav Volf calls “double vision” in Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of
Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 212–220, 250–253. Or it
could range towards forms of schizophrenia or, spiritually, what the Apostle James criticizes
as “double mindedness” (Jam. 1:8) about one’s deepest spiritual commitments.
 toward a hermeneutical realism 335

This is where the pragmatic test of “empirical progress” found in the

Lakatosian research program comes to the fore. On this model, the program
which produces novel facts is progressive, and therefore a successful pro-
gram, whereas that which fails to make confijirmed predictions is degenera-
tive, and therefore a failing program.50 Despite the slow evolution of
Christian belief and the conservative tendencies of Christian communities,
Murphy fijinds that there is (and she thinks there should be) openness to
new knowledge. A novel fact is that which is not used in the construction of
a theory but whose existence is fijirst documented after that theory is pro-
posed.51 But this should not rule out those new articulations which, while
they offfer an expectation of new experiences (and how could they not?)
provide the language which better accounts for and opens up new
experiences of transcendence as producing novel facts. I fijind Murphy’s
Lakatosian approach benefijicial for construing a way of deciding between
approaches to reality – even if its focus is too cognitive and gives too little
attention to the role of theology in spiritual formation and discipleship.52

50 While I broadly afffijirm this pragmatic testing of a research program (or theological
hermeneutic) as described by Murphy, its placement before Taylor’s notion of superseding
accounts is indicative of my fijinding the latter a better approach since I fijind its notion of a
“gain” to be a broader and better account than “empirical progress.” This is especially because
I fijind the Lakatosian notion of “empirical progress” to be a notion fijirmly in the tradition of
modern scientifijic reasoning whereas the simpler notion of a “gain,” a change in which there
is no profijitable reason to turn back, allows for a wider notion of what progress can entail
while still holding to a pragmatic and experiential notion of advancement.
For Murphy, Lakatos’ distinction between progressive and degenerating research pro-
grams properly serves as a means of rational adjudication between systems so that she
would hold to a “loosely empiricist” worldview (Theology in the Age of Scientifijic Reasoning,
206). I would claim, in conjunction with the articulation of the hermeneutical views I am
espousing below, that pragmatic tests show the presence of a reality which bounds accounts
of it in the connections one makes in second order claims about realities, theological, scien-
tifijic or otherwise. These connections move from the level of hypotheses to those of claims to
those of articles of faith through pragmatic testing in experience. Murphy could be criticized
for employing that article of the “faith” of the Enlightenment that is “progress” as, in actual-
ity, a “criterion” for successful research programs. But denying the recognition of progress as
a form of adjudication would not be so simple. Minimally, progress shows that one is on
track in one’s accounts of reality.
51 Ibid., 168.
52 The inattention to the role theology plays in producing religious experiences is under-
standable given Murphy’s project of accounting for these experiences in a manner that
legitimates them in relation to scientifijic forms of inquiry. She is making a way forward for an
interdisciplinary hermeneutic as she proposes a “nonreductive physicalism” in her anthro-
pology. See idem., “Non-Reductive Physicalism: Philosophical Issues,” in Whatever Happened
to the Soul?: Scientifijic and Theological Portraits of Human Nature, ed. Warren S. Brown,
Murphy and H. Newton Malony (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 127–148. In arguing for a multi-
disciplinary approach to anthropology, she holds that:
“The nonreductive physicalist account of religious experience is valuable in that
it allows believers to accept research on the biological, psychological, and social
336 chapter seven

Approaches that produce new benefijits and achieve new ends pragmatically
demonstrate that they have in some way accounted for what is real in a
productive manner.53
That the type of contextualized understanding of our world I am propos-
ing would recognize that every understanding is always already dependent
on a faith does not entail uncritical fijideism since faith in anything can be
challenged. Paradigms, based as they are on certain items of faith, can be
found strong (progressive) or weak (degenerative). The objection that there
is a hidden foundationalism in the hard core of a SRP or theological research
program is thus more of an observation about the inevitability of one’s
assumptions in formal reflection than a cogent objection to this view.54
The “hard core” of a program can be challenged and found wanting, though
it is the most difffijicult part of the paradigm with which to do so with, and a
successful challenge will lead to degeneration and the likely collapse of the
paradigm for those other than its most faithful adherents.
If, as I have been asserting, a hermeneutic is always interconnected with
an anthropology and buttressed by an ontology which are the result of one’s
epistemic judgments, then it can be seen that the process of interpreting
one’s world, theologically or otherwise, is not simply a linear process.
It is not just a process of forming a correct methodology and then

realization of religious experience. However, without an account of divine action,

religious experience will be reducible to these lower levels in the hierarchy
(of disciplines). The nonreductive physicalist account of nature needs to be completed
by a theological account in which descriptions of divine action supervene on descrip-
tions of natural and historical events, but without being reducible to them. We need to
conceive of the hierarchy of the sciences as incomplete without theology, and espe-
cially to maintain the nonreducibility of theology to other disciplines” (Ibid., 148).
53 Idem., Theology in the Age of Scientifijic Reasoning, 204. I see this in, for instance, the new
reading of God’s present work in the world and of Scripture found in the original Classical
Pentecostal hermeneutic as it produced a new way of being Christian, one that has not only
produced the Classical Pentecostal tradition but has also been the primary tributary to the
Charismatic movement and global pentecostal Christianity worldwide, with such a reading
of reality contributing to the shape of the Christian tradition at large. This has continued
even as this original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic morphed into the various other types
of theological hermeneutics which I have accounted for above.
54 This objection to Murphy’s approach is offfered by F. LeRon Shults, The Post-
foundationalist Task of Theology: Wolfhart Pannenberg and the New Theological Rationality
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 63–65.
The claim that there are “basic beliefs,” beliefs which are legitimate for one to hold to
without resorting to other beliefs, including belief in God, has been notably advocated by
Alvin Plantinga (Warranted Christian Belief, 175–186). Perceptions of the world or the laws of
logic also form “basic beliefs” in his version of Reformed epistemology. Such beliefs have
“warrant,” even if they are still susceptible to being “defeated” by de jure or de facto “defeat-
ers” (Ibid, vii-xi).
 toward a hermeneutical realism 337

implementing it. While this does not entail disregard for method entirely, it
does revise its role away from that of a fijirst science to a more heuristic role.
Without neutral criteria, then how can I give a theological interpretation
of reality as somehow a compelling account of reality, especially in relation
to incompatible alternative accounts? And how does such a paradigm show
it is better than others if it is not the result of a method which uses suppos-
edly neutral criteria?
Charles Taylor has both argued against such supposedly neutral starting
points as found in the tradition of epistemological foundationalism and
offfered a pragmatically-testable alternative in terms of transitions.55 He
speaks of the normal modern model of foundationalist epistemological rea-
soning, especially as it regards moral reasoning, as the “apodictic model”
where common premises must be fijirst assumed. While the early moderns
found at least a few “self-evident” starting points, late moderns saw all fijirst
principles as ultimately assumptions made on good faith. Thus, for either, it
is only possible to use rational arguments with those whom one fijinds
himself in agreement with on basic premises. Taylor sees this “apodictic
model” as having its roots in seventeenth century science which left mod-
ern culture with a naturalist bent that denied the place of human moral and
spiritual intuitions in accounts of reality. This assumption of a neutral
and flat universe “destroyed the Platonic-Aristotelian conception of the
universe as the instantiation of forms.”56 In this vacuum, human moral and
spiritual intuitions were then construed in either the terms of natural theol-
ogy or objected to in the terms of the projectionist objection exemplifijied by
Ludwig Feuerbach.57 But Taylor flips the projectionist objection on its head,
even calling his alternative model the “ad hominem model,” a phrase repre-
senting a move anathematized by modern foundationalist rationality, for
“what in fact ought to trump the ontology implicit in our best attempts to
understand/explain ourselves?”58 And, for Taylor at least, reductionistic
accounts or the “subtraction stories” told by the partisans of modern
secularization are not the best accounts of ourselves and our world.59

55 Charles Taylor, “Explanation and Practical Reason,” Ch. 3 of Philosophical Arguments

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 34–60.
56 Taylor, “Explanation and Practical Reason,” 38.
57 See Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, trans. George Eliot (New York:
Harper, 1957).
58 Taylor, “Explanation and Practical Reason,” 39.
59 See Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2007) for his extended argument.
338 chapter seven

Taylor rejects the quest for criteria in order to adjudicate between basic
claims because this quest is inadequate to handle the moral conundrums
faced by coming to terms with multiple basically assumed principles.60
Rather, he thinks these dilemmas can often be better explained in terms of
transitions.61 One paradigm, with its own criteria not independent from its
ontology, trumps another, superseding it:
You move from A to B via the overcoming of some error-inducing factor, such
as a confusion, an elision, a too-simple palette of possibilities, and the like. It
is clear from the standpoint of B that outlook A was conditioned by this error.
The way of A to B was in fact mediated by the recognition of this error, as one
is confijident that now we are waking and before we were dreaming, because
getting from there to here involved waking up. There is an asymmetry here,
because, to use Ernst Tugendhat’s term, an Erfahrungsweg of this (error-
reducing) kind leads from A to B, but there is no such way of going in the
reverse direction.62
First, Taylor understands moving from paradigm A to B as an epistemic
gain. Second, against the foundationalist approach of arguing that B is
superior to A through third party criteria (C), his supersession argument
holds that it is not the result of neutral criteria but that the shift from A to B
is error-reducing. Third, again against the foundationalist appeal to criteria,
rather than having adherents to both A and B agree on C to adjudicate their
dispute and then to observe who wins the contest, this transition model
fijinds that what is really convincing for adherents to B is usually invisible to
adherents to A. Moving from A to B involves some type of conversion, of
abandoning A for B. But it is not just that there are good reasons which can
only be seen from the standpoint of B and not from A, but that this transi-
tion involves a change of faith, that is, a change in one’s vision or ability to

60 Throughout Taylor’s writings, and especially Sources of the Self, he is often quick to
point out that despite disagreements on this deeper level of moral sources, there is often
signifijicant agreement about moral claims, such as those concerning human rights from
those who hold to diffferent ontologies. He claims that these more fundamental disagree-
ments are often masked by widespread agreements on matters like human rights, and
because of the desire for peace: “there is a great deal of motivated suppression of moral
ontology among our contemporaries, in part because the pluralist nature of modern society
makes it easier to live that way, but also because of the great weight of modern epistemol-
ogy…and, behind this, of the spiritual outlook associated with this epistemology” (Sources of
the Self, 10).
61 Here, Taylor fijinds signifijicant continuity between his approach to transitions and
Kuhn’s paradigm shift, Taylor, “Explanation and Practical Reason,” 47.
62 Taylor, “A Philosopher’s Postscript: Engaging the Citadel of Secular Reason,” in Reason
and the Reasons of Faith, eds. Paul J. Grifffijiths and Reinhard Hütter (New York; London: T&T
Clark, 2005), 340.
 toward a hermeneutical realism 339

see which usually occurs as one recognizes that such a change will over-
come previous errors or obstacles that one’s previous paradigm could not.63
Yet this is far from a claim of total adequacy for such an account, whether
scientifijic, theological or moral.64
Taylor understands our epistemology to be that which functions in order
to form our best account of reality, and this best account is what it means to
best “make sense” of our lives.65 But he does not think of epistemology in
terms of the self construed by the modern foundationalist tradition. In that
tradition of clear and distinct ideas, the subject is, fijirst, ideally disengaged
from her natural and social worlds. Second, the self is punctual, ideally free
and rational to instrumentally change and reorganize her world to secure a
better world for herself and others. Third, as a result of the above, society is
construed atomistically in terms of individuals bound together by a social
contract.66 Against the empiricist tradition in philosophy, Taylor fijinds the

