PENTECOSTAL THEOLOGY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
In our post 9/11 world where there is a growing religious fundamentalism, and when both exclusion and easy tolerance are inadequate options, this book offers a creative alternative, arguing that Pentecostalism has the potential to be a peaceful harbinger of plurality. The potential lies in its spirituality – a lively pneumatology and eschatology. The eschatological Spirit is seen as orientated towards the other, crossing boundaries in redemptive embrace, transcending exclusion and easy tolerance. This book’s non-Western perspective and the empirical contextual study of Singapore’s multicultural and multi-faith context are unique contributions to religion and society.
This is a book for students, pastors, teachers, and theologians concerned for an approach to mission that is sensitive to their context, who want to learn from a creative theological voice from what has been perhaps the largest religious movement in history, and who see the immense potential in lively theology by Christians of the Chinese diaspora who can speak to the many millions of ethnic Chinese Christians. This book will also appeal to those outside Christianity who are interested in its attempts to engage with a complex multi-ethnic and multi-religious situation such as that in Singapore. ASHGATE NEW CRITICAL THINKING IN RELIGION, THEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL STUDIES
The Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies series brings high quality research monograph publishing back into focus for authors, international libraries, and student, academic and research readers. Headed by an international editorial advisory board of acclaimed scholars spanning the breadth of religious studies, theology and biblical studies, this open-ended monograph series presents cutting-edge research from both established and new authors in the field. With specialist focus yet clear contextual presentation of contemporary research, books in the series take research into important new directions and open the field to new critical debate within the discipline, in areas of related study, and in key areas for contemporary society.
Series Editorial Board:
Jeff Astley, North of England Institute for Christian Education, Durham, UK David Jasper, University of Glasgow, UK James Beckford, University of Warwick, UK Raymond Williams, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, USA Geoffrey Samuel, University of Newcastle, Australia Richard Hutch, University of Queensland, Australia Paul Fiddes, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, UK Anthony Thiselton, University of Nottingham, UK Tim Gorringe, University of Exeter, UK Adrian Thatcher, College of St Mark and St John, UK Alan Torrance, University of St Andrews, UK Judith Lieu, Kings College London, UK Terrance Tilley, University of Dayton, USA Miroslav Volf, Yale Divinity School, USA Stanley Grenz, Baylor University and Truett Seminary, USA Vincent Brummer, University of Utrecht,The Netherlands Gerhard Sauter, University of Bonn, Germany
Other Titles in the Series:
Neopragmatism and Theological Reason G.W. Kimura
Tantric Buddhism and Altered States of Consciousness Durkheim, Emotional Energy and Visions of the Consort Louise Child Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Engaging with Multi-Faith Singapore
TAN-CHOW MAY LING TCA College, Singapore © Tan-Chow May Ling 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Tan-Chow May Ling has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Gower House Suite 420 Croft Road 101 Cherry Street Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405 Hampshire GU11 3HR USA England
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Tan-Chow, MayLing Pentecostal theology for the twenty-first century: engaging with multi-faith Singapore. – (Ashgate new critical thinking in religion, theology and biblical studies) 1. Pentecostalism – Singapore 2. Christianity and other religions – Singapore 3. Singapore – Religion I. Title 275.9’57083
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tan-Chow, MayLing. Pentecostal theology for the twenty-first century: engaging with multi-faith Singapore / MayLing Tan-Chow. p. cm. – (Ashgate new critical thinking in religion, theology, and biblical studies) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Pentecostalism. 2. Interdenominational cooperation. 3. Singapore – Church history. 4. Singapore – Religion. 5. Religious pluralism – Singapore. 6. Religious pluralism. I. Title.
BR1644.T36 2007 230’.9409595709051–dc22 2006032076
ISBN 978-0-7546-5718-7
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.
In Loving Memory and Celebration of my late husband, Derek Tan Chung Liam This page intentionally left blank Contents
List of Abbreviations ix Acknowledgements xi Foreword xiii
Introduction xv
Part I Descriptive
1 A Hermeneutic of Singapore Culture 3
2 Christianity in Singapore 15
3 Pentecost Revisited 29
Part II Constructive
4 Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 73
5 An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 99
6 A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 125
Conclusion 157
Select Bibliography 167 Index of Subjects 183 Index of Authors 197 Index of Biblical References 201 This page intentionally left blank List of Abbreviations
AF The Apostolic Faith ATJ Asbury Theological Journal CD Church Dogmatics CTM Currents in Theology and Mission EMQ Evangelical Mission Quarterly EQ Evangelical Quarterly JAM Journal of Asian Missions JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JES Journal of Ecumenical Studies JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society JGES Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society JOTGES Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society (online) JPT Journal of Pentecostal Theology JPTSup Journal of Pentecostal Theology supplement (book series) JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament supplement (collected essays) LS LoveSingapore PE Pentecostal Evangel PL PrayerLink PNEUMA Journal for the Society for Pentecostal Studies SA Sociological Analysis SJT Scottish Journal of Theology STI Straits Times Interactive TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament TT Theology Today This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgements
This book is a slightly revised version of my doctoral dissertation accepted at the University of Cambridge in 2004. I wish to express my thanks both to those who assisted me in my doctoral work and to those who have helped in turning the dissertation into a book. It is said that behind every great man is a great woman. In my case, behind my accomplishment is an extraordinary and generous man, Derek, my late husband. I owe him the greatest debt. He embraced with generosity of heart and mind his role as an “academic widower”, and sacrificed more than should be asked of any husband, graciously enduring prolonged separation through those three-and-a-half years so that I could pursue my dream of doctoral studies at Cambridge. Without his protective generous love, steadfast support, and limitless patience, I would not have completed my doctoral research successfully. A special and particular debt is owed to my supervisor, Prof. David Ford, not only for his supervision but also for his gift of friendship. His supervision of my research was genuinely enthusiastic, critical, meticulous yet generous, and has provided me with space with which to develop my own theological voice vis-à-vis his own. His enthusiasm has been instrumental in my rediscovery of the richness of my own Pentecostal tradition and my ability to “drink deeply” from its well, for which I am especially grateful. Thanks are also due to my two examiners, Prof. Allan Anderson and Dr Christopher Cocksworth, for their enthusiastic, helpful and generous criticisms. I am also grateful to Prof. Ford, Prof. Anderson and Dr Cocksworth for their encouragement to get my dissertation to publication. Where deficiencies exist in this book, they are solely mine. During my research I have come to appreciate the generosity and friendship of “colleagues from both East and West”. Special thanks are due to Young-Hwan Ra, Jason Lam and Chung-Kwan Park, Ethna Regan, Eolene Boyd-Macmillan, Gemma Simmonds and Josette Zammit-Mangion for providing conditions of support, contexts for theological reflection, conversation, “indwelling the narratives of the other”, and many shared meals together; all of these are intimations of the eschatological joy. I owe a great debt to the Theological Centre for Asia and the Trinity Christian Centre for granting me time off to revise my dissertation for publication. I would be remiss, however, if I did not specifically mention three persons by name. Dr Liew Yoo Kiang, a colleague, was the first to encourage me to contact Ashgate for the publication of my dissertation. Dr Yee Tet Lim, another colleague, has generously given his time, expertise and helpful comments to bring my manuscript ready for publication. Kris Chong Hoi Kiew, my student who serves willingly as my research assistant, has put in many hours of hard work. My thanks are due also to friends, colleagues and students for their encouragement and support. I would also like to thank Sarah Lloyd of Ashgate for her kindness and encouragement in getting this book to publication. xii Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Finally, again without my late husband’s embracive spirit and encouragement until his last days, this book would not have been possible. Derek’s untimely passing on 12 June 2006 left an aching void, but also spurred me to complete this book in grateful memory of him. Derek was an extraordinary border-crosser, a true theologian. His commitment to negotiating and redrawing boundaries has been an inspiration to many who have worked with him. Both in living and in dying he embodied a core idea of this book, God’s embracive generosity. This book is dedicated in loving memory and celebration of Derek, my companion in life and love for the past thirty beautiful years. My accomplishment is really his.
To God be the Glory. Foreword
It is a delight and a privilege to introduce and recommend this fine work – Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century: Engaging with Multi-Faith Singapore. Twentieth-century Pentecostalism must be the largest single religious movement in history, with hundreds of millions of people involved in it both within Pentecostal churches and in the charismatic movements in other churches. One of the great questions for the twenty-first century is how this multifaceted movement will develop further and what it has to offer the world. As with the similarly dynamic early Christian Church, Pentecostalism has inevitably met a wide range of challenges and contexts during its first century and has responded in various ways. As it enters its second century, it has a deep need to take stock and learn from its past in order to shape a fruitful future. Dr Tan-Chow May Ling has attempted to meet this need and in my judgement has succeeded in a profound and original way. She has taken very seriously the need to examine Pentecostalism as it actually has been and now is. So she has steeped herself in Pentecostal history and has also taken one contemporary context, that of Singapore, which is examined both historically and in its current reality. She has given special attention to the LoveSingapore movement, which has enabled her to offer an analysis and understanding of some characteristic Pentecostal features that are often also controversial. This alone would have made a fascinating book, but she does a great deal more too. She moves beyond description and analysis to engage biblically and theologically with Pentecostalism. Having recognised imbalances, inadequacies and problematic issues as well as strengths and major contributions, she begins to develop a constructive Pentecostal theology for the twenty-first century. She does this by adding to her historical and contextual perceptions a thorough engagement with the Bible and with some of the best in other Christian theological traditions. She sees clearly that it would be very strange indeed if Pentecostalism did not have a good deal to learn from other Christians. So she draws critically on a range of theologians and scholars in order to offer a matured Pentecostal understanding of Christian faith and practice. She manages to go deeper at the same time into scripture, into her own Pentecostal tradition, into the traditions of others, and into her own Singaporean context. The result is by no means only of relevance to Singaporeans or Pentecostals. One very much hopes that it will be studied and discussed among them, and that the current blossoming of Pentecostal biblical interpretation and other theological work will be enhanced by this book. But it is of wider importance too – indeed, to any Christian wanting to take seriously what God is calling His people into in the present century. Even beyond the Christian community this book should be of interest, since it courageously opens up a way of respectful dialogue across the boundaries of Christian faith. When Dr Tan-Chow May Ling came to study in the University of Cambridge to write the doctorate on which this book is based, she was already mature as a xiv Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Christian with much experience of academic life, the Church and pastoral work, as well as personal suffering. I was deeply impressed by the huge energy she devoted to her work, the range of her reading and thinking, and her insistence on facing one major issue after another – she never shirked awkward problems, even when they necessitated questioning her own position. Yet the most impressive thing of all was the quality of her judgement. It often took a long time to clarify, largely because she wanted to take into account all that was relevant and give a hearing to different viewpoints, though also because of recurrent illness. But when it came it rang true, having been tested against Scripture, history, experience and a great many other minds – and also in prayer. Out of all that, she has distilled something very precious: a Pentecostal wisdom for our times.
David F. Ford Regius Professor of Divinity University of Cambridge England
August 2006 Introduction
Chilling violence and conflicts characterised by an “exterministic mentality”, to use John Polkinghorne’s words, are becoming a global phenomenon in our contemporary society. Many of these conflicts are not just economic or political; they are also social, ethnic and religious in a shrinking global space. Ethnic and religious conflicts are becoming particularly acute. In fact, religions in our global age are often key players in these conflicts.1 That religions are capable of such exterministic violence exposes the disjunction between the religions ideally and empirically. Clearly, religions are not unambiguous; they have a dual potential, “combustibility” or hope and peace. The issue of religious toleration is intensified by global implications. But peace seems elusive in the presence of exterministic determination. Perhaps this intransigent reluctance towards peace is because it profoundly threatens one’s sense of identity and disturbs the boundaries of the self, other, friend and foe. Negotiating one’s identity is not a simple adjustment of boundaries. It involves a knotty complex of fundamentals. Thus, peacemaking compounded by contemporary realities is an extremely daunting task. It can easily lead to despair or nihilism – an atrophy of hope. Quite clearly, our contemporary age suffers from a crisis of hope. On the one hand, secular versions of hope are insipid. Socio-political resolutions predicated upon predictions, projections and management are limiting. Utopian optimism is bankrupt. On the other hand, Christian eschatomania is more a hindrance than a hope. A wholly futurist eschatology, “pie in the sky” hope is at best a “deadening opiate”, a flight from reality; at worst it distorts the dynamism of biblical hope. Religious plurality with its accompanying “difference” and “otherness” often gives rise to violent conflicts threatening human flourishing. Religious volatility and violence raise the disturbing question whether religions are capable of negotiating their identities, making space for difference, for otherness, for redrawing boundaries. However disturbing and threatening this question is to one’s identity, religious communities have a moral obligation and responsibility to reflect deeply on this issue and learn to renegotiate the space we share. This is particularly urgent in the context of a resurgence of religious fundamentalism and traditional cultures in Asia. The cultural and ethnic conflicts that plague our times are reflective of a larger problem of identity and otherness. Christian discipleship mandates taking up this responsibility. At stake here is human flourishing. Human flourishing is more than tolerance, socio-political peace and well-being; shalom is ultimately theological. This book does not directly engage the inter-religious other or add formally to the theology of inter-faith dialogue. It is an argument of this book that given the explosive potential of this global resurgence of religion, it is critical that the violence within oneself or one’s religious tradition must first be addressed and judged. In brief, religious traditions need to be self-reflexive in this regard. Hence, the crux of
1 J. Sacks, The Dignity of Difference (London: Continuum, 2002), p. 4. xvi Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century the book is an intra-Pentecostal engagement. Pentecostalism is much misunderstood by outsiders and insiders alike. Aberrations notwithstanding, Pentecostalism can be interpreted as having a unique potential to be “a peaceful harbinger of pluralism”.2 It is my contention that Pentecostalism with its strong pneumatology and eschatology and its inherent ecumenical thrust is at a pivotal juncture when it might contribute modestly and transformatively to the hope of human flourishing and peace. Thus, the central concern of the book is to explore how Pentecostalism in Singapore may contribute positively to human flourishing in the context of religious plurality and to construct a sustainable theology to negotiate the fundamentally complex issue of the religious other. Christian faith is deeply rooted in events. The primary events of the life, death, resurrection of Christ and Pentecost have all formed and informed the Christian community’s life and practice. I am retrieving the event of Pentecost as the key theological theme of this book. The book is contextual, Pentecostal and theological. The structure of the book is developed in two major parts, descriptive (contextual and Pentecostal) and constructive (theological).
Part I: Descriptive
Chapter 1 attends to contextual issues of Singapore. The first part of the book is a contextual engagement that interprets the culture of Singapore. I shall begin with a brief sketch of Singapore’s history, culture and political ideology. Next, I shall highlight the effects of the political ideology on both plurality and religion in Singapore and the theological issues raised by the contextual realities. Singapore’s social, political and religious harmony and order is achieved by a policy of control, which at core works by “exclusionary” mechanisms; it has been effective but ultimately inadequate. The event of 9/11 and the subsequent events globally and locally accentuate the volatility of difference and otherness and expose the inadequacy of such a management of harmony. This is an inadequacy that the government in Singapore is beginning to concede, as evidenced by its encouragement for greater inter-religious dialogue and contact among religions. The Singapore government’s push for understanding and “reconciliation” is a step forward; however, its underlying motivation is largely dictated by secular imperatives – economic, political and security considerations. Peace and human flourishing are more than social, economic and political well- being. Human flourishing is fundamentally theological, requiring more than social- political resolutions. Chapter 2 explores whether Christianity in Singapore is capable of offering a theological response to its contextual challenges. The chapter begins with a brief history of Christianity and a sociological profile of the Christian community in Singapore. Conservative evangelicalism is the dominant Christian tradition in Singapore. It is largely the religion of the upwardly mobile, middle-class and English-speaking Singaporeans. Its conservative piety, eschatological understanding
2 D. Martin used this phrase in his lecture ‘Missions and the Plurality of Faiths’, presented at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, October 2001. Introduction xvii and a largely exclusive view of the religious other militate against a positive engagement with contextual challenges, particularly the religious other. Here I shall make a tentative appraisal of the ability of Pentecostalism in Singapore to respond prophetically to contextual challenges. For a long time, Pentecostalism has regarded itself as a kind of “evangelical plus” and inevitably adopted the conservative evangelical’s exclusivist position with regard to the religious other in its rhetoric. But its practice is more amicable. Its eschatological understanding and piety is more robust than conservative evangelicalism. Given these and its inherent ecumenical thrust, I shall argue that Pentecostalism can offer a more hospitable negotiation of otherness. In order to do this, I concur with Hollenweger that Pentecostalism needs to retrieve its deeper roots and larger openness. Chapter 3 comprises a development of the argument, by revisiting three Pentecost events: the first Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, the event of Azusa Street at the beginning of the twentieth century, and especially the LoveSingapore movement in the last decade of the twentieth century. The revisit traces both their tragic and hopeful dimensions. The common thread among them is the strong ecumenical thrust of the Spirit, which enabled them to dismantle entrenched exclusionary mechanisms and to negotiate and renegotiate boundaries in their times. The first outpouring of Pentecost achieved after much struggle, a reconfiguration of boundaries, the greatest of which was ethnic identity, the Jew/Gentile divide. In the Azusa outpouring of Pentecost, the “colour line was washed away by the blood of the cross”, the dismantling of entrenched segregation. The primarily black/white racial divide was transcended by an embracive koinonia. The triumphs of both the first and second Pentecost were soon overshadowed by tragic temptations, human attempts to tame the Spirit. However, I shall argue that there are hopeful signs because the eschatological Spirit is freedom and blows where it wills. The Memphis Miracle ’94 and the LoveSingapore movement are hopeful signs. The LoveSingapore movement is both dynamic and audacious in its vision, “Antioch of Asia” and “Bridge of Blessing”. It has transcended denominational divides and succeeded to a large extent in drawing the churches in Singapore from suspicious isolation to genuine cooperation. It has the ability not only to contextualise itself by a “redemptive appropriation” of Singapore’s political vision and agenda, but also the ability to instantiate the positive potentials of Pentecostalism. Each of these three events provides a window in negotiating life and faith in the complex contexts of plurality and otherness.