63 Ibid., 340–342. An earlier form of this supersession model of transitions can be found
in Taylor’s “Explanation and Practical Reason,” 43–53. In it, Taylor fijinds three models of such
transitions. In the fijirst, X and Y are checked against that which are taken as the facts, seeing
which can best predict or explain them. The score is kept like a sporting event. The second is
stronger, the ability of one theory to incorporate the other and explain both on its own terms
explains the success of one over the other, of Y over X. The third and strongest is when Y can
be shown to be not just as a gain over X but as the superior explanation, the one that can best
all other known comers. See also idem., Sources of the Self, 72.
64 To those who would claim that continual supersession is inevitable and it thus demon-
strates the irrationality of such supersession, I fijind at least two rejoinders. First, pragmatic
tests can and do give us compelling reasons, which we regularly base our daily lives upon, for
seeing one paradigm as superior to another. But a paradigm that succeeds another is not
necessarily superior because a situation could occur where there could be good reasons to
revert to a previous paradigm as superior. And there is no defijinitive and fijinal way for humans,
with our epistemic fijinitude, to conclusively prove such superiority. Yet this does not
preclude us from being compelled to see its superiority given our experience and
understanding.
Second, this objection would be an instance of what Pol Vandevelde calls the “future-
perfect fallacy” which consists in speaking in the future perfect. In response to Gadamer’s
use of this fallacy, that “I now qualify what I say because, fijifty years from now, it will have
been shown that I fused my horizon with the horizon of the text,” Vandevelde says, “this
future perspective, strictly speaking, cannot belong to interpreters. Thus, an interpreter can-
not say, at the price of sinking into pragmatic difffijiculties, ‘My interpretation is true, but of
course I can be wrong.’ To such an interpreter it could be replied that he does not know what
true means, that he does not master what Ludwig Wittgenstein would call the grammar of
the term true” [Pol Vandevelde, The Task of the Interpreter: Text, Meaning, and Negotiation
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), 31].
Accounts or interpretations are claims to speak of what is true, and they are usually not
claims to total adequacy and are only occasionally claims to defijinitively accounting for
something. In fact, claims to truth could be alternatively considered in terms of drawing out
aspects of what is real, revealing truth about it to some measure or another.
65 Taylor, Sources of the Self, 58.
66 Taylor, “Overcoming Epistemology,” Ch. 1 of Philosophical Arguments, 7–8.
340 chapter seven

necessity of holding to transcendental conditions for knowledge such that

there are indispensable conditions for there being anything like experience
or awareness of the world. He fijinds this critique of the empiricists in Kant’s
transcendental conditions, which focus on the mind of the subject for hav-
ing experiences, as well as in Heidegger’s critique where the knower and the
known are a complex together, a “clearing” (Lichtung).67
As subjects efffectively engaged in the activities of getting to perceive and
know the world, we are capable of identifying certain conditions without
which our activity would fall apart into incoherence. The philosophical
achievement is to defijine the issues properly. Once this is done, as Kant does so
brilliantly in relation to Humean empiricism, we fijind there is only one ratio-
nal answer. Plainly we couldn’t have experience of the world at all if we had to
start with a swirl of uninterepreted data. Indeed, there would be no “data,”
because even this minimal description depends on our distinguishing what is
given by some objective source from what we merely supply ourselves.68
Heidegger further shows how we are agents in our world even while we are
investigating it, that we are always standing within language and within a
shared life with others in understanding our world.69 Taylor, like James K.A.
Smith (see Chapter Five), gives Pentecostal theology the ability to follow
Heidegger’s insights on these matters without falling into the methodologi-
cal atheism and amorality embedded in Heidegger’s thought.
Additionally, Taylor’s notion of a strong evaluation is essential to his
approach here as such evaluations, which are always conditioned by com-
munal and linguistic considerations, are discriminations about that which
makes life worth living. They go all the way down, or, as Taylor puts it, “up,”
to that which may be called the “spiritual.” They are discriminations
between “right or wrong, better or worse, higher or lower, which are not
rendered valid by our own desires, inclinations, or choices, but rather stand
independent of these and offfer standards by which they can be judged.”70

67 Ibid., 9.
68 Ibid., 11.
69 Ibid., 12. Heidegger’s “ready at hand” where Dasein is always already taking things as
something before one scientifijically investigates it as “present at hand” redefijines the situa-
tion of human understanding of the world so that one can never simply stand apart from
one’s shared life with others. See his Being and Time: A Translation of Sein und Zeit, trans.
Joan Stambaugh (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996).
70 Idem., Sources of the Self, 4. Taylor’s sympathies seem to lay with the Augustinian tra-
jectory of going inward to go “upward.” See “In Interiore Homine,” Ch. 7 of Sources of the Self
(127–142).This is similar in some regards to Smith’s use of Augustine, briefly recounted in
Chapter Five of this project.
 toward a hermeneutical realism 341

A moral and spiritual realism is here met with a hermeneutical pragmatism

concerning human understanding.
Such an approach can be benefijicial for Pentecostal theological herme-
neutics, and there are both biblical and experiential reasons for this. Along
the lines already developed by Smith in The Fall of Interpretation, a case can
be strongly made that it is modern epistemology that bows before the idol
of certainty in its attempts to overcome human fijinitude and in its aggran-
dized vision of the human. This stands over and against the biblical tradi-
tion of humility before the holy otherness of God and its confessions of the
brevity of human life and the limitations of human knowledge.71 Accounts
of human understanding which claim to hold total and defijinitive claims to
knowledge have tended to fail miserably and produce oppression through-
out human history.72 Yet this does not mean that human understanding,
theological or otherwise, might be held with anything less than strong
confijidence.
But must theology always function in paradigms? Must it always be sys-
tematic? Is it legitimate, and even more truthful, at least at times, for theol-
ogy to speak of fragmentation? Can it speak from a fragmented horizon?
The multiplicity of paradigms and the truth found in fragmented knowl-
edge function to properly constrain and raise questions, note anomalies
concerning our paradigms, and offfer reminders that our paradigms are sim-
ply our best accounts of our world. My view is not the only legitimate one
that can be had or story that can be told.
This does not mean, though, that the Christian gospel is just one story
among many others because the Christian claim is that it is – ultimately –
not a human story but God’s story. It is other to our paradigms though
mediated by them, a story for which we give our own accounts which
cannot, in themselves, simply be equated with God’s story. Further, the
Scriptures themselves give us sufffijicient reason to believe that God’s story is
not a simple and static reality but God’s dynamic revelation in the economy
of salvation history. And one way to conceive of this in relation  to the
question of truth in general is with Miroslav Volf, who has suggested that
God’s truth be considered “panlocal” – that “God’s truth is not simply one
among many perspectives, but the truth about each and all perspectives.”73

71 I could equally criticize the opposite error of the total indeterminacy of meaning and
utter contingency of reality as just as “unbiblical.”
72 See Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 193–231.
73 Ibid., 251.
342 chapter seven

The fragmentary can thus be more legitimate than the systematic if the
systematic negates other legitimate perspectives. However, any approach
to understanding that operates with any consistency begins to form a para-
digm. Thus paradigms are inevitable, as even a program for deconstruction
or fragmentation is just that, a program or paradigm, even if it is one which
has at its core noting and celebrating discontinuity and diffference.

2.3. The Hermeneutic Responsibility toward the Real

As aforementioned, realism has come under signifijicant criticism in con-
temporary thought as the denial of a one-to-one correlation between
human concepts and the things conceptualized has gained ascendance
since Kant, and has become canonical in much of late modern and post-
modern thought. My contention, however, is that some level of correspon-
dence between our accounts of things and the things themselves is
necessary, that non-realism is not an acceptable alternative. When prag-
matically tested, non-realism is found wanting. I put forth, instead, that a
hermeneutical realism is a much better alternative. Such a realism does not
mistake its categories or its speech for the world in itself. In fact, this kind of
realism recognizes the way in which language comes to constitute the world
in which one dwells. On the other hand, it recognizes the otherness of the
things of which it speaks and seeks to respect them in this otherness.
Rather than allowing for a false epistemic humility to imply the simple
indeterminacy of interpretation, it mandates engaging in acts of herme-
neutic responsibility toward the real world in its otherness. Yet reality is
understood as historical and fijinite, constituted in previous constructions of
the past which are related to and interpreted in the present. Even God’s
self-revelation is incarnate, as Smith contends in line with Aquinas’ princi-
ple (see Chapter Five), so that revelation is received according to the mode
of the receiver. In all interpretation of creation and culture, and of course
qualitatively more so for God’s self-revelation, there is surplus in our inter-
pretation of the interpreted thing and of the thing itself in relation to our
interpretation of it. That this entire approach entails that better or worse
cannot be universally proven does not deny the truth of this ideal nor its
pragmatic function, especially as such ultimately rests in all of creation’s
relation to God, and even if this may only be eschatologically verifijied.74

74 This concept of eschatological verifijication is notably found throughout the work of

Wolfhart Pannenberg.
 toward a hermeneutical realism 343

In the meantime, it is justifijiable to afffijirm the hard core of our faith as we

seek to understand God, ourselves and our world as the limited and flawed
creatures that we are.

2.4. Fides Quarens Intellectum: Faith and Theology

Anselm’s classic formulation of theology as “faith seeking understanding”
(fijides quarens intellectum) afffijirms a helpful and necessary distinction
between faith as a fijirst order matter of experience and theology as a second
order matter of sustained inquiry and reflection. Its importance for
Pentecostal theological understanding has already been pointed out by
Smith. In responding to criticisms of anti-intellectualism in the Pentecostal
tradition coming from the Evangelical historian Mark Noll, he rejects Noll’s
identity for theology as that of the queen of the academic disciplines. He is
concerned that faith will be pushed under the grid of a narrow version of
orthodoxy and not allowed to, in turn, serve to correct theology. Such an
understanding like Noll’s, Smith contests, conflates faith and theology in a
problematic way.75 He considers that faith is pretheoretical while theology
is theoretical.
When the pretheoretical/theoretical distinction is conflated, faith – which is
not theoretical but precedes theory – is forced into a theoretical mode and
eventually becomes equated with theological propositions or formulations.
Further, the failure to make this distinction creates a confusion between faith
and the theological formulations which attempt to articulate or express that
faith.76

75 James K.A. Smith, “Scandalizing Theology: A Pentecostal Response to Noll’s Scandal,”

PNEUMA 19:2 (Fall 1997): 225–238. See Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994). The distinction between “faith” and “theology” or “the-
ology 1” and “theology 2” in Smith’s thought is recounted in Chapter Five. In “Scandalizing
Theology,” Smith argues that Pentecostalism is not anti-intellectual in the sense of being
opposed to disciplined inquiry, though he decries the absolutism of the Fundamentalism
that has crept into Pentecostalism as being anti-intellectual. He contends that such is not
at the root of Pentecostalism in its origins. Further, he suggests that the lack of interest
in bourgeois scholarship among Pentecostals is a result of its traditional location among
the poor and in its concern for the poor, which entails a lack of time and resources for
leisurely scholarship. Hence Smith speaks of the “Book of Praxeis” (Acts) as the Pentecostal
“manifesto.”
76 Smith, “Scandalizing Theology,” 232.
344 chapter seven

This distinction is even buttressed by psychological research.77 Beyond this,

Smith holds that theological formulations always are exceeded by the
experience of faith.78
Such a distinction between faith and theology is necessary in the
paradigmatic model of theology I am proposing as an understanding of the
task of theology. The formal development of a theological hermeneutic
is a theoretical project, but one based upon one’s own commitments.
A program occurs within the assumptions of one’s own tradition and with
the presuppositions of its participants, both on communal and individual
levels, and both tacitly and explicitly. Faith (pistis) is that which a commu-
nity and/or individual have found to be trustworthy through experience
of the world. Since, in line with phenomenology’s approach to formal
inquiry, it is better to claim that doing theology is a mode of experience
constituted by disciplined inquiry, reflection and criticism concerning one’s
faith, but it cannot be done apart from or without faith.
The quest for understanding that is theology is a form of inquiry, reflec-
tion and criticism that not only makes faith explicit but develops a person
or a community’s faith. Thus this distinction cannot be pressed too far but
ought to be understood as a relationship between intuitive experience,
which has already been established in a person’s way of life, and inquiry,
reflection or criticism about that faith or the faith of others. Theology relates
itself back to faith when its fijindings become the assumptions or convic-
tions that produce this way of life, which continue this dialogical move-
ment as they again can later be revisited through inquiry, reflection and
criticism.79 The relationship between thought and practice can be well