Part II: Constructive
Chapter 4 is a test case. To test my hypothesis that Pentecostalism is at a pivotal juncture as regards contributing positively to human flourishing and its contextual challenges, I shall submit Pentecostalism in general and LoveSingapore in particular to a biblical challenge. The interrogation begins with a descriptive analysis of the key rhetoric and the four strategic practices of the LoveSingapore movement. Next, I shall provide a diagnosis of the problems with its four strategic practices. The aim of the whole interrogation is to show that, despite its vulnerability, as a whole, Pentecostalism offers a promising hope to be a peaceful harbinger of pluralism xviii Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century and to contribute creatively to human flourishing. Its promise lies in its dynamic pneumatology and eschatology, but it must be reconceived more robustly to better align with Scripture. Chapter 5 argues for an alternative way of conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism in a way that will better reflect the ideal type of Pentecostalism. This alternative way of conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism involves the biblical, historical and theological. First, I shall engage empirical Pentecostalism in dialogue with three New Testament writers: John, Luke and Paul, who deal with the Spirit. I shall show that John, Luke and Paul both singly and together provide an understanding of the Spirit with which early Pentecostalism is more in line. Second, seeking to retrieve the defining distinctive of early Pentecostalism, I suggest that it is eschatology. Third, this richer and robust understanding of the Spirit provides the measure that is both helpful in critiquing empirical Pentecostalism, and transcending the dichotomies between Christomonism and “Pneumatomonism”, cynicism/pessimism and triumphalism, love and power. The objective of this present chapter is not merely to retrieve the theology of the Spirit in Scripture and Pentecostal history, but also to reassess and to reconceive the theology of the Spirit for present contextual realities. Secondarily, it is to rehabilitate the strategic practices of LoveSingapore. The intent in this reconceiving or rethinking is not for the purpose of simple application, imitation or replication, but its embodiment in the present. In reconceiving the Spirit and constructing this pneumatological eschatology (Chapter 6), I shall bring Pentecostalism into dialogue with a diverse range of Christian traditions from Evangelical, Catholic to Orthodox. Chapter 6 comprises the constructive task of articulating a sustainable theology of negotiation from a Pentecostal perspective. I am proposing pneumatological eschatology as a viable and robust Pentecostal contribution. The pneumatological orientation to openness and otherness transcends exclusion and easy tolerance. Pneumatological eschatology offers a radical possibility because it is non-constrictive as it takes seriously both the freedom and the mystery of the Spirit (the freedom of the Spirit “blowing where He wills”) within a Trinitarian framework. The explication of pneumatological eschatology is developed in two movements: remembering and embodying.3 Worship is the unitive thread connecting the two movements and pivoting on the eschatological Spirit. Remembering culminates in worship and embodying overflows from worship. Put in another way, remembering is the word dimension of worship and embodying is the sacramental dimension of worship. Remembering, I suggest, is foundational to embodying. Embodying as a way of acting or doing flows from this way of being and seeing. This is to avoid thinking of pneumatological eschatology in a formulaic way (an instrumentalising
3 I owe these concepts of remembrance and embodiment to E. Farley’s work on Deep Symbols: Their Postmodern Effacement and Reclamation (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996). This recall or remembrance of tradition is critical as contemporary Pentecostalism is to its own detriment allergic to the idea of tradition. Forgetting the past and its roots robs the movement of resources of wisdom, creativity and power. Inadvertently, there is a tendency or a compulsion to constantly reinvent spiritual “truth”, the so-called new revelations or rhema truths that are a large and thriving enterprise! Introduction xix tendency of contemporary Pentecostalism). Participating in the activity of God in bringing transformative blessing to the world does not depend on finding the most effective methodology or employing social engineering. Rather, it demands the costly obedience of discipleship nurtured in worship. In other words, transformation of the world is not possible without a people transformed by worship. They are inseparable. And worship is what Pentecostals do best. The first section of this chapter is anamnesis – remembering. First, the remembering is historical. It is remembering the significance of the complex of eschatology and pneumatology in both the Early Church and Pentecostalism. Second, the remembering has to do with the “new” thing that the eschatological Spirit is doing. Here, I am suggesting the “new” thing that the Spirit is doing is orientating the Church to radical otherness and openness, vis-à-vis God and God’s Kingdom. Orientation to God’s otherness (a way of being) coincides with orientation to the radical openness of God’s Kingdom (a way of seeing). In relation to this, I shall make an excursus into the Memphis Miracle ’94. Third, I shall attend to worship. Remembering culminates in worship, which is the foundational locus for nurturing the twin orientation of the Spirit that informs and forms us. Contemporary challenges require that the Church remembers together and rightly discerns the purposes and activities of God in worship in order to respond creatively and faithfully. Remembering this complex is key to retrieving a way of being and seeing that is deeply rooted in Scripture and in Pentecostalism. Remembering has doxological, relational, ethical and missional import. The second part of this chapter is embodying. Embodying has to do with the formation and empowerment of the social agent as “a worshipping self” through worship. This section attends specifically to the implications of pneumatological eschatology for negotiating otherness. Embodying the eschatological reality in the multiple contexts of “dividedness,” “otherness” and difference, both ecclesially and societally, involves deep engagement with contexts and a rethinking of identity, boundaries, and mission/evangelism. First, I shall discuss embodiment as living in the Spirit. Second, I shall attend to the praxis of the Spirit. Third, I shall underscore the radical possibility of pneumatological eschatology. Lastly, doxological joy is the heart of remembering and embodying.
Conclusion
In this concluding chapter I shall offer an embryonic description of an ethic of negotiation. It is not possible to fully develop an ethic of negotiation within the scope of this chapter. It is an ethic of negotiation that seeks to transcend exclusionary logic or easy tolerance. Such an ethic of negotiation demands an expansive vision, rooted in the mystery of God and the overflow of “facing” God in worship. I shall describe this ethic of negotiation in terms of vision and then offer some guidelines and maxims for negotiation. This page intentionally left blank PART I Descriptive This page intentionally left blank Chapter 1 A Hermeneutic of Singapore Culture
Introduction
Singapore is unique in relation to its neighbours. It is a tiny island state situated at the southern tip of the peninsula of West Malaysia. The main island of Singapore is about 42 kilometres from east to west and 23 kilometres from north to south. The total land area (including that of the smaller islands) is 647.5 square kilometres. It has a population of 4,151,264 (July 2000 estimate). Though territorially small scale, it is a large-scale society “characterized by a high degree of internal diversity, complexity of culture and socio-economic organization and by a multiplicity of outside contacts and linkages.”1 Singapore is one of the most pluralistic nations in the world in terms of culture, ethnicity and religion. Given these factors, Singapore has done remarkably well in maintaining religious and racial harmony. The harmonious coexistence in a heterogeneous culture is due to the fact that Singapore is a highly controlled and structured nation. Singapore is the combination of a strong government and a business-oriented culture.
History: Singapore Past and Present
Contemporary Singapore cannot be understood apart from its history. Modern Singapore is a primarily migrant society. In 1819, when Sir Stamford Raffles came to the island, it had only a tiny population consisting of approximately 120 Malays and 30 Chinese.2 Soon its population began to increase as immigrants arrived from the southern provinces of China, the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), and the surrounding Malay Archipelago. Gradually, the Chinese population outnumbered even the Malays and became the dominant ethnic group even to this day. The early immigrants were largely illiterate and semi-literate. Among the immigrants there are numerous sub-groups differentiated and separated by language, culture and religion. Illiteracy, linguistic and cultural differences made communication and understanding very difficult. Suspicion, misunderstanding and hostility were rife. In the early years, the British under Sir Stamford Raffles instituted segregation of ethnic groups to contain potential ethnic violence. This policy led eventually to the formation of ethnic and sub-ethnic enclaves. They were also segregated
1 J. Clammer, Singapore: Ideology, Society and Culture (Singapore: Chopmen Publishers, 1985), p. 5. 2 S.K. Chiew, ‘Nation-Building in Singapore: A Historical Perspective’, in Jon S.T. Quah (ed.), In Search of Singapore’s National Values (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1990), p. 6. 4 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century geographically and socially by differences in language, religion and trade.3 Many of the early immigrants came with a “sojourner” mentality and did not plan to make Singapore their permanent home. Their dream was to amass wealth and return to their motherlands. These factors contributed to a fragmented and non-cohesive society. Kwok commenting on the problem of cultural diversities writes, “the experience of pluralism was already a basic part of our early evolution as a country and as a people. As members of different linguistic and ethnic groups, they were rooted in traditional ways of life, which were tied to traditional worldviews, but they did not collectively share a single way of life and a single overarching worldview. What brought our forebears together was the experience of common living and economic interdependence in a city-state, and within the ‘rational’ framework of colonial law and administration.”4 Japanese occupied both Malaya and Singapore in 1942–45. Those times were rife with ethnic animosity instigated by the Japanese who were at war with China and India. At that time, the Communists who fought the Japanese in the Malayan jungles won the respect of the Chinese. In 1949, Mainland China became socialist while the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan. That political development in China impacted the Chinese in Singapore, who became divided into pro-Beijing, pro-Taiwan (these two groups are primarily Chinese-educated), and those (especially the English-educated) who looked upon Singapore as their home. The government regarded Chinese education “as either China-oriented political radicalism or ethnic chauvinism, both politically undesirable in a developmentalist and multicultural state.”5 The lack of social cohesion had to do with the centrifugal forces of “outpost nationalism”. Fostering social cohesion as well as political allegiance to Singapore in order to sustain political stability became the top priority during the mid-1950s, a time of nation-building. Racial harmony is essential to nation-building in the context of multiracial Singapore.6 A commission was formed to study ways to create social cohesion and political allegiance to Singapore as “home”. In 1959, when Singapore gained self-government but not independent status, the People’s Action Party (PAP) government implemented most of the recommendations of this commission.7
3 Ibid., pp. 6–7. See also B.H. Chua and K.W. Kwok, ‘Social Pluralism in Singapore’, in R.W. Hefner (ed.), The Politics of Multiculturalism (Honolulu: University of Hawai′i Press, 2001). 4 K.W. Kwok, ‘The Problem of “Tradition” in Contemporary Singapore’, in Arun Mahizhnan (ed.), Heritage and Contemporary Values (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1993), p. 8. 5 See Chua and Kwok, p. 108. Intra-cultural divide exists until this day between the Chinese-educated Chinese and the English-educated Chinese. However, Chua and Kwok note that there have been mutual efforts in recent years to bridge this intra-cultural divide (p. 109). 6 Jon S.T. Quah records on racial riots in Singapore, “Racial riots are the most serious threats to the survival of Singapore. Fortunately, there had only been a few racial riots – the Maria Hertogh riots of December 1950; the July and September 1964 racial riots; and the unpublicised racial riots as a result of the spillover effects of the 13 May 1969 racial riots in Kuala Lumpur.” See his chapter, ‘Government Policies and Nation-Building’ (1990), p. 58. 7 Chiew elaborates that the recommendations centred on the elimination of division by ethnicity, forging of mutual understanding, increased inter-ethnic interaction and elimination of discrimination against minorities. See pp. 12–13. A Hermeneutic of Singapore Culture 5 One of the significant moves towards social cohesion in the process of nation- building in the decades following its independence in 1965 was the total revamping of the tools of education. Locally produced textbooks replaced those published in Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Madras and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Chiew records: “Written in four official languages, the contents were Singaporeanized and pluralized … Now, whatever their ethnic backgrounds, they are taught the history and culture of the four major ethnic groups in Singapore as well as Singapore’s history and way of life. These changes may be described as Singaporeanized cultural integration.”8 In 1978, “the schools were brought under a unified ‘national system,’ with English as the medium of instruction and each student’s ‘mother tongue’ – Mandarin, Malay, or Tamil – relegated to the status of second language.”9 The aggressive drive towards cultural integration was regarded as necessary not only for national stability, but as a prerequisite to economic growth. It was felt that the key to combating competing loyalties and primordial ties was the promotion of economic growth. Thus, the PAP government was fully committed to modernisation and developmental goals. For decades following its independence, the government of Singapore has concentrated its energy in ensuring the viability and sustaining the success of Singapore. A great part of this concentration is an active attention to and promotion of economic-dictated values that have shaped the Singapore culture. Under the hegemony of the PAP government, we witnessed a phenomenal transformation of Singapore into a modern success story. This transformation of Singapore is achieved “by the logic of the economic development.”10 Consequently, this practical rationality practised by the PAP government affected the development of traditional values of the ethnic cultures in the following decades of nation-building. Though these values were given constitutional recognition, they also suffered a conscious neglect. The political decision to discourage ethnic cultural identities was needed “to maintain a ‘neutral’, ‘belong to all but none in particular’ stance … necessary to persuade our citizens to become ‘more’ Singaporean and to direct their loyalty and identity towards the new nation rather than to China, India and the Malay world respectively.”11 Today the strongest social bond among Singaporeans is the economic success of the nation. Economic success has brought with it substantial self-definition and national pride, thereby contributing to the development of national culture and identity.12
8 Ibid., p. 14. 9 Chua and Kwok, p. 90. 10 Wei-Wei Mok, ‘In Search of a Visual Identity: Local Art Expressions and Their Value Systems’, in Mahizhnan (1993), p. 45. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., pp. 44–5. A desire for individualism and individuality in identity is a by-product of economic success. Ironically, it is this individualism that the government attempted to restrain in its formulation of the national ideology of “Shared Values” in 1991. Chua and Kwok, ‘Social Pluralism in Singapore’, p. 92. 6 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Political Ethos
The People’s Action Party (PAP) has ruled Singapore since its independence from Great Britain in 1959. It is politically conservative. Inglehart (1990: 259) defines political conservatism as based on materialistic values: economic growth, domestic, and military security.13 The central goal of this political leadership is development through central control. Singapore is well-known for its structured orderliness, cleanliness and efficiency. Underlying this structured existence is the fundamental ideology of control. Cherian George crystallises this ideology with the interesting metaphor of the air-conditioner. This metaphor is an apt description of Singapore’s multicultural, materialistic and highly controlled culture. Environmental comfort is regulated by central control. Central control is the hallmark of an Air-conditioned Nation.14 Everything from things to people falls within its neat and rigid classificatory system. This ideology of control stems from a keen awareness of the fragility and vulnerability of Singapore. This awareness perpetuates a permanent sense of “crisis”. Even after almost four decades of nation-building, the government has not quite relaxed its control. Clammer theorises that the “crisis mentality” is deliberate and forms an essential part of the ideological system of the government. It reflects again the essential concern for order.15 Perhaps this is also influenced by the Confucian ethic of harmony, which comprises a practical function of compromising opposition and solving conflict so that order rather than disorder should prevail. Xin-Zhong Yao explains, “the concept of harmony itself contains conflict and its resolution, and the Confucian Way of Harmony … works on solution and resolution of conflict and search for the effective methods to reconcile and resolve various kinds of conflict.”16 Political ideology is sacralised by the PAP. This sacralisation of politics is the Singapore government’s interpretation of Confucian logic. According to Confucian political theory, good government receives its mandate from Heaven. Yao explains, “Confucian discourse on government is based on the understanding of the Mandate of Heaven … Those who have demonstrated good virtues would be trusted with ruling right.”17 The “virtue” of the PAP is measured in concrete and material terms:
13 Cited by J.B. Tamney, ‘Conservative Government and Support for the Religious Institution in Singapore: An Uneasy Alliance’, Sociological Analysis, 53:2 (1992): 201. 14 C. George, Singapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation (Singapore: Landmark Books, 2000), pp. 15–17. 15 Clammer (1985), p. 28. However, I think it also has to do with a deep awareness by the government that the stability, success and wealth are fragile in Singapore, surrounded by real competition and hostility. Mismanagement and laxity can easily bring the downfall of Singapore overnight. Control is therefore crucial – regimentation is valued above personal “freedom”. Some consider this tight control dictatorial, but I think it is an overstatement. It is more like a sense of paternal responsibility – a very Chinese concept. 16 X.-Z. Yao, An Introduction to Confucianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 178. 17 Ibid. The Singapore government has always been interested to strengthen the role of Confucianism in the society. Its interest in Confucianism in part is motivated by concerns related to family – particularly to resinicise (to ‘rediscover’ Chinese manners, customs, etc.) the Singapore Chinese population. The specific aim is to strengthen cultural roots and values – thrift, diligence, A Hermeneutic of Singapore Culture 7 the efficient management, the political stability and the economic success under its government, which have brought about the good life for its people. Douglas A. Hicks suggests that PAP appropriates Confucianism in order to “create efficient, profitable enterprise in Singapore. Confucianism – as interpreted by the government – serves as a combined civil and corporate religion.”18 The empirical and tangible results of the PAP’s political management are difficult to rebut and thus its hegemony is uncontested. In fact, over the decades, the efficiency of the PAP’s management has cast Singapore’s culture and identity. It has succeeded “in grafting in the public a similar, unsentimentally pragmatic and results-based orientation. Today, most Singaporeans judge people, institutions and policies on their bottom line contributions to material well-being.”19 The notions of national values and economic necessity are often used to legitimate many government policies and the ubiquitous hegemony. Clammer describes the government’s appropriation of religious symbolism to itself, i.e., sacrality:
In a sense Singapore itself is represented as an entity worthy of religious sentiments, especially as seen through the filter of “national identity”. The emotions to be directed towards the State are almost exactly those thought to be suitable for devotion to a religious object, and the benefits – security, personal and social integration and community are also the same.20
The absolute hegemony of the state does not permit any rival to its authority. However, the political hegemony though ubiquitous is benign, a benevolent paternalism. Unlike the other Asian nations such as Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Philippines, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, where the trend is to politicise religion, in Singapore there is a deliberate depoliticising of religion. The government is deeply alert to the political power of religion. Consequently, the sacralisation of politics and the depoliticising of religion structure the nation’s pluralistic and heterogeneous society.
Effects of the Political Ideology on Plurality in Singapore
The four major official classifications of ethnic groups are: Chinese 77%, Malay 14%, Indian 7.6%, other 1.4%. Strict ethnic boundaries are not a Singapore invention but a legacy of its colonial past. Institutionalising of ethnicity is a separation for the sake of distinction and order. Thus, the Singapore government actively promotes and enhances ethnic feelings, ethnic identities and ethnic boundaries. Such boundaries are necessary and positive, as they help to establish roots and reinforce solidarity.
filial piety, and putting group interest above all else as a means to combat the “evil” of westernisation (italics, mine). Another reason is political. The Straits Times (1989b: 28) reports that the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said, “Singapore had superimposed on its constitutional framework the ideal political leader as a Confucian gentleman, or junzi, one who was trustworthy, morally upright and beyond reproach.” See Tamney, ‘Conservative Government’. 18 D.A. Hicks, Religion and the Workplace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 149. 19 George, p. 23. 20 Clammer (1985), p. 46. 8 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century A significant feature within Singapore’s plurality is that although the Chinese is the dominant ethnic group in Singapore, other cultures are not assimilated into it. The move towards cultural assimilation is deemed non-viable politically, as it is situated in the Malay Archipelago. The only viable position is to practise a kind of cultural integration.21 Part of Singapore’s uniqueness is that “Singapore has never been exclusively Chinese, other races including the indigenous Malays, have always been conspicuously visible.”22 The ideal of cultural and racial integration is commendable. It avoids the hegemony of the dominant cultural–racial group. Like ethnicity, languages are officially classified into four major tongues: Chinese, Malay (the official and national language), Tamil and English (the language of commerce and technology). Language and religion in Singapore are important markers of cultural identity. These identity markers are based on an “exclusionary” classificatory system. Major religions like Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism and Confucianism thrive in Singapore. Given such diversity, Singapore has done well in maintaining racial and religious harmony as well as political stability and economic success. This phenomenon in a heterogeneous, highly urbanised society is due largely to the political ideology espoused by the Singapore government: national stability, national interests and economic success. The rationale underlying this is the belief that “Growing economic advancement and political sophistication are assumed to foster a sense of life satisfaction and lead to generally positive attitudes about the prevailing social and political environment.”23 The social formation of Singapore is extensively shaped by this political ideology. Han Fook Kwang comments:
Without political infighting in the country, race was never used as a political football to stir up trouble … With high economic growth throughout those years, racial ties have not been subject to the same tension and pressure as they have elsewhere when jobs are scarce and poverty is widespread. This economic pre-condition for racial harmony is an important factor … These two ingredients, the political will right at the outset and the peaceful social conditions, have shaped Singapore’s multi-racial development.24
As a result, Singapore has enjoyed about four decades of unbroken political stability and high economic growth following its separation from Malaysia in 1965. The ability of the government to manage and control many of its external environments is legendary. In this way the government has been able to create a near “utopia”, social– political peace and economic success unmatched by its surrounding neighbours. Singapore has the second highest per capita income in Asia and the highest in South- East Asia; it has one of the world’s best records of harmonious ethnic relations; and
21 Chiew concludes that the Brazilian model of integration is the only viable choice for Singapore as it begins its process of nation building (pp. 6–23). 22 Clammer (1985), p. 93. This is clearly evident by the fact that Malay instead of Chinese was made the national language of Singapore. This linguistic policy was implemented in 1959. 23 J. Haynes, ‘Renaissance of Political Religion in the Third World in the Context of Global Change’, in John L. Esposito and M. Watson (eds), Religion and Global Order (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), p. 171. 24 F.K. Han, ‘Race and History: It’s Not All That Bad’, STI, 17 March 2001. A Hermeneutic of Singapore Culture 9 it has one of the lowest crime rates despite having one of the world’s highest degrees of urbanisation.25
Effects of the Political Ideology on Religion in Singapore
Religion and ethnicity play a critical political role in many Third World countries. It is a common trend in most Asian countries to politicise religion. The experience of dislocation, oppression, poverty and powerlessness make religion an attractive and powerful rallying point, to provide action, reforming force and meaning for the lived social world. The political power of religion cannot be underestimated. John L. Esposito and Michael Watson underscore this:
The worldwide resurgence of religion, in the late twentieth century, has affected personal and political life. Its importance and impact in politics is witnessed in South Africa’s anti- apartheid movement, Muslim politics, and liberation theology in the Third World, Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, Hindu fundamentalism in India, conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo and Lebanon … In all this, religion has renewed its challenge to some of the major aspects – political, social and cultural – of the modern world.26
Singapore cannot be insulated from its surrounding environments. The PAP is ever conscious that global and local events have repercussions on Singapore as it continues to try to forge a national identity for this non-homogeneous society. The twin fear of the government in relation to religion is that it may be the source of communal strife and the rallying point of anti-government sentiment.27 Moreover, the vulnerable position of Singapore in relation to its neighbours and its own complex and fragile ethnic structure compel the government to adopt the ideology of a secular state. Given the sacralisation of politics and the government’s axiomatic intolerance of
25 J. Clammer, The Sociology of Singapore Religion (Singapore: Chopmen Publishers, 1991), p. 11. Elsewhere, Clammer points out that urbanisation in Singapore has two rather special characteristics – it is not a rural–urban migration as in most countries, but is being urbanised where it already is; and that the density of population in the housing estates is often less per acre than it was in the slum, squatter or kampong (Malay word for village) areas that preceded the estates. The problem is not therefore density per acre (i.e., external density), but internal density, or the number of people occupying each flat, with its associated crowding, noise, lack of privacy, lack of space for activities, etc. See also Clammer (1985), p. 141. 26 Esposito and Watson, ‘Overview: The Significance of Religion for Global Order’ (2000), pp. 17–18. 27 The government is wary of Christianity, both the Christian left (liberation theologians) and the Christian right groups. In May 1987, 16 people (Christian left) were arrested in Singapore for being involved “in a Marxist conspiracy”, and by December 1987, the Christian Conference of Asia (a regional ecumenical organisation) was expelled for espousing liberation ideology. The Christian right’s strong evangelistic zeal has upset many people. Christian evangelisation was deemed a political problem because: (1) it occurred in classrooms, thereby exposing the government’s inability to control what happened in the schools; (2) evangelisation included intolerance, which was incompatible with the government’s ideal of an orderly, multi-religious society; and (3) some evangelists openly attacked aspects of Chinese culture that the government was trying to make more popular. (See Tamney, p. 208.) 10 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century dissent,28 in addition to the volatility of religious fervour, it is inevitable that religion is systematically depoliticised in Singapore. Unlike those Asian countries (listed in the first section of this chapter) where “religion’s role in the context of (civil) society is as a basic ‘building block’ of contemporary order, along with government and economic institutions”,29 religion in Singapore does not have any role or effect on government policy or the formation of national ideology. Religion in Singapore, though widespread, is also increasingly privatised. Religion is not allowed a public function, only a private conscience of a certain kind.30 As far as the government is concerned, religion is irrelevant to nation building, modernisation and economics. Tamney recalls that there remain some voices within Catholicism and mainline Protestantism in Singapore which are critical of the government’s capitalist policy. This critique has led the government to reduce the public saliency of religion.31 At best, religion has a purely instrumental value of producing the kind of moral traits deemed desirable for the kind of society that the government intends to create. Thus, religion is manipulated for political ends.32 Religion is accommodated within its political ideology. This governmental accommodation is expressed in the toleration of the various religious practices of its citizens. Part of this accommodation and control can be discerned in the government’s promotion of “religious pluralism in public-sector and private-sector workplaces through its national holiday policy … the government funds public displays of holiday-related decorations for various celebrations – Christmas, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, and so on.”33 In turn, the religions on their part do not rock the political boat. Despite the government’s tight rein over religion, religious revivalism is a flourishing phenomenon in Singapore. Membership in churches, temples and religious associations has risen rapidly. Given the fact that Singapore is a secular state, highly industrialised and urbanised, this phenomenon in Singapore is a paradox. Most Singaporeans are unashamed to wear a religious label, i.e., to identify themselves by religion.
28 Tamney, p. 211. 29 Esposito and Watson, p. 5. 30 Private conscience is defined specifically here as upholding Asian culture and values such as filial piety, thrift, diligence and group interest above all else. 31 Tamney, p. 213. 32 Between 1984 and 1989, the government experimented with religion to stem the perceived rising tide of decadence due to modernisation, read westernisation. “The basic objective was to undermine the cult of self-gratification.” In 1982, the government announced a major shift in educational policy. Starting in 1984, every student in the final two years of secondary education would have to enter a two-year “Religious Knowledge” programme. However, by 1989, this experimental policy was deemed non-viable and terminated. This was due largely to the unease of the government when Religious Knowledge evolved into a propagating instrument at the hands of religious leaders, particularly Christians, who are strongly inclined to evangelism. Christians are over-represented among teachers. Civics/ Moral Education replaced Religious Knowledge in the curriculum. See Tamney, pp. 201–17. However, as one Protestant theologian rightly observes, “the sense of civic responsibility has not been forthcoming in Singapore.” Cited by Chua and Kwok, p. 106. 33 Hicks, pp. 152–3. He adds that in a way the government also “severely limits the bounds of religious pluralism through its excessive emphasis on order, stability and harmony.” A Hermeneutic of Singapore Culture 11 Free thinkers are a relatively small percentage in Singapore. Though religious pride and evangelistic fervour run strong among the different religious adherents, there is no overt rivalry or tension. The harmonious coexistence in a heterogeneous culture is the direct result of the prudent and strategic central control.
Current Contextual Challenges to Religious Harmony
There is no denying that the pervasive hegemony of the State with its governmental policy of control has an obvious advantage. Singapore’s religious harmony is unparalleled in this region of Asia. However, such a top–down interventionist initiative of social management, though it has been effective to an extent, is ultimately inadequate. George makes an incisive critique of this:
There continues to be an over-reliance on top–down policing to sustain inter-ethnic peace, rather than on developing citizens’ sensitivity towards cultural diversity … The problem with this regulatory emphasis, however, is that it has allowed Singaporeans to enjoy the fruit of inter-ethnic peace without having to work particularly hard for it … multi- racialism can only be sustained if it is embedded in the instincts of each individual, rather than imposed by authority.34
Arguably, the top–down social engineering has been remarkably successful in the past. In Asian countries, religion and ethnicity are often inseparable. Inter-religious relationships are not monochrome and static, but dynamic and hence fragile. Such fragility is more pronounced in a heterogeneous culture. Singapore Minister of Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng comments that although the inter-religious relationships are good, this must not be taken for granted: “We must go beyond just tolerating others because tolerance is rather shallow. We must take a step further and have a better appreciation of other people’s beliefs and religions … deepen our understanding of one another and strengthen our social cohesion.”35 The need to move beyond tolerance to genuine understanding and peaceful coexistence in a multicultural and multi-religious context is critical. The government is keenly aware of and alert to the potential political problem of religion in our heterogeneous culture. Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew highlights this potential in the aftermath of the events of 9/11, describing religion as “a very profound and fundamental tectonic divide.”36
34 George, pp. 165–6. Chua and Kwok share this sentiment. They point out that state-led social engineering is not only limited but it also fails to be cognizant of the fact that social resources for civility and participation actually exist. See ‘Social Pluralism in Singapore’ (2001), p. 117. 35 Quoted in STI, 12 May 2001. Social cohesion is a perennial concern, particularly with the recent global, regional and local events. The Institute of Public Policy Studies (IPS) is involved in the research on multiculturalism and identities and their impact on social cohesion and nation-building in Singapore. See http://www.ips.org.sg/ 36 Quoted by L.H. Chua, ‘So much about “cohesion” … but what is it really?’, STI, 17 October 2001. A.E. Lai highlights that the growing religious identities and politics in the public sphere is a cause of great concern for the government, particularly with regard to Christian evangelism and Islamic movements. See ‘Public Education on Religion and Interfaith 12 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Asad Latif comments that the noted flexibility of Islam (single faith with various regional expressions) is changing perceptibly. Nowadays, there is a tendency in Islam to emphasise interpretations of the religion primarily from some Middle Eastern traditions. The net result of this is the eroding of the tolerance that has marked South-East Asian Islam.37 In the recent years following the event of 9/11, Singapore’s arrests of several terrorists of the Jemaah Islamiah (radical Muslim group) connected with Al-Qaeda heightened the potential of power politics of religion. The two arrests have caused ripples in the very fabric of Singapore society. Several nasty racial episodes of suspicion and exclusion were reported in the Singapore Straits Times. Though these episodes are isolated cases, they are reasons for jitters both politically and privately. To an extent, the normal harmonious racial and religious relationships have been shaken in recent times. These events have escalated the government’s push for greater social cohesion and more state-initiated inter-faith dialogues.38 Then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong proposed a draft “code of interaction” for religious harmony in October 2002.39 It has set up inter-racial circles to build confidence and trust among Singaporeans of different races and religions.40 A part of the effort to enhance understanding and solidarity is visiting religious sites of each other’s faiths. Money is also poured into this exercise.41 Concerted efforts are also made by the government to change the past approach to national integration. In recent times there have been efforts to minimise the consciousness of racial divide and differences by disavowing race-based politics and widening the common area. These pragmatic and practical steps are commendable, but merely superficial. Questions of identity,
Initiatives’, in Facing Faiths, Crossing Cultures: Key Trends and Issues in a Multicultural World (Singapore: SNP International, 2005), p. 56. 37 A. Latif, ‘Riding the tide of Islam and China’, STI, 21 January 2002. “It has been clear, over the past 15 years or so, that some Malays in Singapore have become attracted to the sorts of overt race differentiation common in Malaysia and parts of the Middle-east. Eating at the same table as non-Muslims used to be a natural expression of community and sharing only a generation ago. Now segregation at functions and workaday social settings is entrenched. We think this hurts the big cause, as eating together is a time-honoured expression of oneness. As long as religious strictures are not violated, social habits should promote mixing, not a contrived exclusion” (The Editorial, STI, 11 January 2002). 38 “Religious leaders from Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist groups joined those from the Muslim and Catholic faiths at the grand inter-faith dinner in Geylang to celebrate Hari Raya (Malay New Year festival) and Christmas last month”, Latif, ‘A Culture that Transcends the Religious Roots’, STI, 5 January 2002. Interestingly, the conservative evangelicals were conspicuously absent. 39 Lee Hsien Loong succeeded Goh as PM in 2004. Arlina Arshad Yeo and Sue-Ann Chia, ‘Religious Code Goes Beyond Keeping Peace’, The Straits Times, 16 October 2002. 40 See Lai for a list of these initiatives, ‘Public Education on Religion and Interfaith Initiatives’, p. 56. 41 A. Yeo, STI, 30 January 2002, reports, “Children learn to understand religious and cultural differences as part of a S$1million, Northeast CDC programme.” The effort and expense is laudable, but insufficient. Religious harmony begins at home. How adult Singaporeans mirror images to their children in the privacy of the home will ultimately determine the course of public life. A Hermeneutic of Singapore Culture 13 difference, loyalty and belongingness are sharpened. Warren Fernandez argues: “No state organisation, administrative fiat or political lectures will suffice to open hearts and minds and do the work that is needed to foster ties that bind. It will take goodwill, relentless effort and much give-and-take on all sides, from the likes of you and I, if the multi-racialism espoused in our national pledge … is to remain meaningful and alive.”42 Indeed, the management of cultural diversity as a purely top–down interventionist initiative leaves much to be desired. The inadequacy lies specifically in the fact that without the nurturing of responsible and thoughtful social agents, social management is unsustainable in crisis. Tolerance is a virtue. It can be a step towards acceptance and working out reconciliation. Tolerance is the Asian way of racial and religious harmony. But is this tolerance capable of transcending the threat of “otherness”, the threat to self- identity? Evidently, Wong (Singapore Minister of Home Affairs) does not think so. The concept of tolerance has limited currency. Michael Barnes remarks perceptively, “But tolerance can be an expression of the power of the stronger, a proscription on open-ended engagement which keeps people apart rather than enabling a full and frank exchange, with all the threats to security which the naming of prejudices involves.”43 Fundamentally, the concept of tolerance is (particularly in Asian understanding) in fact a mask for non-engagement of the other. The tacit assumption here is that boundaries are fixed and not permeable. As the Chinese saying goes, “River water does not violate well water.” Implicit in this is the idea of non-engagement. Achieving peace via non-engagement is ultimately unsustainable. What if river water does violate well water? What then? Exclusionary mechanism is so entrenched in our social worlds that it is easily triggered by the slightest provocation. Will a nation accustomed to a top–down interventionist approach be capable, to borrow Miroslav Volf’s terms, of “embrace and generosity” in relation to the other in the threat and crisis of identity? Religious power is never unambiguous. Its potential for great good as well as great harm is hauntingly real. At risk here is human flourishing. Chua underscores this fragility: “Singapore now possesses that rare jewel of religious harmony, but it is a jewel that needs to be polished regularly to inculcate understanding at a deeper level.”44 Unless one focuses on nurturing social agents capable of such, the social mechanism and institutions that are designed to promote peaceful coexistence will ultimately fail. In sum, Christian aggressive evangelism coupled with the expansionist revivalism of both Islam and Buddhism can exacerbate the fragile religious harmony of the nation. Peace and human flourishing are the perennial longings of the human heart.
42 W. Fernandez, ‘Multi-racialism cannot be an ECA’, STI, 2 February 2002. A survey, ‘Race, Religion: Most Stay Upbeat’, reported by Sharon Loh in STI, 7 November 2003, indicated that social attitudes towards race and religion relations among Singaporeans are in general optimistic. However, the better educated are more pessimistic. In a closed door discussion held on 22 June 2004 at the Institute of Policies, Singapore, a participant expressed dissatisfaction with the top–down initiative because of its sense of artificiality. See Lai, ‘Public Education on Religion and Interfaith Initiatives’, p. 66. 43 M. Barnes, SJ, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p.13. 44 Chua, STI, 10 October 2001. 14 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century The Singapore government’s push for understanding and “reconciliation” must be affirmed; however, its underlying motivation is inadequate as it is largely “dictated by economic, political and security considerations – all secular imperatives.”45 Peace and human flourishing have religious and eschatological dimensions that politics and sociology cannot exhaust. The urgency of the contextual realities and challenges of Singapore require not only a socio-political response, but also, importantly, a theological response. Chapter 2 will explore whether Christianity in Singapore can rise to this challenge.