77 Daniel Kahneman, in his Nobel Prize winning research on decision making with Amos
Tversky, has noted “two generic modes of cognitive function: an intuitive mode in which
judgments and decisions are made automatically and rapidly and a controlled mode, which
is deliberate and slower” [Kahneman, “A Perspective on Judgment and Choice: Mapping
Bounded Rationality,” American Psychologist 58:9 (September 2003): 697]. The intuitive
mode corresponds to lived experiences of faith and the controlled mode to theological
inquiry, reflection and criticism.
78 Ibid., 245–246.
79 For example, the reflections of Charles H. Mason on his spiritual experience at the
Azusa Street Revival (see Chapter Two) is an instance where a spiritual hermeneutic, which
sought to determine what was particularly occurring in the spiritual battle which he was a
part of during his time in Los Angeles, moved into a theological hermeneutic in that he later
had a formal experience of reflection where he drew theological understanding from his
experience of spiritual discernment. Thus the discernments he made coming from his spiri-
tual hermeneutic, which was already informed by his theological hermeneutic to begin with,
his Holiness hermeneutic, in turn provided further material for theological reflection, for
forming his understanding of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. His spiritual hermeneutic
served as a hermeneutic of Christian spiritual life which allowed him to reflect on the
 toward a hermeneutical realism 345

accounted for with another of Charles Taylor’s concepts, that of the “social
imaginary.” As an implicit map of our social space, a social imagination is
“something much broader and deeper than the intellectual schemes people
may entertain when they think about social reality in a disengaged mode.”80
A key aspect of Pentecostal theological hermeneutics is a spiritual herme-
neutics which cannot be conceived of individualistically but must be con-
ceived of in relation to larger Christian communities. A spiritual imagination,
like Yong’s “pneumatological imagination” (see Chapter Five), functions as
both a subject matter for interpreting God’s work in the world and as the
horizon from which a Pentecostal interprets.81 Such a background for
understanding together in a social imaginary can never be adequately
expressed or articulated in theories because of its very nature as unlimited
and indefijinite.82 Though Taylor has shown that theory does, although not
necesarily, trickle down into the social imagination, and that is why such a
function as doing theology is necessary and profijitable.83

2.5. Meaning, Reality and Hermeneutic Responsibility

Thus theology seeks to speak, producing more and better understanding.
But what it speaks is never simply a given. My contention is that it is the
confession of embodied and contextualized actors who seek to speak for
themselves and/or their communities concerning faith in that which is
ultimate. My further contention is that its task is to speak meaningfully.

particularities of his experiences of (what was becoming) Pentecostal faith and, in turn,
open up space for both more experiences of Pentecostal living and for his developing
Pentecostal theology.
80 Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham, NC and London: Duke University
Press, 2004), 23. Taylor’s notion of the “social imaginary” difffers from social theory, he con-
tends, in three key ways: 1) it deals with how “ordinary” people imagine their world, which
usually comes in images, stories and legends, 2) it is shared by large groups of people and not
just theory privy to a group of experts, and 3) it is common understanding, and as such it
makes a wide range of practices possible through a shared sense of legitimacy (Ibid).
Taylor observes that “for most of human history and for most of social life, we function
through the grasp we have on the common repertory, without benefijit of theoretical over-
view. Humans operated with a social imaginary well before they ever got into the business of
theorizing about themselves” (Ibid, 26). Still, doing theology serves as a special mode of sus-
tained reflection upon all in relation to God.
81 The entirety of Part II of Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 119–218, is the thickest develop-
ment of such an approach by a Pentecostal theologian.
82 Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries, 25.
83 Most notably, Taylor has argued that the social imagination of the “modern moral
order” in Western democratic culture can be traced to the theories of governance found in
Hugo Grotius and John Locke (Ibid., 3–22).
346 chapter seven

To speak meaningfully, I contend, is to express a faith that constitutes a

world. But it is also to claim that it is an account which can be called true,
even if it is never comprehensive or complete in its understanding, that it is
always fijinite and situated.
This means reframing much of the contemporary debate among
Pentecostals over hermeneutics. The debate which ensued after some rep-
resentatives of the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic criticized the
author-centered hermeneutics of the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic
(see Chapter Five) assumed an unfortunate and unnecessary either/or
choice. The assumption about where the “meaning” of a text lays was con-
sidered to be either – as in the Hirschian school of thought – in the author’s
intentional meaning or – as in the Gadamerian line of thinking – in the
fusion of horizons of the reader and the text. The debaters talked past one
another. The Pentecostals who followed the Hirschian school emphasized
the moral implications of offfering valid interpretations of a text which are
faithful to the authorial intent that might be identifijied with regard to the
text. The Pentecostals who followed the Gadamerian line of thinking, on
the other hand, emphasized the phenomenological aspects of what takes
place in the process of interpretation, especially where the reader’s linguis-
tic and conceptual horizon fuses itself onto the horizon of the text. But
there is an alternative to the mutual exclusion assumed by some Pentecostals
who have followed one or the other of these approaches.
In his approach to interpretation, the philosopher Pol Vandevelde has
maintained that this either/or choice be rejected for a both/and afffijirma-
tion. His approach does this by providing an understanding of interpreta-
tion as both act and event. He bases this claim on the way in which
interpreters do in fact operate. “Most interpreters in their practice would
assent to points made by monists and pluralists alike.”84 Those who cham-
pion pluralism do want to be interpreted according to what they meant
while those who advocate monism are quick to concede in practice that
they as interpreters come to texts, consciously and unconsciously, with
questions, concerns and methods which they are not neutrally bringing to
the text.
I take this capacity for monism and pluralism to cohabit at the empirical level
of practice of interpretation as an indication that the debate between monism
and pluralism is formulated in the wrong terms. The two positions constitute
not a dichotomy but rather two theoretical positions on two diffferent aspects

84 Vandevelde, Task of the Interpreter, 3.

 toward a hermeneutical realism 347

of interpretation. I call these two aspects act and event. By event I mean the
fact that we as speakers and interpreters participate in a culture and a lan-
guage that carry with them concepts, values, and habits of which we might
not be aware, so that our interpretation is also something taking place in a
tradition. By act, I mean an act of consciousness: someone interpreting a text
makes a statement or an utterance and through his or her act is committed
regarding the truth of what is said, his or her truthfulness, and the rightness or
appropriateness of what is said, so that, if prompted, the interpreter must be
ready to defend the interpretation made regarding these claims.85
He thus tempers the claims of the constructivists, that is, those who under-
stand interpretation as a projection of one’s own horizon onto a text, and
other forms of pluralism, with the moral impetus necessary in the act of
interpreting communicative actions.86 Interpretation is to be assessed from
both a third-person perspective where what happens during interpretation
is examined and a fijirst-person perspective where the interpreter has
responsibilities in her task.
Seeing interpretation from each of these perspectives alone has entailed
a view of “meaning” that has conflicted strongly with that of the other.
Vandevelde, instead, offfers an alternative account of the meaning of “mean-
ing,” a three-fold account. There are three levels of the meaning of a text:
(1) the author’s intention – what someone meant by writing the text to be
interpreted; (2) the literal meaning – what the text says, given the individual
meanings of words and the composed meanings of sentences; (3) the repre-
sentative content – what the text as a whole means in the sense of what it
represents.87
This is based on there being both semiotic and intentional aspects to
meaning:
When we put together these two levels of meaning, semiotic and intentional,
it appears that these two levels of meaning in one sense precede the speaker:
she has to make use of words as existing in her language and she has to borrow

85 Ibid., 4.
86 Vandevelde explains this in light of interpretation being both event and act:
“Interpretation is also an act of consciousness where an intention is expressed through
statements, so that interpretation is a performance by a real person who relates to
other people. Through their performance (writing a series of statements, presenting
those statements in an ordered fashion, justifying the validity of those statements,
etc.), interpreters are implicitly bound by what they wrote and committed to their
audience, so that, if prompted, they must be ready to justify their interpretation. The
mistake of many advocates of pluralism is to focus exclusively on the event of interpre-
tation and overlook the pragmatic aspect of interpretation as act” (Ibid, 4–5).
87 Ibid., 11.
348 chapter seven

what are acceptable intentional states in her community; however, because

there is on her part a choice both of words and intentional states, she is
accountable for what she said and expressed. When we apply these consider-
ations to a text, its meaning cannot just be either what the words and sen-
tences mean or what the author meant. Meaning, in other words, cannot just
be either semiotic (language speaks) or mental (the author’s thought). The
meaning of the text is both semiotic and mental: it is what the sentences
mean as made up of the words written and as chosen by the author as convey-
ing those intentional states that a speaker of this language would understand.
Because we have this interaction between two levels of meaning in the text
itself, we cannot simply distinguish between two moments – for example, a
verbal meaning and the signifijicance this meaning has for readers – as Hirsch
does, or between what lies in the text and what we impute to the text, as in
Margolis. Before any signifijicance (Hirsch) or imputation (Margolis), we
already have two moments, semiotic and metnal. The signifijicance or imputa-
tion is in fact a third level of meaning, what I call the representative content
of the text.88
Such an account of meaning offfers a much stronger account for the herme-
neutical realism I am advocating for Pentecostal theological hermeneutics
than the trajectories laid out by the projects of Hirsch or Gadamer.
This is because, I claim, the location of the “meaning” of any thing to be
interpreted is a claim which is supported by an entire approach to reality.
The theories of meaning which focus on interpretation as event tend to
work in an immanent frame which seeks to describe the “is” of an interpre-
tation without prescribing any “oughts” about such acts. The claim, such as
that espoused by Hirsch and the Pentecostal hermeneuts who have fol-
lowed him, that the meaning of a text is in the author’s verbal intent is a
claim about the moral obligation of interpreters to the origination of a text.
It is a metaphysical claim that meaning resides in the author’s intent, and it
is a moral claim that an interpreter should respect this place as its locale.
But it does not sufffijiciently account for langue, the communally available
language, nor for the expressive-constitutive role of language which Taylor
has argued for and I will recount below.
But this is not to say that the authorship of a text does not have an
important role to play in the text’s otherness and the responsibility an inter-
preter has in interpreting it well. Rather, it is to hold that the author is not
autonomous but is interconnected with the language she is using and the
subject matter which she is disclosing. But the view of the meaning of a