45 A. Latif, ‘Secularism Protects All Faiths’, STI, 31 Dec. 2001. Chapter 2 Christianity in Singapore
Introduction
Singapore Christians, a small minority, are often considered “culturally alien to the south and east Asian traditions, which dominate the Singapore environment.”1 The western label attached to Christianity is a strange paradox in Singapore. Christianity is the only non-ethnically based major religion in Singapore. In fact, the adherents are predominantly Chinese.2 The predominance of Chinese in Christianity is logical as they are the dominant ethnic group in Singapore (76.8% of the total population). In a sense, Christianity may be called a “Chinese” religion in Singapore. The Census 2000 reports that 16.5% of the total population of Chinese are Christians and that it is the second most important religion of the Chinese.3 Its minority and non-indigenous status have not been an impediment to its flourishing. On the contrary, Christianity in Singapore has thrived in a context of complex ethnic, social and religious plurality. Perhaps the fact that Christianity is a missionary religion is a contributing factor. Since the early 1970s, Christianity has been flourishing and Singapore Christians growing in evangelistic fervour. The Pentecostal/Charismatic Church is particularly noted for its aggressive, vibrant and dynamic evangelism and missions. In recent years, many Christian leaders from the East and the West have come to regard it as the “Antioch of Asia”.4
Christianity in Singapore: A Brief History
Christianity first came to Singapore as a service for the British expatriate community. Under the British administration, British-based denominations (Anglicans, Presbyterians,
1 J. Clammer, The Sociology of Singapore Religion (Singapore: Chopmen Publishers, 1991), pp. 20–21. 2 Clammer, Singapore: Ideology, Society and Culture (Singapore: Chopmen Publishers, 1985), p. 42. He adds that, despite this empirical evidence, many still regard Christianity as a “Western” religion, especially the Chinese religionists who feel threatened by it, which is understandable as its architecture, liturgy and many other identifying factors such as denominations do make it appear so. 3 The Census also notes that, while the growth of Christianity had not kept pace with Buddhism, it has overtaken Taoism to become the second most important religion of the Chinese. 4 This designation was “bestowed” on Singapore first by Billy Graham in 1978 and then by Yonggi Cho in 1982. See PrayerLink, no. 242/07/2002. 16 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Methodists and Brethren) established churches for the British expatriate community. The London Missionary Society was the only ministry that attempted to reach the indigenous Malays, the Chinese and the Indian immigrants. That work was arduously slow and had not accomplished much by the close of the nineteenth century. However, several factors at the turn of the twentieth century changed the situation. First, there was a greater influx of immigrants from China, India and Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka). Some of those immigrants were Christians. Their presence in Singapore provided a mature leadership base for the young church and created witnessing communities among the different ethnic, language and dialect groups. Second, when missionaries had to leave China because of persecution (Boxer Rebellion 1899 and 1900) and communism (1949), they came to Singapore. The influx of Christian workers, many of whom were trained to minister in the dialects, provided an outreach to the different dialect groups of migrant Chinese communities. Coupled with the rising tide of missions from America, the 1950s saw a new convergence of missionary and denomination bodies establishing churches in Singapore.5
A Brief Sociological Profile of the Christian Community
As a non-ethnically based religion, Christians come from all ethno-linguistic groups. However, in the Church, the Chinese dominate numerically, followed by Indians and Eurasians, and “trailed by Malay speakers, who are not normally Malay ethnically, but Christians either of Indonesian origin or Peranakan Chinese.”6 Protestants are the majority and conservative evangelicalism is the dominant Christian tradition in Singapore. Many of the Protestant congregations are exclusively Chinese in composition. The primary reason for this is language. Some churches are monolingual, employing either Mandarin dialects, for example the Hakka Methodist Church or the Cantonese Methodist Church, or English.7 Indians and Eurasians are more inclined to affiliate with the Catholic Church (approximately 23,000). From its humble beginning among the immigrants, Christianity is now the religion of the socially mobile, English speaking and well-educated, a predominantly middle- class religion. This fact causes non-Christians to regard Christianity as an elitist religion. Christians form the largest religious group among university graduates. There is a higher percentage of Christians within the 25 to 44 age group. Overall, Christianity registers the most growth in terms of percentage over the other major religions in Singapore in the statistical release of the Census 2000.8 Language and
5 D. Tan, ‘A Brief History of Christianity in Singapore’ (unpublished paper). 6 Clammer (1985), p. 34. The Peranakan Chinese are those of Malaccan origin (one of the states in Malaysia). They adopt a Malay patois, Malay-style dress (for women), and a Malay-style cuisine. They formed an important class of brokers between the British and the Chinese business community in Singapore’s colonial past. They had the advantages of political loyalty to the colony rather than to China, and often a knowledge of English. They were socially prominent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See Clammer (1985), pp. 16–17, 108–9. 7 Ibid., p. 43. 8 B.G. Leow, Census of Population 2000: Education, Language and Religion (Singapore: Singapore Department of Statistics, 2001). Christianity in Singapore 17 religion in Singapore are important markers of cultural identity. In fact, there is a strong correlation between religion and language.9
History of Pentecostalism in Singapore
It is necessary to first define the term Pentecostalism as is used in this book. Pentecostalism is not a homogeneous movement. However, there is an “apparent continuity among the Pentecostal ‘species’, namely, an underlying or core spirituality.”10 Daniel Albrecht understands this core spirituality to refer to an experience in and of the Spirit. Understood phenomenologically, from the perspective of religious experience, Pentecostalism includes all who believe in and experience Spirit-baptism, the continuing operation of all the charismata, the power dimension of faith, signs and wonders, glossolalia, the world of the demonic spirits, exorcism, practice healing, and being “slain in the Spirit”. This phenomenological approach focused on religious experience, a newer view, advocates polycentric geographical origins. The older view advocates a monocentric origin in North America that spreads out into other parts of the world. Classical Pentecostals maintain this older view.11 I am using the term Pentecostalism phenomenologically and inclusively, to refer to the diverse expressions of Pentecostalism, classical, charismatic, the third wavers, as well as neo-Pentecostals and neo-charismatics for simplicity. The exception to this inclusive use will be in my description of the beginning of Pentecostalism in Singapore.
9 Home language exerts a strong influence on the choice of religious affiliation of Singaporeans. Those who adopted English as their home language appear to have greater exposure to the influence of Christianity. Christians formed the largest group among the English-speaking population (see Census 2000). 10 D.E. Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit: A Ritual Approach to Pentecostal/Charismatic Spirituality (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), p. 28. He comments that it is this experience of the Spirit that unifies the diverse expressions of Pentecostalism. See also A.H. Anderson’s An Introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 13–14, and R.M. Anderson’s Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 4. 11 S. Chan notes that other historians have now challenged the older view, which is indicative not only of white bias but also of a certain hegemonistic inclination prevalent among North American white Pentecostals. Chan also highlights the problematic nature of the new approach: Pentecostalism is now largely understood in phenomenological and sociological terms. He argues that an adequate definition of Pentecostalism cannot be restricted to phenomenological description. It will have to include some historical and theological components. See Chan’s summation paper presented at the Birmingham Conference, September 2001, on Asian Pentecostalism. Though I agree with Chan’s caveat, I am inclined to this phenomenological approach for two reasons. First, it is less limiting and to a certain extent unencumbered by Western white hegemony. Second, the phenomenal growth of Pentecostalism takes place outside the western world and in many cases outside of its influence. For a fuller discussion of polycentric geographical origins, see Anderson (2004). 18 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Pentecostal Genesis12
Pentecostalism in Singapore began before the Japanese occupation and only gained visibility, prominence, respectability and influence in the 1970s. Today, it is the fastest growing movement in Singapore. Pentecostalism in Singapore has a distinctly American influence. The two pre-war Pentecostal missions are The Assemblies of God (AG), USA, and the Ceylon Pentecostal Mission (CPM). The CPM started its works here in 1936, some eight years after the AG. The mission worked primarily among the Tamil and Malayalee migrant workers from India and Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka). The CPM has stringent membership standards (wearing white and no jewellery) and adopted a type of monastic order for its workers. The American AG was the first Pentecostal expression in Singapore. Its genesis in Singapore was “accidental”, the exodus of western missionaries from Mainland China because of political persecution. The Assemblies of God mission began with the arrival of Rev. Cecil and Edith Jackson in Singapore on Easter Sunday, 1928 from China. They first began work among the Cantonese community and a year later started a school for the children in Balestier. Later, three other female missionaries assisted the Jacksons’ ministries. In 1932, the Jacksons pioneered a work among the English-speaking Singaporeans. Another missionary, Rev. Lawrence O. McKinney, came to assist the Jacksons in the English-speaking work. Both the Cantonese church and the English-speaking church grew, and in 1938 they moved into the new building at 120 Balestier Road. But soon a controversy over the loan and debt of the building caused a church split. Those who left with McKinney formed Elim Church. Elim Church was the first and only AG Church in Singapore up until the time of the Japanese occupation. The schism resulted in the formation of independent Pentecostal groups. The war (1942–45) disrupted and curtailed the missionary activities. After the war, the AG missionaries returned to Singapore and re-established the Pentecostal work. Five other AG churches were founded between 1947 and 1960. In January 1958, seven Pentecostal churches and one independent church jointly organised a Salvation–Healing crusade with Evangelist A.C. Valdez. The scheduled two weeks of meetings extended to three weeks when miracles and healings took place. During the third week, almost a thousand packed the hall and vast crowds responded at the altar call. That event birthed two more churches. Several factors contributed to its growth. First, was the emphasis on dynamic evangelism and on seeking the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Second, was the organisation of the annual Youth Camp held for all Assemblies of God churches in Singapore and Malaya, which became a highpoint for spiritual renewal where many received the Holy Spirit baptism and the call to full-time ministry. Third, the establishing of the AG Bible School (Bible Institute of Malaya, now called Bible College of Malaysia) in 1960 in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, for the purpose of training workers for the ministry
12 This brief historical account of the Pentecostals and the Charismatics in Singapore is taken largely from the article by D. Tan, ‘Singapore’, in S.M. Burgess and E.M. van der Maas (eds), The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), pp. 223–5. Christianity in Singapore 19 was instrumental in the growth of the movement both in Singapore and Malaya. However, with the political separation of Singapore and Malaysia in 1965 it soon became difficult for Singaporeans to study in the Bible Institute of Malaya because of immigration and visa problems. A national school, Bible Institute of Singapore was then established in 1976 to serve the AG constituency in Singapore. To date, the AG is the biggest Pentecostal group, with a total membership of 46 churches and 24,409 adherents with 394 credential workers (based on the 2001 Singapore AG General Council Report). The Finnish Free Foreign Mission of the Pentecostal Churches of Finland also started work in Singapore after the war. Unlike its North American cousin, its mission philosophy is to establish national churches and then cooperate with them. Those churches started by the Finnish Mission often become autonomous and independent. Their work in Singapore started in 1949 and the first church was planted, Zion Church (presently Zion Full Gospel Church). Another work was started in 1957, Glad Tidings Church. This work was handed to a local, William P.K. Lee, in 1960. Through the leadership of William Lee, this Pentecostal work grew and became one of the strongest independent Pentecostal churches. By the 1970s, the Finnish mission group had founded four churches. Each of these churches operates independently. In 1963, the Pentecostal witness made its impact upon the non-Pentecostal churches when a converted Chinese film actress from Hong Kong, Madam Kong Mui Yee, came to Singapore. Her popularity as an actress and dynamic testimony concerning her conversion attracted the Chinese-speaking people by the hundreds. Her meetings were filled with miracles of healing and a great number of conversions, including a few gangsters. She preached on Spirit-baptism in her meetings, and a number of non-Pentecostal Christians received Spirit-baptism. Some members from the Brethren background, who had experienced Spirit-baptism, were not accepted back into their own churches and started the Church of Singapore. Madam Kong’s ministry birthed ten new independent Pentecostal churches in Singapore and Malaysia and was instrumental in making the Pentecostal message acceptable among the other traditional churches.13
Charismatic Movement
The first sign of the charismatic movement occurred in the early 1970s. Since the 1970s, its influence has given fresh impetus and vigour to the spiritual renewal and impulse of almost all the mainline denominations: Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran, especially with some Baptists and Presbyterians, and this has spawned numerous independent churches.14 Anderson describes the charismatic movement as “the ‘Pentecostalization’ of most Protestant forms of Christianity.”15 The endorsement and blessings of two former Anglican bishops, Chui Ban It and Moses Tay, gave strength and impetus to the charismatic movement in Singapore. The charismatic renewal largely impacted
13 Tan (2002), pp. 224–5. 14 Clammer (1991), p. 47. 15 A.H. Anderson, ‘Pentecostalism in East Asia; Indigenous Oriental Christianity?’, Pneuma, 22:1 (Spring 2000): 117. 20 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century the English-speaking churches. In 1975, the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship (FGBMF) was re-organised and soon hundreds were attending its weekly meetings in various locations throughout the city. FGBMF has both an English and Chinese chapter in Singapore. Many professionals and businesspeople experienced fresh encounters with the Holy Spirit. Reports of conversions, healings, deliverance and Holy Spirit’s baptism were typical of the meetings. The charismatic renewal within the Anglican churches, the FGBMF and the Spiritual Renewal Seminars impacted other traditional denominations both in terms of spiritual renewal and membership growth. A number within the Methodist Church also experienced this renewal. Emeritus Bishop Doraisamy comments, “the turning point for the church (Wesley Church) in what is now seen as a decade of renewal and significant growth of church membership and attendance may be attributed to the influence of the modern-day Charismatic renewal.”16 In Wesley Methodist Church, a charismatic worship service was created to cater to those who preferred the more spontaneous form of worship, alongside the traditional worship service. Other churches soon added an alternate charismatic service to the formal traditional liturgy to cater to the needs and experiences of the different members. According to Tan, charismatic churches (independent, Pentecostals and mainline churches) were the fastest growing churches in the 1970s and 1980s.17 The charismatic movement continues to play a significant part in the continued growth of the Church in Singapore until the present. Perhaps the fastest growing charismatic church is City Harvest Church, founded by Rev. Kong Hee. The congregation outstripped Faith Community Baptist Church founded by Rev. Lawrence Khong. City Harvest Church celebrated its fourteenth anniversary service in August 2001 with an attendance of more than ten thousand in the Singapore Indoor Stadium. The majority of its members are English-speaking young professionals. It is arguably the largest independent charismatic church in Singapore.
The Appeal of Pentecostalism in Singapore: A Brief Note
Recovering the place of feelings and affections, and expressing them in ways that respond effectively to the situation in Singapore, makes Pentecostalism strongly appealing. The dynamic complex of liturgical conviviality, spontaneity and freedom, immediacy of experience, i.e., intimacy and access to divine power, and the participatory nature of Pentecostalism, makes it more efficacious to the particular culture and reality of the Singapore people. The highly structured and controlled environment of Singapore political culture, together with the meritocracy and classificatory systems, create a different type of powerlessness, marginalisation, polarisation and “exclusion” in the experience of Singaporeans. Clammer makes this astute analysis: “In this sense there is a profound powerlessness in Singapore for the bulk of the population. Charismatic activity transcends this by providing community in an individualistic society, meaning in a meaningless one, spiritual power in one where few share in social or political power, an interpretation of life
16 T.R. Doraisamy (ed), Forever Beginning. Singapore: The Methodist Church in Singapore, 1985, p. 135. 17 Tan (2002), p. 225. Christianity in Singapore 21 and of history, a scale of values and satisfying experiences and activities.”18 The appeal of Pentecostalism lies in the fact that it resonates with the full range of human feelings “of conflict and craving, of wild hopes and dashed expectations.”19
Christianity and Contextual Challenge
Despite the government’s push for greater dialogue among religions in Singapore to nurture appreciation and understanding of difference, the evangelical church is generally apathetic towards engagement with the other. Only the Catholic Church is actively responding and participating in the dialogue. This failure of the evangelical church to bring its voice into conversation with other faiths is regrettable. The very presence of the embodied other makes conversation essential, not optional. “For Christians, the love of God and the love of our neighbour make the renegotiation of boundaries an especially important issue.”20 Conversation is critical to this renegotiation of boundaries, which facilitates peaceful coexistence and the understanding and appreciation of conflicting worldviews in the current contextual realities. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is right about conversation. “The greatest single antidote to violence is conversation, speaking our fears, listening to the fears of others, and in that sharing of vulnerabilities discovering a genesis of hope.”21 In these times, the need for greater engaged conversation is more, not less. Conversation is not only verbal, but a living encounter; it is a “dialogical engagement” in life and thought that entails focused listening, generosity of heart and mind, mutuality and friendship. In short, such conversation is a kind of “indwelling” of the narratives of the other. Three factors contribute to evangelicals’ apathy.
Conservative Pietistic Spirituality
Its middle-class ethos and conservatism militate against an active and critical engagement with culture. Faith is abstracted from the totality of life. Furthermore, there is a tendency to interpret allegiance to Christ to mean a disavowal of all earthly loyalties. Fear of being labelled liberal and unorthodox prevents conservative evangelicals from participating in inter-faith dialogues. What conservative evangelicals also fear is that involvement in such dialogue would usurp the primacy of evangelism. Implicit in conservatism is a tendency towards a bifurcation of reality into sacred and secular. Mission is sacred, conversation is secular. Thus, conservative evangelicalism is good in mission, but poor in conversation.
18 Clammer (1991), p. 54. 19 H. Cox, Fire From Heaven (London: Cassell, 1996), p. 11. 20 P.L. Wickeri, Plurality, Power and Mission: Intercontextual Theological Explorations on the Role of Religion in the New Millennium (London: The Council of World Mission, 2000), p. 11. 21 J. Sacks, The Dignity of Difference (London: Continuum, 2002), p. 2. 22 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Its Eschatological Orientation
This is further exacerbated by its premillennialism. The concept of the imminence of the Parousia provides an interpretive framework, which influences its practices and explains the logic of its aggressive missionary and evangelistic thrusts. Apparently, its reading of the imminence of the Parousia makes redundant any social engagement, thus apathy. Human flourishing such as contributing to the process of building a harmonious multi-religious society is superfluous; personal salvation is the urgent task. Implicit in this is a radical discontinuity between the sacred and the secular. In effect, this view implies not only that the secular is autonomous with its own sphere, but that it is also an “empty” space, a place of divine absence. Such a view is defective, a serious misunderstanding of the full extent of Christ’s Lordship and the Trinitarian God. It not only disengages and relegates God’s activity to the periphery, but also delimits His Lordship. Though the universal kingship of the triune God is acknowledged at least notionally, it is, however, denied in the actual practice of the Church’s disengagement with culture. Its eschatological poverty reveals a capitulation to modernity. Curtis Chang comments, “Modernity assigned religion to a purely private realm, and evangelicalism has tended to accept this private space quite willingly. Therefore, to the extent evangelicalism serves up any conception of the end, it tends to be fairly bare-boned, restricted to questions of individual salvation. Without a robust vision of the wider world’s future, it is not surprising that evangelicals tend to concentrate on personal belief in the present.”22 This tendency towards individualism vitiates its ability to draw “the self out of its narrow world into a broader reality.”23 Hence, its version of the consummation of history lacks the robust, dynamic and hope-filled vision of the biblical eschaton.