88 Ibid., 10–11. The references to Margolis are to Joseph Margolis, “Works of Art as
Physically Embodied and Culturally Emergent Entities,” British Journal of Aesthetics 14:3
(Summer 1974): 187–196; and Art and Philosophy (Brighton, UK: Harvester, 1980).
 toward a hermeneutical realism 349

thing interpreted which I am promoting here for Pentecostal theological

hermeneutics is one that holds that it is something other than what an
interpreter herself produces in an interpretation, itself a subsequent mean-
ing-producing activity. My interpreting a written text or other sign comes in
relation to my understanding the subject matter (relating to Vandevelde’s
third level), the langue in which the parole occurs (relating to his second),
and how the author uses the words chosen to articulate his understanding
of the matter at hand (relating to his fijirst).89 By calling what I construct,
using these elements, an interpretation, I am making a relational and moral
statement that my understanding is not identical with the author’s inten-
tion nor can it claim authority over the text as its meaning. Rather, I am
responsible for it as my understanding or interpretation.
Vanhoozer has pointed out that “author” is etymologically linked to
“authority,” as both terms are rooted in the concept of origination. The mod-
ern concept of authorship, he suggests, is related to the Enlightenment
“turn to the subject,” the author is an autonomous maker of meaning. On
such a view, the author is the “Master” and language his “Slave.” The rise of
historical consciousness and the “linguistic turn” have critiqued this
approach by countering that the author (and reader) is really “Slave” to his
“Master” language. Instead, he suggests as an alternative that we are, and
should view ourselves as, “Citizens” of language. With similar efffect as
Vandevelde’s distinction between “event” and “act,” Vanhoozer emphasizes
the diffference between langue, that is, language as a formal  code, and
parole, language in its actual use. While the former refers to the conditions
of understanding and interpreting, the latter deals with the function of lan-
guage in communication.90 Heidegger, Gadamer, Derrida and the post-
structuralists have overemphasized langue; Hirsch and author-centered
hermeneutic theorists have not sufffijiciently recognized it. Offfering helpful
alternatives, both Vandevelde and Vanhoozer make moves toward recogniz-
ing what is publicly available in determining “meaning” by working with
Jürgen Habermas’ notion of communicative action.91 If, while interpreting,
someone is so bold to say what the text “means,” as it is normal to do in our
colloquial language, the interpreter is usually still implying that there is a

89 The langue/parole distinction comes from Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General

Linguistics, trans. Wade Baskin (New York: McGraw Hill, 1959).
90 Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?, 203–204.
91 See Jürgen Habermas, “Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical
Justifijication,” in his Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian
Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 43–115; and
“Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action,” in Ibid., 116–194.
350 chapter seven

diffference in the meaning he has constructed in his interpretation and,

in its technical sense, its meaning (at any of Vandevelde’s three levels),
and I am responsible for justifying why my interpretation is a legitimate
one, even if I in no way claim that it is the only.
Yet such a move must still not overestimate the human capacity for
understanding. Nor can it shirk its responsibility to seek to understand as it
is for another. Recognizing the expressive-constitutive dimension of human
language helps, I contend, to better frame the situation of hermeneutics.
Taylor has done this by diffferentiating between two dimensions of mean-
ingful objects or signs: the designative and the expressive. With the designa-
tive we explain a sign or word as having meaning by pointing to what it
designates, that to which it has reference.92 Yet this is contested by an
expressive-constitutive dimension, anticipated before its wider recognition
in late modernity by several German Romantics, especially by Johann
Gottfried von Herder,93 where something is embodied in a way that it is

Habermas relies on the structures of intersubjectivity in communicative action in order to

develop what he sees as the rules of discourse ethics which will bring about proper and non-
manipulative modes of rationally redeeming one’s moral claims. His theory of communica-
tive action provides an ethical structure for moral discourse. He recognizes the claims of the
linguistic turn by granting that moral discussions are rooted in tradition and language; how-
ever, he argues that tradition can and must be criticized.
Habermas proposes that there are three criteria which competent speech acts must meet
in order to be valid communicative acts: truth, rightness and truthfulness. A speech act in
the objective world, that is, “the world” of scientifijic investigation, is valid if it is true. Sense
perceptions lead to constative actions, that is, statements about states of afffairs. To perform
a competent communicative act in the objective world, one must speak what is true about
the objective world. But in the normative world, that is, “our world” of human interaction, a
speech act is valid if it is right. Rightness, according to Habermas, exists in an analogous
manner to truth. The third criterion is that of truthfulness in the subjective world, “my
world,” the aesthetic world of self-expression. This requires sincerity in expression by the
communicator. For helpful discussion of Habermas on this matter from a theological per-
spective, see Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?, 217–18, 223–24, 343–45, 400–401.
92 Charles Taylor, “Language and Human Nature,” Ch. 9 in Human Agency and Language:
Philosophical Papers, vol. 1 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 215–247.
Modern post-Enlightenment philosophy of language came to see thought mirroring or rep-
resenting things and that the role of language ought to strive for transparency. Taylor sees the
roots of this theory in Medieval nominalism’s rejection of essentialism. Language groups
particulars into classes which do not exist as universal essences or Platonic ideas. But an
Augustinian (an expressivist theory of meaning) also held the world as a meaningful order,
where everything is a sign of God’s speech, if we can see it properly. Yet the post-Enlighten-
ment theory came to see language as an instrument of control in the assembling of ideas in
mental discourse, mirroring nature. This is why defijinitions became so important in modern
thought (Ibid, 222–227).
93 Ibid., 227; and idem., “The Importance of Herder,”Ch. 5 in Philosophical Arguments
(Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 1995), 79–99.
 toward a hermeneutical realism 351

made manifest.94 And this is the dimension Taylor argues is primary, not
the designative. On this view, the whole web of language and its particulars
are interrelated and inseparable.95 And it understands the constant chang-
ing and shaping in language as opening a new non-static dimension of
understanding reality.
If language serves to express/realize a new kind of awareness; then it may not
only make possible a new awareness of things, an ability to describe them; but
also new ways of feeling, of responding to things. If in expressing our thoughts
about things, we can come to have new thoughts; then in expressing our feel-
ings, we can come to have transformed feelings.96
This occurs in speech communities where the activity of language creates
self-understanding in dialogue so that our speech about ourselves also
comes, in part, to constitute ourselves.97 Our naming of ourselves, our
world, our experiences, and so on, is itself expressive and constitutive.
Taylor thus considers that the activity of language does three primary
things. First, we formulate things in language and thus articulate ourselves,
bringing things to our explicit awareness, focusing what is expressed and
then delimiting its boundaries. Second, it enables us to place things in pub-
lic spaces and thus creates public, shared space. Third, and critically, it pro-
vides the medium for our most important concerns, especially, for Taylor,
the moral.98 On this approach, language does not just point to things; it also
discloses worlds, cultures and faiths.

94 Idem., “Language and Human Nature,” 219.

95 Taylor elaborates that:
“This expressive doctrine thus presents us with a very diffferent picture of language
from the empiricist one. Language is not an assemblage of separable instruments,
which lie as it were transparently to hand, and which can be used to marshal ideas, this
use being something we can fully control and oversee. Rather it is something in the
nature of a web, and to complicate the image, is present as a whole in any one of its
parts. To speak is to touch a bit of the web, and this is to make the whole resonate.
Because the words we use now only have sense through their place in the whole web,
we can never in principle have a clear oversight of the implications of what we say at
any moment. Our language is always more than we can encompass; it is in a sense
inexhaustible” (Ibid, 231).
96 Ibid., 232–233.
97 Taylor’s understanding of language, and thus human identity, is dialogical:
“If language must be seen primarily as activity, if it is what is constantly created and
recreated in speech, then it becomes relevant to note that the primary locus of speech
is conversation. We speak together, to each other. Language is fashioned and grows not
principally in monologue but dialogue or, better, in the life of the speech community”
(idem., “The Importance of Herder,” 98).
98 Idem., “Theories of Meaning,” Ch. 10 in Human Agency and Language, 260–263.
352 chapter seven

Drawing upon this understanding of language, my claim is that the

Classical Pentecostal tradition itself is in part constituted by its expression
of faith in its theological language as a response to God’s actions. The birth
of the Pentecostal movement (which has since become a tradition) itself
occurred with the articulation of the expectation of an action of the Spirit
in relation to believers as baptism in the Spirit. Since its fijirst articulations, it
has since engendered a broadened and (still) developing complex of belief
and experience.99 Even the various articulations about the relation of glos-
solalia to baptism in the Spirit – as “the sign,” or “Bible evidence,” or “initial,
physical evidence,” or “a sign” – have variously invoked diffferent expecta-
tions and experiences.
On the one hand, I would argue that a chastened form of realism must be
maintained as each of these articulations cannot be simply held to be as
good of an account of the Spirit’s ways as the next. On the other hand, my
approach to theological hermeneutics in terms of paradigms also entails
the possibility that multiple accounts may, and most often do, provide a
better and fuller account of the varied work of God in the world. This is to
make the Pentecostal claim that God does not always act in the same ways
among all peoples, though God’s people are one body and have one Spirit,
one Lord, and one God and Father of all (Eph. 4:4–5). But we articulate
and testify to our lived experience of faith diffferently.
Such a hermeneutical realism is ultimately an eschatological realism
and, as such, is provisional. Since reality itself is dynamic and human under-
standing fijinite, our speech concerning it can in no way be conclusive and
entirely defijinitive, grasping it as Vanhoozer’s “Master.” While the real world
is experienced presently, in the Christian understanding what is real in the
fullest sense is the future that is in God, in God’s kingdom that has already
begun to break in, not the immaterial realm of the forms or the efffects of
matter. It is the coming of the kingdom of God in its fullness. This approach
thus stands in line with Grenz’s vision for Christian theology that seeks to
articulate the truth of God’s revelation and future kingdom both faithfully
and provisionally.100 In the meantime, the recognition of the contextuality

     99 This points is illuminated by the manner in which, right at the origins of Pentecostalism,
baptism in the Spirit came to constitute something diffferent for Parham and Seymour after
Parham’s rejection of Seymour’s practices at the Azusa Street Revival (see Chapter Two).
100 Grenz articulates the implications of Christian eschatology for theological
understanding:
“The divine eschatological world is the realm in which all creation fijinds its connected-
ness in Jesus Christ (Col. 1:17) who is the logos or the Word (John 1:1), that is, the order-
ing principle of the cosmos as God intends it to be. The centrality of Christ in the
 toward a hermeneutical realism 353

of the composition of texts, their transmission and their interpreters is the

best way to achieve both faithfulness and responsibility in interpretation.
Interpretation itself is a secondary meaning-producing event which, as an
action of an interpreter and community of interpreters, implies responsibil-
ity to the text and those involved with its composition and their communi-
cative actions, as far as such can be construed. The theologian thus works
with written texts and other signs as texts to constructively articulate
understandings of the world in light of God. Yet these understandings are
not just cognitive but are also embedded in the embodied practices of faith
in God. Yong envisions this in his understanding of truth in dynamic terms,
combining pragmatic, coherence and correspondence notions of truth.
Truth is understood as both aletheia – as unveiling and manifesting that
which is, and as performative – as one lives truthfully and faithfully. I thus
concur with Yong that the full truth of things can only be known in the “infiji-
nite long run.”101
As seen in the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic, Pentecostals have
often embraced – and, perhaps largely still do – an approach to theology
that is primarily concerned with developing the right doctrines or belief
system. But even a key fijigure for this hermeneutic like Robert Menzies
acknowledges that systematic theology is itself contextualized, diffferentiat-
ing it from biblical theology where our task is to listen to the biblical authors:
In systematic theology we frequently begin with the agenda and questions of
our contemporary setting. We bring the pressing questions of our day to the
biblical text and, as we wrestle with the implications that emerge from the
text for our questions, we seek to answer them in a manner consistent with
the biblical witness. In systematic theology, we do not simply sit passively,
listening to the discussion at the round table. Rather, we bring our questions

eschatological world of God’s making suggests that the grammar that constructs the
‘real’ world focuses on the narrative of Jesus given in Scripture. Further, the dynamic in
the construction of this linguistic world is the Holy Spirit, who by speaking through
Scripture creates the eschatological world in, among, and through us. The Spirit seeks
to bring us to view all of life in accordance with God’s creative program in fashioning a
universe in accordance with Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, so that we might inhabit a
world that truly reflects God’s purposes for creation. In short, in contrast to the driving
vision of much of modern science, the Christian faith refuses to posit a universe with-
out recourse to the biblical God who is ‘the Creator of the heavens and the earth.’ And
the only ultimate perspective from which that universe can be viewed is the vantage
point of the eschatological completion of God’s creative activity” [Grenz, Renewing the
Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI:
BakerAcademic, 2006), 255].
101 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 164–175. Yong is using Charles Sanders Peirce’s term.
354 chapter seven

to the dialogue and listen for the various responses to be uttered. Ultimately,
we seek to integrate these responses into a coherent answer.102
While I afffijirm that it is Scripture which is meant to norm and guide our
theologizing, there is no compelling reason to think that we do not do the
same with the biblical texts. In fact, I contend, that we do a better job listen-
ing to and interpreting the biblical text when we seek to clarify what ques-
tions we are in fact asking of it. So it will be better to add several other key
aspects to the explicit practice of doing theology as Pentecostals. We should
also recognize that we draw upon creation, culture and tradition in our
theological understanding, as well as on the Word of God, with Scripture
being the form of the Word that witnesses to the eternal Word and norms
Christian understanding and living. But we do this faithfully only as we
allow the Spirit to be our guide.

3. Resources (and Our Guide) for Pentecostal Theological Hermeneutics

I have operated throughout this project with an underlying assumption

about experience, using it as the broadest category for describing conscious
human life in its varied forms. Yet I have also referred to it as a source of
theological understanding. As such, it has both a general form which comes
from any type of experience and a narrower form that is religious experi-
ence. Even the latter is a massively encompassing category, lacking specifijic-
ity. Based on this consideration, I will not consider experience, in itself, a
resource. Further, in line with this understanding, I have claimed that there
is both the fijirst order experience of faith and the second order experience
of doing theological inquiry, reflection and criticism. Such is the human
epistemological constitution.103 The task of doing theology, then, is a
human experience, both an event and act of interpretation which draws
upon resources through which God is revealed, which provide signs which
express God’s self-communication. Smith has already given compelling
reasons as to why this could be best understood in terms of incarnation
(see Chapter Five). The Pentecostal experience of God and a fruitful Pente-
costal theological hermeneutic, I  contend, draw upon Word, creation,

102 Robert P. Menzies, Empowered for Witness: The Spirit in Luke-Acts (JPT Supplement 6;
Shefffijield, UK: Shefffijield Academic Press, 1994), 245.
103 Again, this is evidenced, for instance, by the research of Kahneman’s “A Perspective on
Judgment and Choice.”
 toward a hermeneutical realism 355

culture and tradition in the manner that and to the degree which each
are graced by God. And in doing so, it is the Spirit that is meant to be
our guide.

3.1. The Spirit, Our Guide

The experience of the presence of the Spirit functions as the guide for
Pentecostals in theological interpretation. As the Nicene-Constantinopolitan
Creed states, the Spirit is “the Lord, the giver of life.” It is the Spirit who
stirred the waters of creation (Gen. 1:2). The Spirit is also the Paraclete, the
Spirit of Truth (John 14:16–17) who makes us empowered witnesses of the
truth of the gospel (Luke 24:48–49; Acts 1:8). And just as the Spirit descended
on Jesus at his baptism (Matt. 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22; John 1:29–
34), so also does the Spirit descend on his disciples and provide understand-
ing of the gospel in order to guide its articulation and witness (Acts 2:1–13).
As human understanding is, in general, embodied and relational, so is the
Spirit for Pentecostals, indwelling disciples. Even as theological under-
standing is still human understanding, it can be graced by the Spirit who
dwells within.
Frank Macchia notes this when he speaks on behalf of Pentecostals,
insisting that “this baptism (in the Holy Spirit) implies that we do not relate
to God as an object of reflection; rather, we are baptized into God as a
powerful fijield of experience, which opens up wonders and joys as a daily
experience.”104 The Pentecostal baptism in the Spirit is a “baptism into
divine love.”105 This is because “love is absolute to the nature of God. It is the
essence of God and the substance of our participation in God” and is thus
“the substance of the Christian life.”106 That “God is love” (1 John 4:8) is God’s
self-revelation to us. Influenced by Emil Brunner and Jürgen Moltmann,
Macchia considers that the experience of the Spirit is a self-impartation of
the transcendent God:
The God of Pentecost self-imparts in abundance and limitless expanse in wit-
ness to Christ, reaching out to all flesh in forces of liberation, reconciliation,
and communion. What is self-imparted is divine love, a love that bears all

104 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 2006), 56.
105 Ibid., 258.
106 Ibid., 259.
356 chapter seven

things, including our sin, sorrow, and death. The God of Spirit baptism is the
“crucifijied God.”107
The experience of the Spirit is of one whose chief fruit is love
(Gal. 5:22–23) and who is the Spirit of liberty (2 Cor. 3:17). Such a Spirit
causes those who have experienced it to witness to the “wonderful works
of God” (Acts 2:11) “to each in our own language in which we were born”
(Acts 2:8). A legitimate pluralism, the pluralism of Pentecost, emerges in
contrast to the pluralism which was produced by the judgment of Babel,
even through which God has been providentially sovereign (Acts 17:27) and
called a new people forth (Gen. 12:1–3). There is “one Spirit” who calls us to
witness in diverse tongues to “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all” (Eph. 4:4–5). The one body is given “diversities of gifts,”
“ministries,” and “activities” but the “same Spirit,” “same Lord,” and “same
God who works all in all” (1 Cor. 12:4–6). Those from diffferent races and
social statuses have been “baptized into one body” and “given to drink of
one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13), so that there is equal dignity in Christ (Gal. 3:23)
and so that the Spirit of God’s Son makes us cry out “Abba, Father!” and
makes us heirs (Gal. 4:5–7).
The Azusa Street Revival provides reason for considering the experience
of the Spirit as central to the founding of the Classical Pentecostal tradition,
and thus at the core of its theological hermeneutic. This event broke down
denominational, racial, gender and socio-economic barriers in a scandal-
ous display of Christian egalitarianism and unity. Among other things, “the
‘color line’ was washed away in the blood.”108 Of the tongues spoken by
those in the early Pentecostal movement, Dale Irvin has noted how this
experience of the Spirit provides an inclusivism that marks a place for all in
a transcendence that is eschatological:109 “Through tongues we might hear

107 Ibid., 262. Macchia is working with Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God, vol. 1
of Dogmatics, trans. Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1949); and Jürgen Moltmann,
The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, Margaret Kohl, trans. (San Francisco:
Harper and Row, 1981).
108 Frank Bartleman, How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles: As It Was in the Beginning (repr.;
New York: Garland Press, 1985 [1925]), 54, cited in Dale T. Irvin, “ ‘Drawing All Together in One
Bond of Love’: The Ecumenical Vision of William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival,”
JPT 6 (1995): 46.
109 Irvin explains the connection between the tongues of Pentecost and Pentecostal
inclusion:
“The tongues that are spoken but not understood are eschatological placeholders in
the community, reserving place for the fullness of the oikumene yet to be realized in
God’s koinonia. This inclusive theology through a surplus of tongues represents a
radical break with the ecumenical practice of inclusion through forced inclusion to
 toward a hermeneutical realism 357

again that each receives the Spirit in a new way, and that the diversity of
voices is a more adequate sacrament of grace in a world that has grown
weary of monological conformity.”110

3.2. Word
Alongside the signifijicance of this emphasis on the Spirit as our guide, it is
the Son of God, who is our primary revelatory source for theological under-
standing. He was “in the beginning with God” and “was God” (John 1:1). The
Word of God is fijirst and foremost the Son of God. Having “dwelt among us,”
pitching his tent with us, he alone is full of the “grace and truth” of the glory
of the Father (John 1:14), God’s very self-communication. He is the one who
empowers for witness and baptizes with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). Yet we
know of him through the interpretive witness of the Scriptures and the
knowledge of him passed down through the Scriptures and through tradi-
tion, even as we continue to experience the Word through the Spirit. Thus
the Word is God’s self-communication which is constituted fijirst in the par-
ticularity of the Son in the Incarnation. Yet it is also God’s self-communica-
tion to us in the Scriptures, which function as both ancient documents and
as God’s inspired speech (2 Tim. 3:16–17). The Scriptures are historical and
human documents, but are also divine discourse, God appropriating human
speech.111
A seminal, but so far largely ignored, article by Arden Autry which moves
toward a hermeneutical realist approach to Pentecostal biblical hermeneu-
tics holds that we are placed onto false horns of a dilemma if Pentecostal
theology pits searching for correct readings against creative ones.112 In fact,
he claims, “Pentecostal experience heightens our concern for both the
correct and the creative reading of Scripture.”113 While his approach to these
readings as “correct” still speaks in the language of designation and fails to
fully articulate what Autry is contending in this article, his explanation of

linguistic and cultural forms. The Pentecostal theology of the ‘otherness’ of tongues
goes beyond the Protestant theologies of vernacular worship, beyond catholic inclu-
sion achieved through the unity of a creed. It represents a more radical moment of
transcendence that marks a place for all peoples of the earth, in their own terms, in
their own tongues” (Ibid, 51).
110 Ibid., 53.
111 Nicholas Wolterstorfff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God
Speaks (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
112 Arden C. Autry, “Dimensions of Hermeneutics in Pentecostal Focus,” JPT 3 (1993):
29–50.
113 Ibid., 31.
358 chapter seven

what constitutes a “correct” reading is one that is always historical and

thus contextual in both its origination and its history of interpretation.
A “correct” reading is merely an adequate one given contemporary circum-
stances, and the gospel itself is historical and contextual: “Christianity is not
essentially based on (though it does include) revelations of timeless
truth.”114 This is so that a good hermeneutic draws together a framework
that includes the history of the text; recognizes the roles language plays (in
regard to author, text and interpreter); acknowledges the existence in time
(and thus contextuality and fijinitude) of the interpreter who operates in a
tradition of interpretation; but still looks to the experience of transcen-
dence and a transcendent God (which is the subject matter of theology);
and is aware of the communal nature of all interpretation.115 According to
Autry, a “fusion of horizons” does occur, but it does so in a way that recog-
nizes that it is an interpretation and that the text being interpreted is other
in its history and transcendence to the reader. Nevertheless, an interpreta-
tion can be adequate. Yet its adequacy is not simply cognitive but found also
in the reader’s encounter with a transcendent God through the text. For
“People do come to know God in life-transforming ways, and Scripture is
promoting and enabling such encounters. The gap between ‘correct’ and
‘creative,’ between then and now, is being bridged by present experience of
the God of the Bible. The gap is not an uncrossable abyss.”116 The experience
of God is “a hermeneutical goal” in Pentecostal biblical hermeneutics.117 It
is faithful reception – the result of careful listening to God’s Word.

3.3. Creation and Culture

That the human was meant to create by fijiat is evidenced in the stories of
origins in Genesis. Beyond being given the mandate for responsible stew-
ardship entailed in the granting of human dominion (Gen. 1:28–30), the fijirst
humans are given the role of naming and constructing a world for them-
selves (Gen. 2:19–20; 3:20) and cultivating their world (Gen. 1:29–30; 2:15).
Yet this freedom entails the ability to experience temptation and to strive
for autonomy from God (Gen. 2:16–17; 3:1–13; 11:1–4). Still, God meets disobe-
dience with not only judgment (Gen. 3:14–19, 22–24; 11:5–9) but also with
providential care and provision for redemption (Gen. 3:21; 11:26–12:9).