Its View of Other Religions
Traditionally, conservative evangelicalism espouses an exclusivism with regard to the religious others. Conservative spirituality coupled with a tendency towards binary thinking is incapable of transcending a rigid exclusivism towards other faiths. The essence of exclusivism is rejection. Expressly, this rejection categorically labelled the religious other as either humanistic, i.e., humankind’s attempt at self-justification, or demonic. This insensitive, condemnatory and simplistic posture towards religions eclipses their complexity and their rich and positive contributions. Exclusivism is also bound up with ecclesiocentrism. Thus salvation is posited within the boundaries of institutional Christianity.24 Without explicit faith in Christ, there is no salvation
22 C. Chang, Engaging Unbelief: A Captivating Strategy from Augustine & Aquinas (Leicester: IVP, 2000), p. 169. 23 Ibid., p. 170. 24 A. Yong, Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal–Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 39. He adds that evangelicals have been slow to rethink the traditional exclusivistic and ecclesiocentric position. However, this is gradually changing. Stirred by senior evangelicals like Norman Christianity in Singapore 23 to adherents of other faiths. Their destiny is eternal damnation. Perhaps this rigid exclusivism is reflective of the political ethos for order and “control”. This position lends itself to a neat classification: one is either ‘in” or “out”. Such exclusivism is basically reductionistic; it fails to account for a more robust and dynamic narrative of God’s activity in the world. If one holds, with Lesslie Newbigin, that salvation is to be understood eschatologically as “the completion of God’s whole work in creation and redemption, the summing up of all things with Christ as head (Eph. 1: 10), the reconciling of all things in heaven and earth through the blood of the cross (Col. 1: 20), the subjecting of all hostile powers under the feet of Christ (1 Cor. 15: 24–28)”,25 then this rigid exclusivism vitiates the Christian message. To make individual destiny the starting place of Christian witness is far more anthropocentric than theocentric, hence flawed. Asking the right questions is critical. In theologizing in a pluralistic context, it is important to remember that Christ who is the Saviour of the world “stands also as Judge over every religious practice, institution and ideology, including the empirical church and what is known historically as ‘Christianity’.”26 For the Church to avoid or neglect conversation in the regions where potential religious conflict threatens is to be disengaged from context. Ultimately, this disengagement is a failure of the Church’s prophetic responsibility to missio Dei. Hwa Yong notes that conversation or dialogue is critical for three reasons: the importance of treating others with integrity and respect, the effective communication of the Gospel across religio-cultural barriers, and the need to cooperate with those of other faiths in social change for the well-being of all.27
Anderson, a few other theologians such as C. Pinnock, J. Sanders and S. Grenz have attempted revisions of the classical position in the inclusivistic direction, and by doing so have drawn the more conservative defenders of the faith into the discussion. See Yong (2000), p. 54. See also M.J. Erickson’s ‘Hope for Those who Haven’t Heard? Yes, But…’, EMQ, 11 (April 1975): 122–6, and How Shall They Be Saved? The Destiny of Those Who Do Not Hear of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996); H. Netland for an evangelical ecclesiocentric approach, in his Dissonant Voices: Religious Pluralism and the Question of Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), ‘Truth, Authority and Modernity: Shopping for Truth in a Supermarket of Worldviews’, in P. Sampson, V. Samuel and C. Sugden (eds), Faith and Modernity (Oxford: Regnum, 1997), and Encountering Religious Pluralism: The Challenge to Christian Faith and Mission (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2001); and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen’s comprehensive survey of the theology of religions, An Introduction to the Theology of Religions, Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2003). 25 L. Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), pp. 178–9. 26 V. Ramachandra, The Recovery of Mission: Beyond the Pluralist Paradigm (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), p. 273. 27 H. Yong, Mangoes or Bananas? The Quest for an Authentic Asian Christian Theology (Oxford: Regnum, 1997), p. 235. 24 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Pentecostalism and Contextual Challenges in Singapore
But, what of Pentecostalism? Is it capable of transcending boundaries and negotiating redemptively the contextual challenges of Singapore? On the surface, this seems unlikely. Pentecostalism is a movement with various potentials, positive and negative. Both of these are to various degrees instantiated in Singapore. Often the negative potential (triumphalism, narcissistic spirituality, schismatic elitism, utilitarian approach to truth and power, confrontational, competitive and totalising attitude in missions28) overshadows its positive potential (such as embracive ecumenism and spirituality that transcend circumscribed boundaries). Furthermore, Pentecostals have for a long time regarded themselves as a kind of “evangelicals plus”, i.e., “evangelicals plus fire, dedication, missionary success, speaking in tongues and gifts of healing.”29 Pentecostal mission has always been motivated by the expectation of the imminent parousia, and this expectation has led inevitably to a general failure “to address the responsibilities of Christians in their societies, fearing that evangelism will be usurped by secondary concerns.”30 This conjunction of evangelical conservatism, missionary passion and millennial fervour in Pentecostalism are potentially antagonistic in a multi-faith context characterised also by the expansionist revivalism of both Islam and Buddhism. The negative potential instantiated in Pentecostalism is the result of reductionism and distortion, a bifurcation between experience and thought characteristic of Pentecostalism. Allergy towards rational discourse among Pentecostals results in the very strength of Pentecostalism becoming its Achilles’ heel. Privileging experience over disciplined theologising unwittingly leads to an implicit and false dichotomy prevalent in the mindset of Pentecostals. Systematic thought is often equated with “the dry rot of orthodoxy”.31 The catchphrase of Pentecostal rhetoric for not engaging in systematic thought is “Pentecost is not a creed but an experience.”32 However, such
28 The confrontational and totalising tendency is expressed in the denouncing of local traditions. This denunciation, as Yong points out, “assumes a dualism between gospel and culture (and religion) which makes genuine contextualisation impossible. For Pentecostals to persist in the argument of dispensational theology that culture is irredeemable except at the parousia is for them to deny the reality of their holistic experience of the Spirit’s presence and activity” (Yong 2000, p. 211). This lack of cultural sensitivity is also highlighted by J. DeBernardi, ‘Christianity and Chinese Religious Culture in Singapore: Anthropological Perspectives’, a closed door seminar on 24 November 2004 held at the Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore, published in A.E. Lai (ed.), Facing Faiths, Crossing Cultures: Key Trends and Issues in a Multicultural World (Singapore: SNP International, 2005), pp. 178–225. 29 W. Hollenweger, ‘The Critical Tradition of Pentecostalism’, JPT, 1 (1992): 8. 30 G.B. McGee, ‘Pentecostal Missiology: Moving Beyond Triumphalism to Face the Issues’, Pneuma, 16:2 (Fall 1994): 280. This situation is gradually changing. D. Petersen argues in his book that their experience of the Spirit empowers them to respond effectively to here-and-now social struggle and work towards social transformation; see Petersen, Not by Might Nor by Power: A Pentecostal Theology of Social Concern in Latin America (Oxford: Regnum, 1996). 31 D.W. Faupel, ‘Whither Pentecostalism?’, Pneuma 15:1 (Spring 1993): 20. 32 S. Chan, Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 23. Christianity in Singapore 25 rhetoric makes the “traditioning” of experiences within Pentecostalism problematic by the lack of an adequate theological foundation. Nevertheless, there is a hopeful sign. Inherent in Pentecostalism is a fecund capacity for response and renewal. Global Pentecostalism has shown that it is capable of creative response to contextual realities and engagement with the world.33 Though Pentecostals in general may lack theological sophistication, they are intuitively discerning and alive to the presence and activity of the Spirit – the movement of the Spirit. This capacity lies precisely in two aspects of its pneumatological richness and dynamism, its spirituality and ecumenical vision (these will be discussed more fully in Part II).
Pentecostal Spirituality
The encounter and experience of the Spirit is pivotal and shapes Pentecostal spirituality. Spirit-capacitated worship is a focused attentiveness to God. Worship is like a generative force field, alive with rich possibilities. I suggest that inherent in such worship lies Pentecostalism’s resources (power and wisdom) for renegotiating boundaries. The Spirit, as the ‘Go-Between God’, arouses awareness of Others.34 In other words, the Spirit of fellowship draws believers into communion with the relationships within God and also with others. Authentic Pentecostal worship reconstructs the self in relation to God, who is Other, and simultaneously reorientates us to those others with whom God is in communion. In fact, it opens up a “whole level of interaction between persons that happens too deep for words.”35 The Spirit of fellowship radically reorders and reorientates all human relationality towards God’s intended telos, eschatological living within what Michael Welker describes as “concentrated presence”.36 The experience of God’s dynamic presence and activity through the Holy Spirit reveals that history is not a meaningless unbreakable cycle. History, as Land posits, is an “eschatological trinitarian process … As God is the eschatological trinitarian presence who is the goal and limit of all things, so history, as God’s greater theatre, moves by God in God to God.”37 If so, then all activities in history – the penultimate – are significant, spiritual and eschatological, as the Spirit orientates all things to their telos in God. The Holy Spirit is the inner logic of Pentecostals’ passion for the Kingdom. Land writes:
33 This is extensively researched and discussed by scholars such as Cox (1996); R. Shaull and W. Cesar, Pentecostalism and the Future of the Christian Churches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); D. Martin, Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002); and A. Corten and Ruth Marshall-Fratani, Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001), to list some. 34 P. Fiddes, Participating in God (London; Darton, Longman & Todd, 2000), p. 259. 35 Ibid., p. 271. 36 M. Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), p. 222. 37 S.J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic press, 1997), p. 198. 26 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century … because the Holy Spirit brings the life of the kingdom of God into the present, passivity and cultural pessimism are minimized as people are empowered for ministry. It is not postmillennial; it avoids presumption and cultural accommodation. The kingdom of God is larger than the church and therefore there is an implicit ‘post-millennial’ activism contained within the premillennial expectancy. Indeed the expectancy of the coming fullness of righteousness, peace and joy feeds activism … to include socio-cultural concerns without a loss of evangelistic commitment.38
As will be argued later, this retrieval of its roots, together with its spirituality, could enable Pentecostalism in Singapore to engage prophetically with the world.
Ecumenical Vision
Pentecostalism in Singapore needs to recover the original vision of its larger history in order to be prophetically effective in the present. This remembrance involves an understanding of its ecumenical roots. Its alignment with evangelicalism tends towards demonising the ecumenical movement as a liberal project, a betrayal of the Gospel. However, Hollenweger points out that Pentecostalism is in itself already an ecumenical movement. One of the reasons that Hollenweger gives for the inability of Pentecostalism to project itself as such is that only 60 million of the over 300 million Pentecostals/Charismatics/Independents are represented in the Pentecostal World Conference. This statistic suggests that Pentecostalism has yet to find a mode of global cooperation and communication which effectively expresses its coherence and its pluralism.39 Though Pentecostalism has been unable to project itself as such, its ecumenical contribution, whenever it is made, is nonetheless dynamic. This is highlighted in the collaboration of Shaull and Cesar’s research: “What Pentecostals are offering to the ecumenical movement is a spirituality of ecumenism – a universal rediscovery of the Spirit for all Christian denominations” (italics original).40 This is a second area with seeds of a new possibility for Pentecostalism in Singapore.
Summary
Passion for the Kingdom makes Pentecostalism from its inception a missionary movement. Mission and evangelism are central to its existence, a sense of divine mandate and destiny. The revelatory experience of the Holy Spirit, to borrow Gordon Fee’s phrase, as God’s empowering presence compels large numbers of grassroots missionaries into active and sacrificial mission and evangelism to share this good news and eschatological vision. Strong and aggressive evangelistic and missionary fervour is characteristic of Pentecostalism in Singapore. In the light of recent global events, such fervour has caused great concern to the Singapore government.
38 Ibid., p. 223. 39 Hollenweger, ‘The Critical Tradition of Pentecostalism’. 40 P.A. Hardiment, ‘Confessing the Apostolic Faith from the Perspective of the Pentecostal Churches’, One in Christ, 23:1–2 (1987): 67. Cited by Shaull and Cesar, p. 106. Christianity in Singapore 27 Directives are issued for greater social cohesion, religious tolerance and dialogue.41 If indeed, religion is “a very profound and fundamental tectonic divide”, the religious space is an explosive terrain. An adversarial posture towards the religious others makes the potential for a violent collision or religious war hauntingly real. At risk here, are the issues of the unity of the human race and human flourishing. Peace and human flourishing depend on how we deal with the critical issue of otherness. Considering what is at stake, the task cannot be left solely to social engineering by politicians. Raimon Panikkar comments that the issue of peace, and human flourishing (I might add), is not achievable simply by a discourse of means, which “is what the technocratic mentality reduces problems to, but of a discussion about the very ends of life and reality.”42 Theological reflection on otherness is not a luxury, but critical, especially for Pentecostalism in Singapore. The fundamentalist/conservative connection and naïve triumphalism of Pentecostalism tend towards absolutising itself over against others. Binary thinking is characteristic of Pentecostalism, i.e., it sees the world as “saved and unsaved”; the world as “realm of light” and “realm of darkness”; Christianity as the truth and other religions in general as demonic. Inevitably, such bifurcation leads to exclusionary practices. One is either “in” or “out”. Is Pentecostalism capable of rising creatively and positively to the present challenges posed by its contextual location and realities? Can this ultimate divide be crossed or bridged? In sum, the fragility of our contemporary socio-religio-cultural contexts demands not dogmatism, but metanoia via self-interrogation. Pentecostalism, as Hollenweger insists, has a tradition of self-criticism.43 What is critical for Pentecostalism in Singapore to fulfil its prophetic responsibility in the face of its contextual challenges is not dogmatism or triumphalism, clichés and slogans, but the retrieval of its roots. Hollenweger presses for this retrieval and openness; for Pentecostalism to
[D]raw inspiration from its inter-cultural and ecumenical roots for the benefit of inter- religious dialogue. And this indeed seems to be a way out of the narrow, defensive, fundamentalistic position of many Christians. Pentecostal … inductive theology is not adequate to defend orthodoxy, but it is adequate for mission, testimony, and dialogue. Because a movement, which understands itself from the third article … is essentially tolerant and open to new, so far unknown moves of the Spirit, such a return to the ecumenical roots of this movement could be a decisive contribution to a world conference on Religion and Peace, and to a global ethos of love.44
41 The response to this political initiative for religious dialogue is marked by enthusiasm from the major religions in Singapore. The only official Christian presence in the dialogue to my knowledge is the Roman Catholic Church. Conspicuously absent is the Evangelical Church. However, in Dialogues 2004, initiated by IPS, evangelicals also participated. The dialogues and the Q&A sessions were published into a book entitled Facing Faiths, Crossing Cultures: Key Trends and Issues in a Multicultural World, ed. Lai,(2005). 42 R. Panikkar, Cultural Disarmament: The Way to Peace (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 11. 43 Hollenweger, ‘The Critical Tradition of Pentecostalism’. 44 W. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), p. 399. Cited by Yong (2000), p. 219. 28 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Chapter 3 comprises a revisit of Pentecost to recover the way of wisdom, the way of creative generosity and embrace, which is the movement of the Spirit Herself. Chapter 3 Pentecost Revisited
Introduction
Pentecostalism in its inception was multiracial and multiethnic, manifestly ecumenical: freely crossing denominational, social, racial and economic boundaries. Unity and embrace within the Body of Christ were intuited as the necessary correlates of the presence and outpouring of the Spirit. Ecumenism rather than anti-ecumenism is inherent in Pentecostalism. But this fact has often been eclipsed by Pentecostal rhetoric, an imported theological conviction from evangelicalism, rather than integral to its own experience of the Spirit.1 Chan makes a similar point: “The Pentecostal ecclesial experience has been more broadly ecumenical than its ecclesiology” (italics original).2 With institutionalism, a distinctive exclusionary mechanism set in, atrophying its earlier reconciling embracive liberality. Larry Christenson notes that this paradox of ecumenism and exclusivism within Pentecostal Christianity is “a typical -- though not intrinsically necessary – historical rhythm. The essence of ecumenism is acceptance; the essence of exclusivism is rejection”3 (italics, original). Events are pivotal in Pentecostalism, and this chapter will attend to three Pentecost events in history, spanning the first century of the biblical world, the beginning of the twentieth century in America, and the closing decade of the twentieth century in Singapore. The purpose of the revisit is not only to draw out its ecumenical heritage, but also to perform the Pentecostal tradition of self-criticism, in order to draw from
1 A. Yong argues this in ‘Pentecostalism and Ecumenism: Past, Present and Future’, Pneuma Review (online), 4:3 (Summer 2001), Part 3 of 5. 2 S. Chan, Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 15. He adds that ecumenism – the true spirit of Pentecost – has been kept alive by the courageous effort of Pentecostal ecumenist D. du Plessis at great personal cost. His vision serves to inspire many contemporary Pentecostals to active engagement in ecumenism, such as C.M. Robeck Jr (with Catholic and orthodox Christians). However, in the main, Pentecostals are still suspicious of it. 3 L. Christenson, ‘Pentecostalism’s Forgotten Forerunner’, in Vinson Synan (ed.), Aspects of Pentecostal–Charismatic Origins (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1975), p. 31. He elaborates that in its inception acceptance and welcome were characteristic of the movement. Though the focus of acceptance is direct and personal, it embodies clear ecumenical overtones. There was an optimism – a hopeful anticipation of an awakened and renewed Church. However, as confrontation with formal religious authority heightened, the hopeful ecumenical horizon dissipated and exclusivism set in – adopting a defensive posture against “Babylon”. See pp. 31–2. 30 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century history a wisdom – “in memory lies the redemption of the world”4 – by attending to their triumphs and tragic temptations. Hence, the revisit involves an “interrogative mood”. Without this interrogative mood, it is incapable of what Wickeri calls “the exclamatory mood”, i.e., the element of surprise. Surprise is integral to the irruptions of the Spirit, the theophanies. Thus, “attention to the surprises is important because they show where we need to revise our thinking and expand our categories to the scope of God’s acts.”5 To live in prophetic obedience and faith in a multicultural and multi-faith context, wisdom is indispensable. James A. Sanders remarks, “Joseph, Esther, and Daniel in the Bible provide wonderful examples of how wisdom provides the perspective necessary to ask crucial questions of one community’s traditions about good and evil and look at them from different angles.”6
Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles
The event of the outpouring of the Spirit in the Book of Acts is central to the Pentecostal Weltanschauung. Thus, Luke’s narrative of the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit in Acts deserves close attention. Luke carefully crafts the narrative structure of the Pentecostal event and the subsequent life and mission of the early charismatic community. Luke frames his narrative within the theme of divine movement in and through the Holy Spirit, presenting “the ‘Holy Spirit’ in terms of the arrival of the ‘the Spirit of the Lord/God’ as promised in the Jewish Bible.”7 In Acts, expansion, spectacular miracles, signs and wonders are seen as the dynamic workings and irruption of the prophetic, eschatological Spirit. This explosive irruption of the Holy Spirit is sweeping, inaugurating decisive transformations of the historical realities of that time. In fact, the movement of the Spirit defies any stereotyping, and profoundly challenges Jewish inherited frameworks of thinking. Throughout Acts, Luke consistently paints the movement of the Spirit as one of radical embracive freedom transforming socially and sacredly inscribed boundaries of rituals, ministry and relationality that are entrenched mechanisms of exclusion. The inclusion of the non-Jews, i.e., the ethnic and religious others, is attributed to the sovereign work of the prophetic, eschatological Spirit. At the same time, Luke does not gloss over the apostles’ and the early community’s resistance to these multilevelled transformations. It is apparent that the question of otherness is as threatening then as it is now. The Acts narrative discloses that the Pentecostal anointing and empowerment did not result automatically in a resistance-free compliance to God’s embracive
4 J.K. Roth, ‘What does the Holocaust have to do with Christianity?’, in C. Rittner, S.D. Smith and Irene Steinfeldt (eds), The Holocaust and the Christian World (New York: Continuum, 2000), p. 7. Though he makes this comment in a rather different context, I feel it is also applicable to my point. 5 P.D. Hocken, The Glory and the Shame (Guildford, Surrey: Eagle, 1994), p. 11. 6 J.A. Sanders, ‘Foreword’, in C.A. Evans and D.A. Hagner (eds), Anti-Semitism and Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), p. x. 7 J. Hur, A Dynamic Reading of the Holy Spirit in Luke–Acts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), p. 281. Pentecost Revisited 31 generosity; rather, Luke tells how the eventual obedience is forged in the crucible of conflicts and “conversions”. The early community has to confront this thorny issue of the other in all its representations. Though Luke’s structural focus is on the dynamic movement of the Spirit, “journeying”,8 Spirit-directed journeying is also an essential structure of the Acts narrative. Thus, Acts is simultaneously the narrative of the movement of the eschatological Spirit, and the unfolding of the multiplex “journeyings” of the Early Church towards the multilevelled transformations.