114 Ibid., 33.
115 Ibid., 32–47.
116 Ibid., 50.
117 Ibid., 44.
 toward a hermeneutical realism 359

It is in culture, “our cultivation of language, action, habits, gestures,

thoughts, etc. for specifijic purposes,”118 that we do theology. Such cultivation
which provides context is intimately linked with the naming of things, with
articulating our world and constructing it around ourselves. Doing so
responsibly and with faithfulness to the creator is a responsibility. But it
also serves as a source of human understanding and the milieu of God’s
self-revelation. Christ’s Incarnation was particular, in certain conditions in
space-time. The hermeneutical task is not only to recognize that culture
provides the context for interpretation but also that it provides both the
venue for God’s revelation and the place of constructive interpretive action
to better cultivate the world. My contention has been to afffijirm that this
always occurs in language. Following Smith, it is an aspect of the common
grace found in the goodness of creation which is cultivated, and the particu-
lar grace found in God’s special acts.119
This is a key aspect of the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost.
The “wonderful works of God” (Acts 2:11) are heard in the many languages of
the peoples of the disciples’ world (Acts 2:5–11) as the Spirit fijilled them, for
“everyone heard them speak in his own language” (Acts 2:6). Christianity is,
as Lamin Sanneh has claimed, a translating religion: “Christianity is a trans-
lated – and a translating – religion, and a translated Christianity is an inter-
preted Christianity, pure and simple.”120 The Aramaic-speaking Jesus did
not dictate the Greek New Testament. And the gospel spread into languages
and cultures it had not birthed:
Without a revealed language and without even the language of Jesus,
Christianity invested in idioms and cultures that existed for purposes other
than Christianity. As these idioms and cultures became the carriers of reli-
gion, they anticipated and embodied Christianity. Being a translated religion,
Christian teaching was received and framed in terms of its host culture; by
feeding offf the diverse cultural streams it encountered, the religion became
multicultural. The local idiom became a chosen vessel.121

118 D. Stephen Long, Theology and Culture: A Guide to the Discussion (Eugene, Oregon:
Cascade, 2008), 3.
119 Long notes that in the current intellectual setting, nature and culture are often con-
fused, and he defends their distinction at a certain point and draws a line from not making
this distinction to the projectionist objections to God’s existence propounded by Feuerbach,
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and others. To defend this distinction would be to consider “nature”
or “creation” as God’s sign, in some manner or another, somehow a self-communication and
ordering of God (Ibid., 17–31).
120 Sanneh, Disciples of All Nations, 25.
121 Ibid., 26.
360 chapter seven

This means that Christianity is an inclusive faith, one that relinquished

Jerusalem as its center and has continually enculturated itself anew, despite
obstacles to doing so.122 That global pentecostalism has emerged as one of
the largest constituencies among the Christian communions of the world
demonstrates its power to adapt with expedience.123 This does not mean
that Christianity has no essence; rather, the translatability of Christianity is
based on the theological claim that it is a potentially universal religion, that
it somehow can speak to the human condition no matter where or how it
has been cultivated.

3.4. Tradition
If a Pentecostal hermeneutical paradigm is going to arise that will offfer a
strong account of God, ourselves and our world, it will have to draw upon
sources from the deep well of the larger Christian tradition. The variety of
ways in which the faith has been passed on and has come to constitute the
Christian communities of today, not to mention the ways Christian com-
munities are continuing to form traditions and pass on the faith, are all
resources for Pentecostal theological understanding. That this is biblical is
evidenced in the afffijirmations of passing down what has been received to
others (1 Cor. 11:23; 15:3; 2 Thess. 2:15), though there are traditions which
include empty and seductive teachings that must be opposed (Col. 2:8).
While working this out is central to the project of the ecumenical-Pentecos-
tal hermeneutic, it needs to be a part of all future Pentecostal theological
hermeneutics.

122 Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis, 1989), 200–209, 214–216. According to Sanneh, these obstacles included reluctance to
move beyond a Jewish Christianity to a Gentile Christianity in the early church, the Western
church’s elevation of Latin over the vernacular, and Western Christianity’s attempts to wed
Christianity and its civilization. Sanneh considers the truth of the vernacular principle, that
Christianity is translatable into any human culture without losing its essence, to have been
demonstrated by the success of indigenous Christianity in the past two centuries in the
Global South. See also his Disciples of All Nations, and Whose Religion is Christianity?: The
Gospel Beyond the West (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003).
123 Sanneh estimates that in 2006 pentecostals and charismatics totaled 588 million and
will likely total 800 million by 2025, though the numbers for pentecostals and charismatics
were statistically negligible at the beginning of the twentieth century and totaled only 72
million in 1970 (idem., Disciples of All Nations, 276). His estimates are based offf of his own
research as well as that of David B. Barrett, George T. Kurian, and Todd M. Johnson, eds.,
World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern
World, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Oxford, UK and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) and eds.
Burgess and Van Der Maas, NIDPCM.
 toward a hermeneutical realism 361

It is imperative that the role of tradition be recognized. Yong, for

example, has argued for a hermeneutics of ecclesial tradition which under-
stands it as three-fold: tradition as past history which provides historical
consciousness, as present location, and as the act of traditioning which
directs actions toward forming the future.124 Such an understanding could
be a good place to begin from for future development of a Pentecostal
hermeneutics of tradition. This is especially so as Classical Pentecostalism
has gone beyond being a movement or a sect to a tradition of Christian
faith. In itself, it continues to pass on and sustain a variety of beliefs and
practices, continuing and discontinuing them. Yet the Classical Pentecostal
tradition is also a part of the larger Christian tradition, and as such, ought to
further the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic to continue to articulate
the Christian faith along with other Christians, learning from them, while
contributing to their theological understanding as well.

4. Conclusion: Growing in Faith, Hope and Love

After recounting my typology of the development of Pentecostal theologi-

cal hermeneutics, I have described what I consider to be the best way
forward for Pentecostal theology. It is found in a hermeneutical realism
which allows for multiple productive hermeneutics to emerge that can
faithfully account for the reality of the faith. While new beliefs and
practices will surely emerge as a result of the continuing growth of
Pentecostalism, this approach allows for more truth to be manifest than
what would come through a single prescribed methodology. The complex
and holistic task of discerning between these understandings is thus  of
special importance for the implementation of this approach. The attempt
to achieve certainty, at least for now, is a hopeless and potentially idolatrous
quest. But to mature into adulthood in the faith, cultivating understanding,
and to be fijilled with faith, hope and love, is to embody and speak a life of
faith in the God who is love (1 Cor. 13:8–13).

124 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 265–273.

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 INDEX

Abelard, Peter 143n36 Azusa Street Revival 8–10, 32, 37, 52–70, 73,

absolutisim 32, 37–40, 51, 153, 170, 171n166, 85n5, 90, 191n18, 255–256, 264, 272,
322–323, 343n75 344n79, 352n99, 356
afffections (afffective) 25, 126n145, 200, 221,
239, 245n234, 250, 299, 310 Babel 207–208, 221, 247, 298, 314, 356
African Methodist Episcopal (AME) 58, 73 Baconian (science) 79, 104–105, 108
ahistoricism 19, 35–36, 42–43, 47, 51, baptism in the Holy Spirit 7–10, 20–28,
79–80, 311 30–33, 37–38, 40, 44, 52n83, 53–68, 73–78,
Aker, Benny 146–147 89, 93, 95, 98, 101–103, 123n136, 149–150,
American Council of Christian Churches 167–169, 174–181, 205, 265n33, 270–271,
(ACCC) 258n16 293–300, 306, 308–310, 318, 344n79, 352,
Anabaptists 11n29, 20n3, 301, 333n41 355–356
Anderson, Allan 256 Barratt, T.B. 40n31, 256
Anderson, Gordon A. 16, 98, 148, 152–157, Barth, Karl 217–218, 260n21, 265n33,
173, 198 297n182, 306n225, 308n235, 309n237,
Anderson, Robert Mapes 28, 45–46 313n250, 334n47
Anselm 343 “believing criticism,” 16, 133, 159–160,
Apostolic Faith Mission (Los Angeles, CA), 163n127, 173, 182, 190, 288, 317
see Azusa Street Revival Bell, Eudorus N. 89n25, 99n59, 261n25
Apostolic Faith Mission (South Africa; Bernard, David 141, 165–167
AFM) 260 Bethel Bible College/School (Topeka,
Apostolic Pentecostalism, see Oneness KS) 7, 52, 55–56
Pentecostalism Bevins, Winfijield 312n245
Aquinas, Thomas 4n7, 143n36, 216, 218, 236, “Bible Reading Method,” 13, 47, 56, 75,
265n33, 342 197n39, 229
Arianism 170n160 biblical authority 4n7, 5, 10, 11n29, 16, 31–42,
Archer, Kenneth J. 12–14, 16, 33n4, 44–48, 44, 46, 48n63, 53, 55, 60, 64, 66, 71–73,
56, 63, 75, 107, 166n141, 193, 197–200, 75–80, 83–88, 90–103, 106, 110, 112, 119, 124,
202n59, 224, 227–232, 248, 251–252, 133–148, 155–156, 160–161, 166, 169–171,
316, 318 182–184, 186, 195–196, 203–204, 220–222,
Arminianism 11n29, 81, 128, 147, 208 224–227, 255, 266–269, 288–289,
Arrington, French 41–44, 48, 63, 92, 113–114, 296–297, 317, 324, 353–354
161–165, 195 biblical criticism, see historical-critical
Assemblies of God (A/G) 6, 20, 28, methods
69, 70n154, 73n164, 74, 87–90, 98–101, biblical inspiration 85–87, 90–92, 109–110,
106–107, 111, 113–122, 131, 142–148, 157n101, 119, 125, 133–148, 160–161, 166, 169–171,
257–264, 272 182–184, 195–196, 269, 317
atheism 128n152, 211, 340 Blumhardt, Johann Christoph 26
Augustine 4n7, 128, 208–209, 216–218, Blumhofer, Edith (Waldvogel) 7, 26n25,
235n189, 236n194, 245, 251n251, 340n70, 59n111, 80n189, 87, 106–107
350n92 Bosworth, F.F. 51n79, 101n68
Austin, J.L. 242 Boyd, Frank 28, 89, 115–116, 121n132
author-centered (hermeneutics) 134, Brown, C.G. 69
148–157, 166–167, 172, 175, 181–185, 188, Brunner, Emil 217n121, 297n182, 355
196–202, 218–220, 228–229, 243, 249n245, Bultmann, Rudolf 151, 159n108
317, 346, 349 Bundy, David 73
Autry, Arden 202, 248, 357–358 Butler, Joseph 106, 124n141
378 index

Calvin, John 4n7, 85, 126n145, 143n36 Descartes, René 105n79, 235n192, 237n196,

Calvinism 105–106 250, 307n228, 322, 323n14
Camery-Hoggatt, Jerry 327n28 Dewey, John 32n2, 265n33
Caputo, John 209n85 discernment 64n125, 65–73, 81, 225–227,
Cargal, Timothy 193–201, 251 238–240, 277–279, 283–284, 320, 332–333
Cartesianism, see Descartes, René Dispensationalism 22–23, 24n17, 29–30,
Catholicism, see Roman Catholicism 29n36, 44n48, 104, 112–116, 121n130, 130,
Central Bible Institute (CBI) 264–265 159n108, 261, 308n235, 317
“Central Narrative Convictions,” 227, 250 Docetism 170n160, 196
cessationism 46–47, 112 doctrine, role of 14, 16–17, 19, 31–34, 38,
Chan, Simon 17, 292, 306–310, 319 40–44, 46–47, 49, 53–66, 73, 75–82, 84,
Charismatic movement 5–7, 11, 110, 136n11, 88–89, 94, 96–103, 106, 108–110, 113, 116–
149, 203, 205, 222n148, 253, 262, 273, 117, 120–122, 125–126, 128–131, 134, 137–139,
282–283, 285n121, 302, 308n235, 313n250, 149–150, 154, 162, 166–169, 174–182, 231,
333n41, 336n53, 360n123 244–245, 254, 259, 266, 271, 283, 285n118,
Christian and Missionary Alliance 293–294, 300–305, 308–310, 316–319, 321,
(CMA) 28–30, 73, 88, 101n68 324, 326, 353
Christology 20, 22, 72, 170n160, 182–183, Dooyeweerd, Herman 206n73, 213, 214n100
247n241, 297 Dowie, John A. 26–27
Church of God (Anderson, IN) 58n106 Du Plessis, David 17, 258n14, 260–262, 279
Church of God (Cleveland, TN; COG) 20, Du Plessis, Justus 279
257, 259n17 Durham, William 8n20, 20–22, 27, 40n31,
Church of God (Holiness) USA 67 51n79, 52n80
Church of God in Christ (COGIC) 20,
66–70, 258 ecclesiology 114–115, 159–160, 220, 244–245,
Clark, David K. 129n156, 139–140 279–292, 306–308, 310
Clark, Matthew S. 20n3 Eco, Umberto 228–230
Clement of Alexandria 143n36 ecumenism 17, 131n160, 161, 252–314,
Clemmons, Ithiel C. 66–67 318–319
Cofffey, David 235n189 Edwards, Jonathan 332–333n41
Community, role of 226–233, 240–247, 277– egalitarianism 9–10, 356
279, 306, 321, 326, 335, 344–345 empiricism 29n36, 33n5, 34, 56, 86n13, 109,
Constantinian 23 213–214, 228, 236, 239–240, 286–287, 329–
Conzelmann, Hans 159n108 337, 339–340, 346, 351n95
Cook, Glen 73–74 Enlightenment, the 1, 33n5, 105, 124n141,
creation 25, 46, 53–54, 61n115, 69, 78n186, 188–190, 201–202, 204, 206n73, 220n131,
90n30, 93–94, 138, 140, 143n35, 147, 162, 223, 270, 307, 335n50, 349, 350n92
185, 204–223, 230, 236n194, 268n43, 270, epistemology 2–3, 33n5, 81–82, 105–106,
286, 291, 294, 297–298, 314, 320, 323, 326, 148, 198n41, 201, 206–210, 214–215, 221,
342, 352–355, 358–360 232–242, 245n234, 248n244, 251, 285–286,
creeds, see tradition(s) 319–354
Cross, Terry L. 313n250 “best account,” 320, 327–342
Cullis, Charles 26, 31, 60 Cartesian 307n228, 322
culture(s), see tradition(s) Reformed 325, 336n54
Ervin, Howard 161, 285–287, 289
Darby, John Nelson 29, 113 eschatology 28–30, 28n35, 61n115, 93, 98,
Darwinism 29n36, 53, 110n95, 265n33 114–116, 123n136, 129, 159n108, 206–207,
Dayton, Donald 21–29, 74n167, 80n190, 315 261, 293, 296n175–176, 299, 302, 315,
deconstructionism 210–211, 216n111, 342 352–353
Del Colle, Ralph 193n35 Evangelicalism 12–16, 19–20, 24–27, 30, 33,
demographics, of pentecostalism 5–6 43, 79, 82–88, 103–107, 109, 110n95, 113, 126,
demonic 67n142, 114, 239n206 130–131, 133–186, 189–202, 207, 220–221,
Dempster, Murray 190–192, 198 224–227, 247, 253–255, 257–260, 266–267,
Derrida, Jacques 185–186, 202n60, 207–214, 272, 281, 285n122, 288, 301, 309n237,
218–219, 223, 349 311–312, 315–318, 324, 343, 346, 353;
 index 379

radical 19, 21, 24–25, 315 Gregory of Nyssa 297n183

Evening Light Saints, see Church of God Grenz, Stanley J. 28n35, 29n36, 85–87,
(Anderson, IN) 324–326, 352–353
evidentialism 25, 106
exegesis 35, 52n83, 72n162, 85, 103, 119–121, Habermas, Jürgen 148–149n59, 199n44, 207,
134, 137, 144, 147–154, 160, 166, 169n154, 349–350
171–173, 176, 179, 183–184, 197, 224, 242, Hardy, Clarence 71n158
267, 284, 287 Haywood, Garfijield T. 15, 51, 73–78, 80,
experience, role of 3, 16, 19, 26, 31–35, 82, 316
39–40, 41–44, 47–51, 55–57, 60–66, 68–69, healing, divine 23–27, 29, 31
75–81, 83, 85, 88, 90, 93–94, 100, 110n95, in the atonement 26, 38n17, 106,
124, 129–130, 133–134, 138–139, 145–146, 111–112, 221
151–165, 170, 174, 182, 192, 195, 197–204, Hegel, G.F.W. 122n135, 188, 198n43, 207n78,
207, 210, 225–226, 231, 233–240, 250, 255, 236–237
263–264, 275–276, 306, 309–310, 314, 319, Heidegger, Martin 3, 186–190, 207, 210–214,
323–327, 334–336, 343–344, 352–355 216n115, 217, 223, 236n193, 340, 349
Henry, Carl F.H. 139
Faupel, William 28n35, 79n187 Herder, Johann Gottfried von 188n8,
Federal Council of Churches (FCC), see 350–351
National Council of Churches (NCC) Hirsch, E.D., Jr. 4n6, 148, 152, 154, 157, 171,
Fee, Gordon D. 16, 43n45, 133, 149, 151, 176, 183, 192, 198, 246, 346, 348–349
167–182, 205, 218, 247, 195n171, 317 historical-critical methods 13, 35, 133–134,
Feuerbach, Ludwig 337, 359n119 165, 166n145, 168, 171n166, 173, 182, 190–191,
fijilioque 235n189, 241 197, 200–201, 226, 230, 282, 287, 292,
“fijinished work,” 20–22, 27, 40n31, historicism 188–190
74n167, 103 Hodge, A.A. 86
Finney, Charles 26 Hodge, Charles 86, 126n146, 145–146
Fiorenza, Francis Schüssler 221n136 Holiness tradition (movement) 8–9, 16,
Fisher, Charles Lewis 66–67 19–30, 33, 41, 47, 52, 58, 61, 63, 70, 72, 74,
Fletcher, John 22–24 90–91, 136n11, 316
Flower, J. Roswell 28, 73n164, Hollenweger, Walter 8–10, 14, 20n3,
257–258, 261n25 255–256
Franke, John 324–326 Horton, Stanley 146–147, 157–161
Frodsham, Stanley H. 89n25, 111–112 Humboldt, Wilhelm von 188n8
“full gospel,” 14, 16, 20–22, 32–33, 35–36, 61, Husserl, Edmund 148n59, 189, 209
78, 83, 103, 106, 227, 257n8, 274, 310, 316
Fundamentalism 11n29, 12, 20n3, 29n36, 42. incarnation 204, 206n73, 215–219, 222, 320,
44, 44–45n49, 47n60, 84–87, 91–92, 104– 354, 357, 359
114, 116, 130, 137, 170, 193–195, 210, 241, 255, inductive method 14, 76, 86n13, 87,
257–258, 261n25, 288, 306n225, 309n237, 145–150, 184
317, 343n75 inerrancy, see biblical inspiration
Fundamental Truths (of the A/G) 22n9, infallibility, see biblical inspiration
74n167, 87–90, 95, 98–102, 113, 142, 273 Irenaeus 143n36, 235n189, 297
Irvin, Dale T. 10n25, 256, 356–357
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 3, 186–192, 196, Irwin, Benjamin H. 9n23, 24–25
198–199, 202, 207, 236n193, 309, 318,
339n64, 346, 348–349 Jacobsen, Douglas 6–10, 36n12, 48–50,
Gee, Donald 159n108, 258n14, 260n21, 274 52–56, 59–61, 74, 76, 78, 84n3, 109, 112–113,
Gelpi, Donald 235n190, 308n235 116–118, 140–142, 254, 266–267, 272,
genre(s) 5n12, 80n190, 119, 150, 155, 160, 309, 315
169n156, 171–175, 178, 183, 199, 229–230 Jay, Martin 32n2
glossolalia, see tongues, speaking in other Jeanrod, Werner 5–6n12
Gofff, James R. Jr. 8n20, 10n24, 51–52n80, 56 “Jesus Only” Pentcostalism, see Oneness
Gordon, A.J. 26–28 Pentecostalism
Gregory Nazianzus 143n36 Joachim of Fiore 23
380 index

Johnston, Robert K. 141 Margolis, Joseph 348

Jones, Charles Price 58n106, 67 Marsden, George 104–106, 108n90, 109
Justin Martyr 143n36 Marshall, I. Howard 133–134n3, 138–140, 177
Mason, Charles Harrison 15, 20, 51, 58n106,
Kahneman, Daniel 344n77, 354n103 66–73, 78n187, 80, 85n5, 316, 333n43,
Kallenberg, Brad 322–323 343n79
Kant, Immanuel 122n135, 214n100, 330n34, May, Henry 1, 33n5, 105n81
340, 342 McDonnell, Kilian 262, 279n97, 282,
Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti 12, 14, 17, 35–36, 39, 290n144, 296n175, 308n235
42, 135, 280–285, 292, 300–305, 311, 318 McIntire, Carl 258n16
Kerr, Daniel Warren 16, 28, 83–84, 88–104, Menzies, Glen 98, 101–102
121, 127, 130–131, 142, 254, 317 Menzies, Robert 15–16, 133, 148–149, 156,
Keswick movement 15, 19, 27–28, 30, 47, 167–169, 175–182, 195n33, 199–200, 205n70,
104, 315 218, 246n241, 294, 295n171, 317, 353
Kierkegaard, Søren 210n88, 216n115, 220, Menzies, William 6–7, 27, 43n45, 89n24,
236n194, 241 101, 112n100, 146–150, 174n179, 177n172,
Kling, David 14 198n41, 257, 259n18
Knapp, Martin Wells 58n106 metanarrative(s) 230, 322
Kuhn, Thomas 3, 142n31, 327–330, 338n61 metaphysics 103, 187–190, 208n81, 232–238,
249n246, 252, 321, 329
Ladd, George E. 159n108, 170n159, Methodism 21–24, 268, 301
296n175–176 Miley, John 208n80, 265n33, 268
Lakatos, Imre 3n3, 329–335 modernity 2, 4n7, 13, 16, 19, 32n2, 36n12,
Land, Steven J. 11n29, 14, 34n6, 49–50, 81, 38n19, 44–47, 54n88, 80–82, 87, 104–108,
220–221, 307, 310 110n95, 111n99, 121n130, 139, 143, 159,
language, philosophy of 128, 148, 154–155, 166n141, 181, 183–184, 187, 191–199, 206n73,
186–190, 204–224, 229, 248–249, 317–318, 210–211, 222–223, 227–229, 235, 249–252,
320–327, 345–354, 359 272, 286, 304, 307, 316, 318, 320–324,
Latter Rain 13–14, 28–30, 32, 33n4, 44n48, 333n44, 335n50, 337–342, 345, 349–350
47, 52, 60, 63, 78, 88, 114, 116, 122–123, 129, Moltmann, Jürgen 237n197, 293n161, 296,
157, 227, 315 302, 355
Lawrence, Bennett 19 Moody, Dwight L. 24
Levinas, Emmanuel 214n103, 236n194 Morris, Elias C. 67n138
Lewis, B. Scott 195n31, 200–202 Murphy, Nancey 322–323, 330–336
liberal Protestantism, see liberal theology Myland, David Wesley 28, 30n39,
liberal theology 34, 45n49, 139, 218, 296n176 48n65, 51n79
Lindbeck, George 244n229, 310, 321
“linguistic turn,” 3, 186, 204, 320–327, narrative(s) 11, 13–15, 21, 30, 32, 33n4, 43–44,
349–350 47–48, 50, 53, 54n91, 57, 60, 63, 71, 74n169,
Locke, John 105n79, 250, 345n83 76–78, 80n190, 88, 93, 96, 103, 112, 114, 116,
Lonergan, Bernard 235, 308–309, 313 122–124, 128–129, 135, 149–150, 153, 155–
Long, D. Stephen 359n119 157, 160, 174–181, 191, 195–204, 207–208,
Lum, Clara 59–60 221, 223–232, 243, 244n229, 246n241, 267,
Lund, Eric 115n110, 118–121, 130 268n43, 299n192, 314, 316, 318, 326,
Luther, Martin 4n7, 31, 60, 76, 85, 143n36, 353n100
208n80, 210n88, 302, 305 National Association of Evangelicals
Lutheranism 11n29, 23, 86, 121, 256, 282, (NAE) 84n4, 87, 135, 257–259, 264n30
301–302, 304n212, 305 National Council of Churches (NCC) 
Lyotard, Jean-François 322 258–261, 272
natural theology 25, 71, 74n169, 86, 94–95,
Macchia, Frank 14, 17, 272n62, 292–300, 311, 106, 124n141, 127–128, 162, 206n73, 217–218,
318, 355–356 268–271, 297n182, 319, 337
MacIntyre, Alasdair 229, 307 Nelson, Douglas J. 10n24
Mannermaa, Tuomo 302 Nelson, P.C. 115, 117–121, 130
 index 381