The Outpouring of the Spirit and the Impact on the Early Community
The first Pentecost was cataclysmic. Luke’s choice of metaphors such as “violent wind”, “tongues of fire”, “filling” in his Acts 2:1–13 narrative “draw[s] a picture of a mighty, overpowering phenomenon.”9 Certainly, the forcefulness of this explosive phenomenon, its visibility and audibility was undeniable. It arrested the attention of the Diaspora Jews who were in Jerusalem at that time (Acts 2:5–8). Luke underscores the extraordinariness of the outpouring of the Spirit in terms of its suddenness and origin (Acts 2:2, “Suddenly … violent wind came from heaven”), and in breadth, rather than constricting the circle of God’s people; in effect, it enlarges the circle as it were, “without limit”. This universality and ecumenicity of the people of God is symbolised by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit first in Jerusalem upon the Jews as well as the Diaspora Jews (Acts 2). Luke conscientiously highlights the fact of diversity; Jews from all over the world (Acts 2:9–11)10 were present in Jerusalem, and heard the Spirit-inspired speech of the disciples in their own native tongues. Amazement and mockery were the mixed responses to this phenomenon. This mixed response introduces in Acts a theme that was dominant in the Gospel; what Cunningham refers to as “that of divided Israel”. Cunningham observes that Luke in Luke–Acts frequently juxtaposes the rejection of the Jewish religious hierarchy against the positive response of the many in Israel.11 Peter in his sermon to the gathered Diaspora Jews explains the outpouring of the Spirit as God’s eschatological salvation. In his sermon, Peter also claims that the phenomenal outpouring has a revelatory–evidential function, i.e., a proof of Jesus as Lord and Christ through the resurrection/ascension. Subsequent outpourings of the Spirit upon the Samaritans (Acts 8:14–17), the Gentiles represented by Cornelius and his household (Acts 10:44), and the disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus (Acts 19:1–7) are indicative that boundaries are no longer impregnable, but made permeable by the universal and ecumenical sweep of the Spirit. Manifestly, these episodes signal the shattering of the wall of separation by the Spirit. Luke weaves these narratives
8 I owe the concept of journeying to Loveday Alexander, ‘“In Journeyings Often”: Voyaging in the Acts of the Apostles and Greek Romance’, in C.M. Tuckett (ed.), Luke’s Literary Achievement (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 17–39. 9 W.H. Shepherd, The Narrative Function of the Holy Spirit as a Character in Luke– Acts (Atlanta: Scholar Press, 1994), p. 161. 10 In all, Luke lists about fifteen nations of the civilised world of his time. 11 S. Cunningham, ‘Through Many Tribulations’: The Theology of Persecution in Luke– Acts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), p. 187. 32 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century together as the outwards, unimaginable and unstoppable multiplex journeying of territorial expansion in the power of the Spirit (the unfolding of the programmatic testament of Acts 1:8), starting from Jerusalem and climaxing in Rome. Indeed, the event of the first Pentecost was titanic in consequence. A fringe, local and persecuted faith took on a universal dimension, eventually transforming much of the then known world. Simon J. Kistemaker aptly describes:
The New Testament church begins with the 120 who await the coming of the Holy Spirit. When he comes, he opens the floodgates by addressing Jews “from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5). In all the different languages of these nations, the Holy Spirit through the mouths of his people presents the message of the wonders God has done. From these thousands of Jews who have come from numerous places, God adds three thousand to his church. God’s truth is no longer confined to the city of Jerusalem. On the day of Pentecost, the church becomes worldwide.12
Expansion and revelation are clearly the twin effects of the movement of the Spirit. The outpouring of the Spirit not only brings on a dynamic and powerful witness that expands the early community territorially; it is also revelatory. The revelatory nature is multiplex. First, the Spirit-inspired glossolalia functions as a revelatory moment especially for the Diaspora Jews who were in Jerusalem at that time. Luke, in rehearsing the event, emphasises the miracle of hearing and understanding: “… each heard them speaking in his own language … declaring the wonder of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2:6b; 2:11b). Far from being incomprehensible speech, the ecstatic utterances were clearly intelligible proclamations of God’s wonderful and powerful deeds. Michael Welker regards this outpouring of the eschatological Spirit as God effecting “a world-encompassing, multilingual, polyindividual testimony to Godself. In this way God attests to Godself in a process that unites people in a way that causes them both wonderment and fear.”13 Such differentiated unity accomplished in the Pentecostal event stands in sharp contrast to the Babel event. Luke Timothy Johnson commenting on the Babel event writes:
The many languages at Babel were a consequence of human arrogance and had resulted in the dispersion of the people into nations and confusion (Gen. 11:1–9). Because of that scattering, God had selected one man – Abraham – from whom he would make a people for Himself (Gen. 12:1–3). Now in this gift of the Holy Spirit, the promise to Abraham was finally fulfilled, and those who heard, in their own tongues, the praise of God, were drawn together (Acts 2:11).14
Thus, the glossolalic event marked a healing reversal of the confusion of Babel, a removal of the linguistic confusion and societal rupture. Nevertheless, as Welker rightly observes, “But in this removal cultural, national, and linguistic differences are not set aside, but retained.”15 Language, once a barrier to understanding and community, is now transcended in the experience of the Spirit and the accompanying glossolalia.
12 Simon J. Kistemaker, Acts (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), p. 84. 13 M. Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), p. 235. 14 L.T. Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament (London: SCM, 1999), p. 238. 15 Welker, p. 230. Pentecost Revisited 33 The significant miracle of the Pentecost event is that linguistic diversity and simultaneity of the glossolalic outburst did not lead to a cacophonous confusion, but faith for some three thousand of them after Peter’s prophetic insight and exposition (Acts 2:41). Second, this outpouring of the Spirit not only effects territorial expansion, but also expands the apostles’ mental landscapes of the nature of God and the generosity of His activities. It seems clear from Luke’s narrative that the apostles’ grasp of the explicit implication of the universal dimension of God’s gift and activity is only partial and ambiguous. However, their partial and ambiguous grasp is understandable, since inclusion of Gentiles into the covenant people of God contravenes traditional Jewish thought. Throughout Acts, Luke narrates this noetic expansion. Nonetheless, the enlarging and deepening of their insight is not a simple progression but, through “conversion” aided by Spirit-capacitated understanding, a revelatory miracle of the Pentecostal outpouring. Peter’s sermon to the amazed crowd (Acts 2:14–41) underscores the outpouring of the Spirit as the fulfilment of God’s generous promise (Joel 2:28–32). The generosity is evident by the embracive universality of the gift of the Spirit – “upon all flesh … your sons and your daughters … young men, old men … servants, both men and women” (Acts 2:17–18 and 33). Socially inscribed boundaries of nationality, race, gender, class and language no longer stand in the way of participation and koinonia in the Gospel. Larry K. McQueen commenting on the Joel passage argues that the usage of the term “basar” (flesh) here in the Hebrew Bible focuses attention on the fundamental weakness, powerlessness and hopelessness of the recipients of God’s gift. He posits:
For ‘basar’ (flesh) refers to ‘man in his infirmity.’ The contrast is thus between the privileged status of selected individuals who received the spirit of YHWH in the past and the ‘democratisation’ of the Spirit upon all persons in the community of Judah in the future … the inclusion of foreigners is hinted at in Joel 3:2 … wholesale incorporation of Gentiles into the promise does not occur, however, until the time of the early church (Acts 10:44–47).16
The outpouring of the Spirit, a levelling experience “upon all flesh”, not just particular classes of kings, priests and prophets, shatters existing social boundaries: young and old, male and female, including servants or slaves (the “non-persons” of that time). Kistemaker remarks similarly, “The word slaves signifies that God grants his Spirit to every class of society. Notice that God claims them as his own by saying, ‘my slaves.’ … This becomes evident especially in the epistles of the New Testament.”17 Third, it is an expanding journey interiorly. This interior journeying of enlarging of the heart and friendship is tested repeatedly in the concrete encounters of the other, both within the community and in mission in Acts. A dynamic Spirit- inspired koinonia is the result of the first Pentecost experience (Acts 2). This Spirit- engendered koinonia subverts friendship/fellowship based on homogeneity. In fact, heterogeneous unity is the character of this koinonia. The Spirit reinscribes the lives and identity of the early Christians and brings into existence a community
16 L.K. McQueen, Joel and the Spirit: The Cry of a Prophetic Hermeneutic (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), p. 41. 17 Kistemaker, p. 89. 34 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century marked by such heterogeneous togetherness and friendship. Shepherd notes that Luke’s description of the community in Acts 4:32 as of “one heart and soul” reflects the Hellenistic topos on friendship, “friends share all things.”18 The friendship engendered by the Spirit expresses itself in mutuality, generosity and hospitality that is par excellence (Acts 4:32–37). It is not surprising then that unity and voluntary generosity unprecedented in intensity hallmarks that community. Their hospitality “presumes a reciprocity between God’s abundance and human acts of sacrifice.”19 In truth, God is the author of both sacrifice and abundance.20 Yet, this emerging charismatic community is not entirely irenic. Problems and tensions also riddled their togetherness. For instance, Barnabas’ generosity was singled out for praise as was the deceptive “generosity” of Ananias and Sapphira for death. Only in the light of God’s character and authorship can we make some sense of the severity of the judgement of death. Falsehood is out of character with God. The two episodes underscore that truth is essential for the flourishing of authentic community and friendship. Falsehood, on the other hand, destroys community and friendship. Linguistic and cultural otherness soon posed another threat to friendship within the community. Acts 6:1 states the bone of contention, “… the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.” This neglect compounded by linguistic and cultural differences led to “murmurings” and division. The term “murmuring” implies not only unhappiness and dissatisfaction, but also rather loss of trust, and disobedience.21 Andrianjatovo Rakotoharintsifa notes, “Luke’s ecumenism does not make real conflicts disappear but seeks to manage them in the best possible way.”22 The solution is to expand the diakonia, “a unified ministry of word and table facilitates the welcoming of strangers inside the church as well as outside.”23 In doing so, reconciliation and equity in sharing material goods between the Hellenists and the Hebraic groups is achieved. Koenig suggests that the sending of a relief fund by the Jewish–Gentile congregation in Antioch to the famine-stricken Jerusalem church creates a new level of trust between two very different groups of believers (Acts 11:27–30; 12:25).24 Larrimore Crockett describes this generous gesture as
18 Shepherd, p. 171. 19 J. Koenig, New Testament Hospitality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 130. 20 Ibid., p. 132. 21 G.W. Bromiley, TDNT, abridged (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), p. 125. Cited by A. Rakotoharintsifa, ‘Luke and the Internal Divisions in the Early Church’, in Tuckett (ed.), Luke’s Literary Achievement (1995) p. 170. 22 Rakotoharintsifa, p. 171. He mentions that both E. Käsemann and G. Ludemann suggest that the division reflects a deeper rift – theological difference in understanding identity, law and mission. He quotes Käsemann, who opines that the theological differences caused the two linguistic communities to become almost rival communities in Jerusalem and eventually became two confessions with differing dogmas and an ever-decreasing level of cooperation. 23 Koenig, p. 110. 24 Ibid. Pentecost Revisited 35 “a ‘banquet’ of major proportions, a symbol for Luke of God’s intention to save both Jews and gentiles and bring them into productive mutual friendship.”25 Their journeyings are not only accounts of the testing of the friendship within their community, but also of the acceptance of the excluded others. These journeyings involve the disciples’ “conversion” to the others. From Acts 8–11, Luke narrates a series of conversions to faith emphasising divine initiative and choice, “Simon the greedy magician, the mutilated Ethiopian, excluded from the covenant, Saul the persecutor, Cornelius the unclean one.”26 God’s redemptive embrace of the other through the Holy Spirit requires constant readjustments on the part of the apostles and the early community. F. Scott Spencer describes the Samaritans as “a kind of median social group, a tertium genus, neither fully Jewish nor fully Gentile, but manifesting partial affinity with both peoples.”27 Samaritans, the marginalised other, tested both their understanding of and obedience to divine acceptance and welcome. Given the fact of ethnic and religious tension between Jerusalem Jews and the Samaritans, Philip’s mission foray to the Samaritans becomes highly significant in light of the historical reality of hostilities between the two.28 Philip’s obedience to the direction of the Spirit “required a remarkable inner abandonment of Jewish mentalities concerning the Samaritans.”29 The Jewish attitude of utter disdain and segregation towards the Samaritans is well known. We read in John 4:9, “Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” Furthermore, it is unthinkable for the Jews in the time of Jesus to even entertain the notion of “a Jew preaching to the Samaritans, much less that the Samaritans could receive the same grace of God as themselves.”30 Samaritans are regarded in terms of their religion, not only their enemies but God’s as well. Without doubt, the Samaritans’ response of faith, joy and baptism (Acts 8:4–13) to the divine welcome and acceptance of Philip’s preaching is clearly the work of the Spirit. In the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Samaritans, they received the same gift of God as the Jewish Christians (Acts 8:17; 2:38); the unthinkable becomes a momentous reality. This event indicates that the wall of separation between Jewish Christians and Samaritan Christians was effectively removed. In Philip’s Spirit-directed engagement with the Ethiopian eunuch, we have the inclusion and welcome of the outcast other, i.e., a relativising of the Law. It is stated in Deut. 23:1; Lev. 21:20, “No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord.” Though Acts 8:27 records that the eunuch has returned from worshipping in Jerusalem, he is nonetheless like the Samaritans, an outcast there; he cannot fully participate in the
25 Larrimore Crockett, ‘Luke 4: 25–27 and the Jewish–Gentile Relationship in Luke– Acts’, JBL 88 (1969): 181. Quoted by Koenig, pp. 110–11. 26 D. Marguerat, ‘Saul’s Conversion (Acts 9, 22, 26) and the Multiplication of Narrative in Acts’, in Tuckett (ed.), Luke’s Literary Achievement (1995), pp. 139–40. 27 F.S. Spencer, The Portrait of Philip in Acts: A Study of Roles and Relations (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), p. 53. 28 Luke records the Samaritans’ rejection of Jesus in Luke 9:51–56, and James and John’s violent reaction, “call fire down from heaven to destroy them”, to their rejection. 29 Hocken, p. 25. 30 Ibid. 36 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century temple worship.31 The Old Testament Law excludes his full acceptance. Yet, already in the prophet Isaiah (56:3–7) the future inclusion of the foreigners and eunuchs into the fellowship of God’s people is foretold. In receiving baptism, the eunuch’s full membership is accomplished. Saul and Cornelius’ conversions set the stage for the programmatic fulfilment of Acts 1:8. The risen Lord reinscribed both their identities: Saul from persecutor to persecuted preacher, and Cornelius from the unclean one to the cleansed one. Notwithstanding, the divine inclusion of Saul and Cornelius is met with strong resistance. In Luke’s narrative, the unimaginable universality and generosity of God’s action constantly catches the early community unawares and at cross-purposes with Him.32 To a certain extent, their resistance is understandable in the light of Saul’s relentless persecution of the Church and their traditional understanding of both the law and their identity as a people. It is evident in Lukan narrative that divine initiative and welcome of the other requires readjustment from all concerned. Luke uses the metaphors of light and darkness, sight and blindness to illustrate that “what people can and cannot see proves significant.”33 Both Saul and Ananias must experience their own “conversion” and make readjustments to the will and plan of God’s redemptive embrace. Interestingly, the resistance to divine initiative and redemptive embrace comes not from “outsiders” but “insiders”, like Ananias, Peter, and the Jerusalem church. Luke’s narrative suggests that it is easier for the risen Christ to triumph over his enemies than to persuade His own people.34 Acts 9:13–17 recounts Ananias’ initial resistance and subsequent acquiescence to the Lord’s command. With sight restored and a new identity, all bestowed on him by the risen Christ, Paul becomes a powerful servant of the Gospel and apostle to the Gentiles. Like Ananias, the Jerusalem church is blind to the significance of Saul’s conversion until Barnabas explains it to them (Acts 9:26–30).35 Even so, Paul’s relation with the Jerusalem church seems to remain ambiguous throughout, undoubtedly aggravated by his insistence of a law-free gospel for the Gentiles. Another difficult hurdle to do with boundary and identity is illustrated in the Cornelius episode. Here, the central issue of the Jerusalem leadership’s challenge of the Cornelius event is not that the Gospel has been preached to Cornelius, and his conversion, but rather, the sensitive issue of table fellowship. “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them” (Acts 11:3). Table fellowship is a distinctive ritual and a fundamental identity marker for the Jews. Acts 11:1–18 contains the most important point of dispute between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Philip Francis Esler argues, “It was this issue that in the early history of Christianity had led to the development of a distinct Christian identity vis-à-vis Judaism, and is
31 Shepherd, p. 184. He also alerts his readers to the fact that the term “eunuch” need not indicate castration but simply high office, but in the light of Luke’s distinctive concern for the excluded humanity and the symbolism of the castrated male in biblical tradition, it seems best to take this expression at face value. 32 Marguerat, p. 146. 33 Shepherd, p. 190. 34 Marguerat, p. 146. 35 Shepherd, pp. 191–2. Pentecost Revisited 37 still central to the life of Luke’s Christian contemporaries.”36 The question of ritual purity separates Jews and Gentiles. Jewish Christians perceived their relationship with Gentiles by means of this ritual.37 According to Rakotoharintsifa, underlying the Jerusalem church’s criticism of Peter is their fear of ritual defilement, “the disappearance of the ritual boundaries established by the Law endangered the unique identity of the people of God” and perhaps to an extent risked repressive measure from the Sanhedrin.38 It becomes evident that self-identity established on anything other than divine grace will always become a dividing wall that separates or excludes. In his defence, Peter rehearses his vision and the accompanying Spirit’s instruction to go with the representatives sent by Cornelius. In his argument he emphasises the fact that it is the radical freedom of the Spirit that redraws the then existing boundaries … boundaries that distinguish in order to exclude or include. He narrates how his experience and that of Cornelius led him into a deeper understanding of his own vision and new discernment of God’s generosity and hospitality. In a sense, Cornelius’ conversion is also simultaneously Peter’s conversion. Koenig comments:
… by offering food and lodging to Cornelius’ emissaries, at least one of whom is a Gentile (Acts 10: 9–23), Peter’s act of hospitality is the germ of his repentance from a conviction that the gospel should be preached only to Jews. When he takes the further step of visiting Cornelius’s household in Caesarea and actually tells the story of Jesus to his Gentile hosts, the Holy Spirit miraculously descends upon them. This conversion brings about the completion of Peter’s repentance … And now the new believer Cornelius provides lodging and food.39
The Gospel of God’s grace binds these two men to God and simultaneously to each other in acceptance and hospitality. Ramachandra writes, “The result is the stupendous sight, unimaginable in their contemporary world, of a Jewish peasant and a Roman centurion living together under one roof.”40 Peter concluded his defence with a rhetorical question, “So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?” (11:17). His rhetorical question silenced his accusers, but did not absolutely resolve the issue of Gentile fellowship in the Church. The Jerusalem leadership ratifies the decision (11:18). However, the issue is far from fully resolved. Even if Gentiles are accepted into the Church, the question of fellowship is not thereby decided. This was critical above all for Jewish Christians.41 Thus, the issue keeps surfacing. Peter is called upon again to rehearse his experience in Acts 15 (a decade after the Cornelius event).
36 P.F. Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke–Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 109. 37 Rakotoharintsifa, p. 173. 38 Ibid. 39 Koenig, p. 117. 40 Ramachandra, p. 269. 41 Johnson (1999), p. 244. 38 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century The apostolic Council in Acts 15 forms the watershed of the Book of Acts.42 The members of the Pharisaic party of believers opposed Gentile membership in the Church without circumcision and law observance. The Council was convened and the leadership had to decide on this issue. Should a Gentile subject himself to circumcision, i.e., become a Jew before he could be a Christian, or should there be full acceptance of Gentile believers without any preconditions? After a long deliberation, with testimonies from Peter and Paul, the leadership chose the second option and recommended only that they observe four stipulations: three regarding dietary laws and one on morality. This ratification is noted as under the impulse of the Spirit “it seems good to the Holy Spirit…” (Acts 15:28). Thus, these stipulations are not “preconditions of membership in the people but were intended to enable table fellowship with Jewish believers.”43 Johnson writes:
The narrative of the experience of God within the assembly enables the community to discern the working of the Spirit … and also deeper insight into the meaning of Scripture. The text of the prophet is said to agree with the experience of God among them, rather than the experience being made to conform to their previous understanding of the prophet (Acts 15:15–18). And the gentile mission itself is understood as a restoration of Israel (Acts 15: 14–18 cf. Amos 9: 11–12). Finally, Luke suggests that the experience of God’s free gift of the Spirit among the Gentiles led even these Jewish witnesses to a new understanding of their own salvation (Acts 15: 11).44
The decision of the Jerusalem Council has a far-reaching consequence, allowing the Gospel to be preached unhindered to the Jew and the Gentile, and also contributing to the continued growth and development of the Gentile churches. “These churches gave direction and leadership as the Jewish segment began to diminish and disappear. All Gentile churches, therefore, owe their origin to the decision made by the Jerusalem Council.”45 However, with Gentile Christianity gaining ascendancy “and the virtual disappearance of Jewish believers in Jesus, generations of Gentile Christians have ignored their dependence on the faith of Israel and often boasted of their new faith over against the Jews.”46 The pivotal role of Israel was elided. Inevitably, such a turn has had tragic consequences, evidenced by the complex and tangled history of the relationship between the Church and the Jews. Ironically, the formerly excluded, who became the reconciled and embraced other, has adopted an exclusionary tendency towards the Jews, “a subtle form of discrimination, denying to Jews what Christians believe to be their own most precious gift.”47 Luke–Acts in particular has been read as providing the basis for Gentile Christianity’s sense of “superiority”. Tiede observes, “From the second century
42 Shepherd, p. 218. 43 Johnson (1999), p. 245. 44 Ibid. 45 Kistemaker, p. 563. 46 D.L. Tiede, Prophecy and History in Luke–Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), p. 128. Cited by D.J. Bosch, Transforming Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000), p. 115. 47 G. Fackre, Ecumenical Faith in Evangelical Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), p. 165. Pentecost Revisited 39 to the twentieth most expositors have read the Book of Acts at the expense of the Jews, frequently with disdain for the obvious evidence of the struggle within the Jewish context from which it originates.”48 Such reading of Luke–Acts misses what is fundamental to Lukan theology. Critical to Lukan theology is the claim that believing Jews and Gentiles together comprises God’s people, the true Israel. Thus, he carefully crafts both the Samaritan mission by Philip and the Gentile mission of Paul to reflect this theological understanding. By highlighting Philip’s mission being confirmed by Peter and John from Jerusalem (Acts 8:14–24), Luke connects the Samaritan mission with the Jerusalem community. The outpouring of the Spirit upon the Samaritans through the laying-on of hands by Peter and John “now indicates not only divine approval of the Samaritan mission … also continuity with the apostolic missions.”49 This continuity is critical in Luke’s narrative. “The mission maintained continuity with Jerusalem … the primitive Jerusalem church is the restored people of Israel. Continuity with it is critical if the gentile church is to be rooted in the Israel of the promise.”50 Luke also locates Paul’s Gentile mission directly within the overall missionary endeavour of the Jerusalem church. Johnson continues, “Luke’s narrative makes two apologetic points concerning Paul. The first is that his mission to the Gentiles is not idiosyncratic but part of the Spirit’s guidance of the entire church. The second is that his mission is intimately connected, the role of Barnabas is crucial here to the believing community in Jerusalem, and therefore to the restored Israel.”51 Forgetting their dependence on and genesis from “the womb of Israel”, Gentile Christians have assumed for themselves the status of “new Israel”. This assumption of “new Israel” by Gentile Christianity is expressed theologically in supercessionist theology.52 The Church has replaced Israel in the drama of redemption. Christian triumphalism, coupled with the lack of Christian wisdom, led to a way of reading the Scripture that arrogates the Gospel to itself and inclines to demonise the Jews. In this reading, the Jews and they alone are made to be solely responsible for the death of Christ. Jews are indicted for deicide, the greatest religious sin. Such a view generates hostility and antagonism towards the Jews. An example of this antagonistic penchant, the “us” against “them” mentality, and a misuse of Scripture is reflected in Tertullian’s Apology, “It was the merited punishment of their sins not to understand the Lord’s first advent … it is written of them that they are deprived of wisdom and understanding … [cf Isa. 6:9–10; Jer. 5: 21–23; Ezek. 12: 1–3].”53 What is problematic with this is, as Evans and Hagner correctly analyse, a misapplication of prophetic denunciation in Scripture. The “dynamic, in-house, prophetic criticism of Israel’s classical prophets” was directed against one’s own community, challenging the assumption that God is always on our side.54 However, the hermeneutic of
48 Tiede, p. 128. Cited by Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 115. 49 Shepherd, p. 181. 50 Johnson (1999), p. 242. 51 Ibid., p. 243. 52 Fackre lists five different types of supercessionist theology in his book (pp. 148–53). 53 Cited in Evans and Hagner, p. 9. 54 Ibid. 40 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century prophetic criticism is misunderstood and therefore misapplied by later generations of largely non-Jewish Christians with tragic results. “No longer understood as a challenge from within the community of faith, it was understood as a condemnation of a particular people outside the faith – the people who had rejected Jesus Christ, his apostles, and the church.”55 The disobedience, obduracy and unbelief of the Jews are regarded as inviting both divine retribution and elimination of Israel from God’s covenantal love in the most extreme form of supercessionist theology, the retributive replacement view. Such a view, according to Fackre, tacitly gives “licence to humans to be an agency of the divine retribution.”56 Fackre cites Luther’s writing as a case in point: “Luther’s two-hundred-page diatribe against the Jews and his ‘seven steps’ for their silencing, dispossession, exile, and the burning of their synagogues and prayer books are an outworking of the retributive premise.”57 Inevitably, such condemnation promoted a suspicion and antagonism that indirectly fed the later development of anti-Semitism, which in part contributed to the horror of the Holocaust. This points to the fact that the reification of evil in the estranged other is a deeply embedded phenomenon.58 In recent years realising its tragic complicity in, and the horror of, the Holocaust, the Church has been making serious efforts towards theological critique of supercessionist theology.59
Summary
The Early Charismatic Jerusalem Church, far from being problem free, was beset with tensions and divisions. Luke’s account of the Pentecostal event and of the subsequent life of the Early Charismatic Jerusalem Church displays a complex interplay of narratives of unity and conflict, embrace and exclusion, triumph and temptation, and multiple conversions from unbelief to belief, from self to God, from self to other. The crises faced by the emergent Charismatic Church may be summed up as the crises of boundaries. Perhaps the most demandingly difficult boundary crisis was that of ethnic identity. Felix Wilfred avers that in forging their identity, the early disciples were confronted by “the choice of becoming either a sect within Judaism, with strict Jewish membership, customs, and traditions or opening up the way to follow Jesus beyond ethnic boundaries. What was achieved after much struggle was in fact a boundary-moving act. The widening of the circumference of the group led to the reinventing of its identity.”60 “Rigidity of borders” is a deeply entrenched part of human existence, and often toxic to human flourishing.
55 Ibid., p. 11. 56 Fackre, p. 148. He adds that Nazis employed Luther’s writings in their own programmes. However, Fackre also notes that the early Luther had very different views. 57 Ibid. 58 M. Gopin, Between Eden and Armageddon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 55. 59 See Fackre’s summary of positions, pp. 153–67. 60 F. Wilfred, ‘Religions as Agents of Hope: Challenges for the New Millennium’, in P.L. Wickeri, Janice K. Wickeri and Damayanthi M.A. Niles (eds), Plurality, Power and Mission (London: The Council for World Mission, 2000), pp. 43–82. Pentecost Revisited 41 What the Spirit effected at the first Pentecost was the “reconfiguration of boundaries”, an expelling of the toxin of rigidity and in its place a permeability. The outpouring of the Spirit at the first Pentecost gloriously realised the divine promise of embracing those who were not God’s people to be God’s people, constituting the Church as “one new man” comprising Jews and Gentiles. Hocken aptly describes it: “At Pentecost, the Church is formed out of Jewish flesh confessing Christ and enlivened by the gift of the Spirit from heaven.”61 Apostle Paul writes about the unity of the body through the Spirit in 1 Cor. 12:13: “For we are all baptised by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” It is the reconciling power of the Spirit through which Gentiles are being made “heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6). It is clear that reconciliation and reintegration are the twin characteristics of the movement of the Spirit, the divine heartbeat. However, prejudice, triumphalism and an exclusionary tendency blind Gentile Christianity to the extraordinary richness of God’s fidelity to Israel, divine compassion and eternal love, as it gains ascendancy. In God’s grand design, “the destiny of the nations and that of Israel are inextricably bound together (Rom. 11: 25–32).”62 It seems clear that in order to break the stranglehold of theological and cultural idolatries, “conversion” to God’s generosity and hospitality is indispensable especially in the context of cultural and religious plurality.
Twentieth-Century Pentecost: Azusa Street Revival
Though there have been several episodic Pentecostal renewals since the Apostolic Age, the Pentecostal revival of Azusa Street at the turn of the twentieth century is undeniably unique both in its extensity and intensity. Menzies and Menzies underscore this fact: “Yet, all of these prior movements ended dismally, dissolving in fanaticism and/or heresy. The uniqueness of the modern Pentecostal revival lies in its very survival – surviving long enough to gain a hearing in the larger church world and to emerge as a significant component of the Christian world.”63 It has grown from being a much misunderstood and maligned localised movement in Los Angeles to a significant, powerful, globalised heterogeneous movement spanning Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. Some have enthused that it is a “third force” in twentieth-century Christianity. However, its historical realities were not without ambiguity. There were shadow sides.
A Brief Note: Founder Controversy
There has been no consensus as to the founder of the North American Pentecostalism. The Parham or Seymour debate as well as the no single founder option is indicative of this. Menzies and Menzies adopt the no single founder option. They posit,
61 Hocken, p. 155. 62 Ibid., p. 166. 63 W.W. Menzies and R.P. Menzies, Spirit and Power (Grand Rapids; Zondervan, 2000), p. 22. 42 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century “In a real sense, the American Pentecostal revival can claim no single father.”64 Some, like Edith Blumhoffer and J.R. Goff, regard Charles Fox Parham as the founder of Pentecostalism. Goff’s argument is that Parham was the first to link glossolalia with Spirit baptism and formulated the theological definition of initial evidence that has defined Pentecostalism. “As the initial evidence, glossolalia becomes the sine qua non of the experience.”65 However, this argument misses an important point, which is astutely highlighted by Christenson: “It was not the doctrine, but the event of speaking in tongues, which midwifed the birth of modern-day pentecostalism”66 (italics, original). Hollenweger avers that Pentecostalism cannot be understood without reference to its African American roots: “The most important root of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements is a revival in a black Church on Azusa Street in Los Angeles under the leadership of the black ecumenist William J. Seymour (1870–1922).”67 However, Seymour’s pivotal role is either denied or dismissed. In part, the resistance to acknowledging Seymour as the major player stems from xenophobia. Hence, Isak Burger’s aversion, “the idea that Pentecostalism originated in a black church was a warped, one-sided conclusion.”68 Despite this resistance, there is sufficient evidence to establish Seymour as the prophetic catalyst of modern Pentecostalism.