Nichols, David R. 313n249 Pethrus, Levi 49n70

Niebuhr, H. Richard 17n38 Pietism 85, 118, 121, 130
Noel, Bradley Truman 171n166 Plantinga, Alvin 325, 336n54
Noll, Mark A. 105n79, 343 “pneumatic” interpretation 12, 43–44, 155,
157–167, 184, 195, 205–209, 220, 223, 238,
Ockenga, Harold John 258 241, 269, 285–287, 317
Odenstedt, Anders 189–190, 202 “pneumatological imagination,” 235,
Olthius, James 209n85 240–241
Oneness Pentecostalism 6, 20, 21n4, 46, pneumatology 28n35, 160, 178–182, 203, 220,
73–78, 87–89, 98–100, 110n95, 141, 232, 233–238, 280–281, 294–300
165–167, 263 Poirier, John L. 195n31, 200–202
ontology 2, 81, 105n79, 140, 188n8, 195n30, Poloma, Margaret 46
196, 198n43, 201, 208n80, 210, 222, 231–237, Pontifijical Council for Promoting Christian
246, 286–287, 302, 303n210–211, 320, Unity (PCPCU) 262
336–338 Popper, Karl 329
orality 35, 48, 51, 193n24 postliberalism 201, 213n98, 310, 321
orthodoxy 34, 45, 49, 54, 55n93, 75, postmodernism 12–13, 166n143, 181n208,
81, 86–87, 105n81, 116, 134, 139, 186, 190–202, 209–210, 249–252, 304, 318,
144–145, 170n160, 203, 220n131, 221, 245, 320, 322–323
307n231, 343 poststructuralism 195, 349
Orthodox, Eastern 6, 241, 282, 285, 287, pragmatism 32–33, 36–41, 48n63, 51, 70, 78,
301–305 115n110, 126n145, 174, 183, 194, 234–235,
Orthodoxy, Radical 206n73, 224 246, 309, 325, 330, 335–342, 347n86
orthopathos 34, 49–50, 81, 203–204, 221, premillennialism 15, 19, 27–30, 58n106, 87,
307n231 104, 113, 115n110, 123n136, 129n159
orthopraxis 34, 49, 81, 203–204, 220–221, primitivism 23, 26, 36–41, 272
245, 307n231 Princeton theology 86–87, 104, 145
Ozman, Agnes 7, 56 Puritans 85, 136

pacifijism 44, 70n153 Raboteau, Albert 72

Packer, J.I. 136–140, 142, 144 racial relations 51–58, 70, 73, 74n167
Paley, William 106, 124n141 Radano, John A. 279n97
Pannenberg, Wolfhart 4n7, 207–208, Rahner, Karl 217, 236
236n193, 237n197, 196n175, 342n74 Railey, James 146–147
paradigm 2–3, 9, 12, 17, 22–23, 27, 28n35, Ramm, Bernard 140
32–33, 50, 78, 142n31, 178, 190–191, 194–197, rationalism 33n5, 103, 143, 157n100, 159, 182,
211n89, 223, 232, 246, 248, 314, 316, 320, 195, 221, 236, 286–287, 313n250
325–342, 344, 352, 360 reader-centered (hermeneutics) 181, 191–
Parham, Charles Fox 7–10, 15, 20, 40n31, 192, 196–202, 228–231
49n70, 51–58, 61–65, 78n187, 80, 82, 92, realism 213, 236, 248–249, 323–324, 342, 352
254, 308n235, 316, 352n99 biblical 26, 33;
parousia 8n8, 13n34, 28, 30, 33, 88, 93, 112, common sense 16, 25, 32–33, 39,
129n159, 257, 263 44–45n49, 53, 75, 81–83, 86n13, 104–
Pearlman, Myer 16, 89, 115, 117–118, 121–131, 109, 127, 130, 145–148, 166n141
196n34, 266, 317 critical 176, 200, 320
Peirce, Charles Sanders 32n2, 234–238, eschatological 352
245n236, 353n101 hermeneutical 2, 17, 213–214, 248,
Pentecostal Assemblies of the World 314–361
(PAW) 74n167 naïve 32, 78, 316
Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches of non- 202, 324, 342
North America (PCCNA) 258n14 reason, role of 11n29, 25, 67, 90, 95, 99,
Pentecostal Church, Incorporated 74n167 105n79, 108n90, 122n135, 124, 126–128, 146,
perspicuity of Scripture 34, 79, 90, 107, 113, 161, 170, 204, 270–271, 319, 322
136, 292 redaction criticism 168, 179–180, 288
382 index

Reid, Thomas 324–325n20 slave culture 67–72

religions, theology of 232, 237 Smith, Anna 69
Reformation (Protestant) 4n7, 11n29, 76, 83, Smith, James K.A. 14, 16, 185–186, 202,
136, 139, 265n33, 287 204–224, 232n179, 244, 248, 252, 318,
Reformed tradition 22, 24n18, 27–28, 30, 320, 322–323, 340–344, 354, 359
33n5, 104, 121n130, 145, 197n39, 206n73, Smith, Raynard Daniel 67n141, 151
208n80, 224, 245n234, 256n6, 258, 262– social deprivation 28, 45–46
263, 282, 291–292, 295, 297n180, Society for Pentecostal Studies
restorationism 19, 21–23, 32–33, 36, 44, 47, (SPS) 205n70, 258n14, 263n28
53, 54n91, 60–61, 76–80, 87, 108, 113–114, Solivan, Samuel 203–204, 318
157, 160, 257, 274, 316 speech act theory 242
revivalism 19, 24–25, 27–28, 30, 47, 55, Spittler, Russell 79, 109–110, 118
57–66, 83, 104, 123n136, 134n4, 136n11, Strong, Augustus H. 265n33, 268
315–316 Stronstad, Roger 15, 149n61, 151, 156,
Ricoeur, Paul 171n166, 186, 191, 192n20 160–161, 167–169, 174–179, 182, 198n41,
Riggs, Ralph 115, 159n108 246n241, 294, 295n171, 317
Robeck, Cecil M., Jr. 7–8n20, 9, 17, 55n95, Stuart, Douglas 169
57–66, 72, 253, 259n17, 261n25, 263n28, Synan, Vinson 22n9
264, 272–279, 290n144, 318 systematic theology 14, 47, 96–97, 115n110,
Roman Catholicism 6–7, 11n29, 14, 20n3, 118, 120, 127, 129, 134–135, 140, 145–149,
81n194, 126n145, 139, 218, 241, 279–291, 154–155, 166n141, 177, 180–182, 186, 243,
299n192, 301, 304, 318 246, 265–268, 306–307, 310, 313, 353
Rorty, Richard 186, 193n25, 208n83, 320–321
Rush, Ormond 244 Taylor, Charles 223n149, 249–251, 320,
Rybarczyk, Edmund 302–303 321n7, 335n50, 337–340, 345, 348–351
text-centered (hermeneutics) 187–190, 192,
Saarinen, Risto 302 196–202, 228–231, 346
salvation 8n20, 9n24, 20–26, 30–31, 37–38, Thiel, John 312–313n248
44, 56–67, 74–78, 87, 103, 105n110, 119n125, Thiselton, Anthony 171n166, 187n4
124–125, 149, 168n152, 174–175, 179, 200, Thomas, John Christopher 224–227, 231,
207n76, 269, 280, 288, 291–292, 298n190, 296n178, 318
301–305, 319, 341 Tillich, Paul 217
sanctifijication 8n20, 11n29, 20–27, 30–31, 38, Tomlinson, A.J. 20
40n31, 52n80, 58–66, 74–78, 101, 179, tongues, speaking in other 7, 8n20,
247n242, 280n99, 297n181, 303n210 9–10n24, 20, 24–25, 28, 40, 44, 52n83, 53,
Sandford, Frank 7n20, 55 55–65, 68, 73, 89, 93, 98, 101–103, 106, 111,
Sanneh, Lamin 359–360 116, 149, 168n152, 169, 174–176, 181, 205,
Scandrett-Leatherman, Craig 72 222–223n148, 247n242, 257, 271n59, 277,
Schleiermacher, Friedrich 4n6, 127, 139, 315, 352, 356
187–188 Torrey, Rueben A. 8, 24, 39, 111
Scholasticism, Pentecostal 116–118, 129; Toulmin, Stephen 323n14
Protestant 47, 49, 86–87, 121, 127, 129 tradition(s) 10–11, 14, 16–17, 19–20, 30–31, 34,
Scofijield Reference Bible 29, 104. 113, 121n130 40n34, 42, 51, 54–57, 58n106, 60, 63,
Searle, John 218–219 76–77, 83, 88–89n23, 96, 104, 108, 110,
second coming (of Christ), see parousia 112–113, 130, 133, 136, 139, 143n36, 146, 170,
secularism 206–208, 249–251, 337–338 172, 187–192, 196, 205, 209–214, 220–224,
semiotics 4n7, 216, 228–229, 238, 242, 246, 227–232, 241–245, 252–314, 319, 321,
251, 347–348 331n37, 344, 354–355, 358–361
sensus plenior 155, 173 Trinity (Trinitarian) 6–7, 21n4, 23, 24n17,
Seymour, William J. 9–10, 15, 20, 51, 53, 55, 73n164, 77, 89, 98–101, 128, 139–140, 150,
57–67, 70, 73n164, 78n187, 80, 85n5, 254, 166n142, 181, 232–238, 246, 258n14, 263,
256, 316, 333n43, 352n99 291, 293, 307, 326–327
Sheppard, Gerald 114–116, 121, 186n2, 190n16 typological (hermeneutics) 13n34, 63n123,
Simpson, A.B. 26–29, 88 76–77, 79, 166n145, 178, 194
 index 383

uncertainty principle Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, see Holiness

(Heisenberg’s) 195n31, 201 movement (tradition)
Underwood, Bernard E. 258n14 Wesleyan Quadrilateral 128, 164n135, 312
United Pentecostal Church (UPC) 74n167, Whitefijield, George 76
165n140 Williams, D.H. 312
Williams, Ernest Swing 17, 115–118, 131n160,
Vandevelde, Pol 249n245, 251n252, 339n64, 257, 261n25, 264–272, 308n235, 318
346–350 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 3, 186, 323, 339n64
Vanhoozer, Kevin 3, 138–139, 148–149n59, women, in ministry 59–60n111, 74, 156,
198–199n44, 213n98, 321–322, 326, 157n100, 224, 226–227
349–350, 352 Woodworth-Etter, Maria B. 26n26
Volf, Miroslav 334n49, 341 World Council of Churches
Von Balthasar, Hans Urs 217, 238 (WCC) 259–261, 272, 275
Vondey, Wolfgang 263n28, 292n160 Wright, J. Elwin 259

Wacker, Grant 21n7, 22n11, 36–42, xenolalia, see tongues, speaking in other

59n111, 309
Walker, J.H. 257 Yong, Amos 1, 4–5, 6n16, 11, 14, 16, 68,
Ware, Frederick L. 69n147, 70–72 202–203, 205n72, 222, 232–248, 252,
Ware, Timothy 287 277, 298, 312, 318, 325n24, 333n43, 345,
Warfijield, Benjamin 86 353, 361
Weaver, Elton 66n136 Yun, Koo Dong 17, 292, 308–310, 313, 319
Weinandy, Thomas 235n189
Wesley, John 21–25, 31, 41, 60, 76, 81n194, Zimmerman, Thomas F. 259n17, 261–262
312n245 Zwingli, Ulrich 143n36