From Dream to Reality
The cultural milieu of North America prevalent in the first half of the twentieth century had a deeply entrenched, hostile colour prejudice, encrusted with endemic segregationist mentality. Christianity did not escape that entrapment. Benjamin Quarles reports, “By 1900 Christianity had divided along color lines even more markedly than before … the southern churches were almost completely separated.”69 However, there were exceptions to the rule, such as Evening Light Saints, which was inter-racial and emphasised holiness, divine healing, racial equality and anti-denominationalism.70 The
64 Ibid., p. 17. 65 J.R. Goff, Jr, Fields White unto Harvest: Charles F. Parham and the Missionary Origins of Pentecostalism (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1988), p. 11. Goff’s assertion is far from unanimous endorsement. Parham’s character – his racist leanings, evidenced in his support of the Ku Klux Klan in his later years – and alleged homosexuality embarrassed the Pentecostals. 66 Christenson, p. 27. 67 Hollenweger, ‘From Azusa Street to the Toronto Phenomenon’, in J. Moltmann and Karl-Josef Kuschel (eds), Pentecostal Movement as an Ecumenical Challenge (London: SCM, 1996), p. 4. Douglas Nelson has argued in his dissertation, ‘For Such a Time as This: The Study of Bishop William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival’, that without Seymour there would have been no Pentecostal revival. But many still resist this claim to the African American roots of Pentecostalism. 68 A.H. Anderson, ‘Dangerous Memories for South African Pentecostals’, in Anderson and Hollenweger (eds), Pentecostals after a Century: Global Perspectives on a Movement in Transition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), p. 106. 69 Cited by I. MacRobert in The Black Roots and White Racism of Early Pentecostalism in the USA (London: The Macmillan Press, 1988), p. 50. 70 MacRobert, p. 50. Pentecost Revisited 43 city of Los Angeles at that time was different from most parts of the United States, which were violently racist and practised strict segregation. There was relatively little racial segregation in Los Angeles.71 Los Angeles at that time was heavily populated by immigrants and was more cosmopolitan than the majority of American cities. Spiritually, the Church in Los Angeles was inclined to apocalyptism. Even before Seymour’s arrival in Los Angeles, there was already a swelling anticipation of a Pentecostal-type revival inspired by the 1904–1906 Welsh Revival. According to Iain MacRobert, “The twentieth-century Pentecostal movement was born at the time when fundamentalist Christians were anticipating the Second Advent and blacks were seeking a solution to the inequalities in American society. For many, the Pentecostal movement appeared to promise the impending fulfilment of both dreams.”72 The Azusa Street Revival was a crystallisation of the dream. The Azusa Mission had a humble beginning without fanfare and publicity. It began quietly in a home in Bonnie Brae Street with a small group deeply resolved to seek God by intentional tarrying and fasting for a personal Pentecost, and “the fire fell” on 9 April 1906. Seven persons reportedly received the outpouring of the Spirit and the noise from persons speaking with tongues and praising God drew in curious crowds; “The shouts of praise were so tremendous that it was soon noised abroad that there was a gracious visitation of God.”73 That event of Pentecost attracted attention, and the house soon could not accommodate the attendance. Later, 312 Azusa Street (formerly a Methodist church), located in the poor African American quarters, became the rented venue for the meetings. Its meetings were dogged by unsolicited publicity. An arresting headline in the Los Angeles Times of the Azusa meeting reads, “Weird Babel of Tongues; New Sect of Fanatics Is Breaking Loose; Wild Scene Last Night on Azusa Street.” Two events converged and escalated its growth and prominence: the sensational reporting by the Los Angeles Times74 of the happenings in Azusa and the earthquake in San Francisco with tremors that were felt in Los Angeles. The earthquake was interpreted as an eschatological sign. Many startled by the catastrophe were drawn to the Azusa meetings searching for meaning of the disaster. Frank Bartleman, an evangelist, interprets the earthquake in San Francisco as truly a divine warning to the people on the west coast. He believed that the quake gave “a great fillip to the revival which was already going on in Azusa Street … people were moved to repentance when they were several blocks away!”75 Supernatural empowerment and miracles, in particular healing, were reported to be common happenings at Azusa. The revival fire at Azusa burned continuously for three years (1906–1908). It was reported that services were conducted every day of the week and three times a day for three years. Spontaneous, participatory, ecstatic, enthusiastic, anticipatory and “chaotic” were descriptive of the ethos of Azusa. Structures and programmes were
71 Ibid., p. 51. 72 Ibid., p. 34. 73 Cited by Nils Bloch-Hoell in The Pentecostal Movement (London: Allen & Unwin, 1964), p. 38. 74 This provided a form of free advertisement for the revival. 75 Cited in Bloch-Hoell, p. 40. 44 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century intentionally absent to give absolute freedom to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was the acknowledged leader of the meetings. From 1906–1908, the Azusa Street mission drew persons from several races, ethnic groups, cultures and nationalities together in worship. Perhaps the most significant event of Azusa was that African Americans and whites were found worshipping and singing together, tarrying before the Lord and praying for one another, “mingling and even touching[!] in the mission.”76 Colour line was demolished … as it were “washed away in the blood”77 Such close physical proximity, fraternizing and inclusivity contravened the social norm then. The embracive inter-racial worship of equals at Azusa was nothing short of a miracle given its contextual realities. What made it even more remarkable was that it happened under the leadership of an African American person; “Seymour served as pastor of an anomalous congregation … with leadership drawn from black, white, Hispanic and other ethnic minorities.”78 Robert Mapes Anderson recounts an eyewitness’s testimony of this inclusive phenomenon. Though there were a reported twenty different nationalities represented in the Azusa Street mission, “It is noticeably free from all nationalistic feeling … No instrument that God can use is rejected on account of colour or dress or lack of education.”79 The embracive koinonia and welcome at Azusa gave the marginalised ethnic minority who attended Azusa a “sense of dignity and community denied them in the larger urban culture.”80 The experience of the Spirit gave these “voiceless” a new freedom and language to praise God, i.e., the “language of the Spirit that is not controlled by dominant modes of religious discourse.”81 Not only new language, but also new status and relationship not defined by race, colour, class or gender but in Christ: “Here, black and white, the poor and the illiterate – all could share and participate fully in the life and worship of the Pentecostal congregation.”82 Frank Bartleman describes the Azusa phenomenon as a “veritable Jerusalem visited by thousands from all over the world to experience their own personal Pentecost.”83 That the experience of a personal Pentecost was not a self-consumptive spiritual experience was evident; within a month of its inception about 38 missionaries went out from Azusa, and within two years it spread to over fifty nations, including Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, Holland, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, South Africa, Hong Kong, China, Ceylon and India.84 Christian leaders who came from all parts of the world and “caught” the flame returned to become leaders of the Pentecostal movement in
76 D.T. Irvin, ‘Drawing All Together into One Bond of Love: The Ecumenical Vision of William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival’, JPT, 6 (1995): 46. Cited by Yong in ‘Pentecostalism and Ecumenism’. 77 Cited by MacRobert, p. 83. 78 H. Cox, Fire from Heaven (London: Cassell, 1996), p. 59. 79 R.M. Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 69. 80 Cited in ibid., p. 69. 81 Cox, p. 315. 82 MacRobert, p. 84. 83 Cited in D. Petersen, Not by Might nor by Power: A Pentecostal Theology of Social Concern in Latin America (Oxford: Regnum, 1996), p. 14. 84 Cited in MacRobert, p. 56. Pentecost Revisited 45 their respective countries.85 Inspired and transformed by the possibilities of what they had witnessed and experienced, they left to spread the Pentecostal message of Spirit baptism. Blumhoffer sums this up succinctly: “they came to inquire, often stayed to pray, then left to proclaim the restoration of the apostolic faith across the country and around the world.”86 The event of Pentecost not only redrew the lines of accepted boundaries, but also heightened mission fervour, no doubt empowered by the outpourings of the Holy Spirit. The egalitarian nature of the Azusa mission was unimaginable. Leonard Lovett recounts the inter-racial period of the movement between 1906 and 1924: “many white ministers from Pentecostal fellowships, including the Assemblies of God, were ordained by the late Bishop Charles H. Mason, founder of the largest black Pentecostal group, the Church of God in Christ.”87 Racial and gender lines were not only demolished at the pew level, but also at the pulpit. Twelve elders made up the leadership of the Azusa mission, comprising three African Americans and nine whites of which five were men and seven women.88 Such radicality and revolutionary nature of the revival both repulsed and fascinated its critics, both secular and Christian. There was detailed coverage of the events by both secular and religious press. However, this comprised largely negative commentaries. Ironically, the negative press did not retard its growth, but contributed to it. Commenting on the negative press on Azusa, Hollenweger writes that since “they could not understand the revolutionary nature of this Pentecostal spirituality, they took refuge in ridicule … The mainline churches also criticised the emerging Pentecostal movement. They despised the Pentecostals because of their lowly black origins.”89 Despite hostility from white Holiness ministers, Seymour remained resolute and clear-sighted to his vision of an “all-embracive inclusiveness.”90 He was determined to keep alive the ecumenical vision of embracive koinonia in the face of bitter and violent opposition. His pivotal role is undeniable and his significance for Pentecostalism cannot be underestimated. Nelson describes Seymour’s contribution:
85 Ibid. 86 E.L. Blumhoffer, Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), p. 61. 87 L. Lovett, ‘Black Origins of the Pentecostal Movement’, in Synan (1975), pp. 138–9. MacRobert notes that although white Pentecostal ministers were ordained by Mason, this did not contribute to making the Church of God in Christ become genuinely inter-racial. He opines that it was more a matter of convenience than conscience. The whites needed to be ordained by a legally incorporated church organisation in order to obtain cheap travel on the railways and perform weddings (p. 58). Perhaps this, like a “marriage of convenience”, which generally does not promote a strong relationship, explains in part why the white Christians so readily succumbed to the pressure and racial mores of its society after 1908. In 1924, Pentecostalism split along racial lines. 88 Cited in MacRobert, p. 56. 89 Hollenweger, ‘The Black Roots of Pentecostalism’, in Anderson and Hollenweger, p. 41. 90 Seymour himself practised what he preached. He continued to invite white Holiness ministers to preach at the Azusa mission, although they maligned him. See MacRobert, p. 116, footnote 32. 46 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Amid the most racist era of a totally segregated society, a miracle happened. For the first time in history a miniature global community came together beyond the color line, meeting night and day continuously for three years, inviting everyone to enter the new life in fellowship together. The original vision for a new society – forged again in the USA during 250 years of black slave experience – became a historical reality in the church.91
The Apostolic Faith, the Azusa mission’s own monthly publication, greatly aided the spread of Seymour’s vision and influence. It enjoyed a readership (locally and internationally) that grew from 5,000 in 1906 to 80,000 by 1908.92 Pentecostals of that period were convinced that the Azusa phenomenon was a recovery of the dynamic experienced reality of the first Pentecost in the Book of Acts; the long-awaited latter rain promised in Scripture that would surpass the effectiveness of the first. The Azusa outpouring signalled for them the arrival of the eschatological Kingdom taught and demonstrated by Jesus where justice and compassion reign. However, Seymour’s influence declined when the publication was unceremoniously taken away from him. Once again, sectarianism and racial homogeneity ruled, which snuffed out the ecumenism, racial heterogeneity and pneumatic dynamism of the Azusa Revival.93
The Significance of the Azusa Revival
What makes the Azusa event special and significant is the recovery of an experience of the living presence and power of God in the person of the Holy Spirit that transcends all barriers. The experience of Azusa offers a different version of reality where no segregation or tyranny of hegemony of any sort rules. The Azusa miracle was an answer to the hope and longings of the people marginalised by society’s strict segregation and racism. Nelson argued that the Azusa event represented the “restoration of human equality in the body of Christ for the first time since the first Christian Pentecost and early Christianity … this inclusive fellowship is not a human construct but a divine glossolalic community of human equality. Seymour was convinced that the power of the Holy Spirit could bring about a unity between Christians of all races and colours.”94 While glossolalia was indeed prominent in the outpouring of the Spirit in the Azusa event, it was not the be-all-and-end-all. Contrary to common misconception, the outpouring of the Spirit in the Azusa revival was not about tongues. The testimony of Orwig, an eye-witness of Azusa Street, recounts that tongues was not the focus of Seymour’s ministry: “Brother Seymour constantly exalted the atoning work of Christ and the Word of God and very earnestly insisted on thorough conversion, holiness of heart and life, and the fullness of the Holy Spirit, yet some uninformed persons uncharitably declared that the whole thing consisted in talking in tongues
91 D. Nelson, ‘For Such a Time as This’, pp. 11, 204. Cited by Chan in Pentecostal Theology, p. 103. 92 Anderson (1979), p. 74. 93 MacRobert, pp. 86–7. 94 Cited by I. Clemmons in ‘“True Koinonia”: Pentecostal Hopes and Historical Realities’, Pneuma, 4:1 (Spring 1982), p. 51. Pentecost Revisited 47 and was of the devil.”95 Concentration on glossolalia and the initial evidence were the constructions of Parham, not Seymour. Moreover, Parham’s connection with Azusa was too remote to define its character. Besides, he had also publicly condemned the embracive freedom of worship that he witnessed as “animalism”. Parham’s fixation with the phenomenon of glossolalia–xenolalia itself and his colour prejudice prevented him from grasping what was at the heart of the divine outpouring. He made what is consequential constitutive. In contrast, the Pentecostal outpouring represented something far more glorious and breathtaking for Seymour. Though in the early part of his ministry Seymour’s view was similar to Parham (understandably so, as he was taught “at a distance” by Parham for five weeks in his Bible School in Kansas), this was later changed. Cox states that Seymour in the early days of Azusa “had put central emphasis on the gift of tongues both as the clearest evidence of baptism in the Spirit and as a harbinger of the Last Days.” But his disillusionment with white Pentecostals changed his mind: “Finding that some people could speak in tongues and continue to abhor their black fellow Christians convinced him that it was not tongue speaking but the dissolution of racial barriers … the surest sign of the Spirit’s Pentecostal presence and … New Jerusalem.”96 In other words, Seymour saw the outpouring of the Spirit as the divine event to bring into existence a church that is characterised by an “all-embracing inclusiveness”. It represented the in-breaking of a new world, an ecclesiology characterised by racial equality. He gave expression to this in the AF: “The people are all melted together … made one lump, one bread, all one body in Jesus Christ. There is no Jew or Gentile, bond or free, in the Azusa Mission … He is no respecter of persons or places.”97 Undoubtedly, this grasp of the Pentecostal event was more fecund than his white counterparts. When asked to define the real evidence of one’s reception of Spirit baptism, he answered, “Divine love which is charity … and the outward manifestations; speaking in tongues and the signs following: casting out devils, laying hands on the sick and the sick being healed, and the love of God for souls increasing in our hearts” (italics, original).98 From the thoughtfully crafted answer, it was apparent that, for Seymour, the priority of love, i.e., embracive koinonia, is the definitive evidence, not glossolalia. MacRobert notes that for Seymour the crucial thing was that “the love of God was to be demonstrated in unity across boundaries of colour and gender.”99 Chan comments that Seymour’s understanding of the Pentecostal event also helped him to see glossolalia in a far more profound way than his white counterparts. Certainly, Seymour’s position is markedly different from that of Parham. The true meaning of glossolalic speech is not simply ecstatic oral experience promoting personal spiritual well-being; and certainly not Parham’s xenolalia. For Seymour, glossolalia is “a symbol of God’s bringing together into
95 Cited in Bloch-Hoell, p. 44. 96 Cox, p. 63. 97 Cited by MacRobert, p. 55. 98 AF, Jan. 1908, at http://www.sendrevival.com//history/azusa_street/news_clipping/ january_1908. htm. 99 MacRobert, p. 63. 48 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century one body people from every conceivable background.”100 Seymour dared think the unthinkable. “The one lump, one body of Christ” imagery emphasises togetherness, mutuality and equality where one’s racial, gender, social identities are no longer held captive by one’s ascribed social–political context. These are transcended by the new status and relationship in Christ. The outpouring of the Spirit freely redefines human identities and relationality. Glossolalia and koinonia are inseparable correlates. Racial integration and the full ministry of women were a reality of the Azusa mission. For a while, the Azusa mission visibly embodied the transforming, reconciling and unitive power wrought by the Spirit … where there is “no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Col. 3:11, 1 Cor. 12:13 and Gal. 3: 28). It is this understanding that motivated Seymour’s relentless drive for ecumenism, for a multiracial movement. Even when the racial lines were redrawn and when once again segregation ruled, Seymour refused to give up the hope of “Glossolalic-Inclusive NT Koinonia”.101 However, his treatment at the hands of many white Pentecostals led him to revise the Azusa mission’s “‘Articles of Incorporation’ and ‘Constitution’ to ensure that black people will not ever be victims of white exclusion again. The revision reads: ‘… the Apostolic Faith Mission should be carried on in the interests of and for the benefit of the colored people of the State of California, but the people of all countries, climes, and nations shall be welcome. And that the Bishop, Vice-Bishop and Trustees were to be ‘people of color’.”102 Even so, he continued to maintain the vision of embracive koinonia. He wrote, “Our colored brethren must love our white brethren and respect them in the truth so that the word of God can have its free course, and our white brethren must love their colored brethren and respect them in the truth so that the Holy Spirit won’t be grieved.”103 In 1922, Seymour died with a broken heart and a broken dream. In 1938, the bank took possession of the Azusa mission and it was later demolished and made into a parking lot. It took another 72 years before Seymour’s vision was resurrected from the ashes of supremacist ideology, in what was known as the “Memphis Miracle” of 1994 (to be discussed in Chapters 4 and 6). The Memphis Miracle was an event in the history of Pentecostalism that officially brought about the demise of the all-white Pentecostal Fellowship of North America (PFNA), to birth an organisation inclusive of all Pentecostals and Charismatics, the Pentecostal Charismatic Churches of North America (PCCNA).
Triumphs and Temptations
The triumphs of Pentecostalism by now are self-evident. Its dynamism and vitality make it the fastest growing Christian movement in the world.104 Many churches of
100 Chan, Pentecostal Theology, p. 103. 101 Clemmons (1982), p. 56. 102 Cited in MacRobert, p. 68. 103 Ibid. 104 See Anderson’s discussion of the statistical discrepancy between Barrett and Todd’s estimate of over 523 million and Johnstone and Mandryk’s estimate of 345 million in Pentecost Revisited 49 various traditions have begun to adopt its worship style to maintain as well as to boost attendance. Despite its dynamic experience of the Spirit, Pentecostalism was not immune to temptations both ideological and doctrinal. After a glorious start, this vibrant, dynamic ecumenism was marred by dark controversies and betrayal. Exclusion and sectarianism set in again. Internal schism erupted over theological issues and led to bitter controversy and parting of ways. The issues of contention: “The Finished Work of Calvary”, “The Unity of the Godhead” and “The Initial Evidence”. Glossolalia, a unifying, inclusive experience, became an exclusionary mechanism, an identity and theological marker. It demarcates relationality; insiders and outsiders, boundaries again are redrawn. According to MacRobert, “The Finished Work Controversy” that split Pentecostals between Second Work and Finished was both racial, geographical and theological. The next theological issue that eroded the Pentecostal movement was the “Oneness” issue, which affected primarily the Finished Work wing began as a debate within the AG. This controversy divided the AG. MacRobert surmises that this split was more complex than concern for orthodoxy; that it was in fact politically and racially motivated.105 With this schism, “The Assemblies became an all but ‘lily white’ denomination.”106 It seems that the “theological controversies” and sectarianism that ensued were never far from the idolatry of hegemony. Perhaps the most tragic temptation of Pentecostalism was the ideological one – supremacist ideology. Racism is the ugliest betrayal of the Azusa Street Revival. The “original culture of reconciliation”, to borrow Hollenweger’s phrase, characteristic of Azusa was tragically sundered by racism. Yong suggests, “This parting of ways has signified, in some respect, the socio-economic distinctions between whites and blacks in this country. Upwardly mobile whites moved farther and farther away from lower class blacks, leaving, in places, a chasm unbridgeable … even for a Spirit- led people.”107 However, social ethicist Leonard Lovett reads the causes of racial division differently. He writes, “When whites could not ‘Europeanise’ Pentecostalism (Parham led the way by speaking in derogatory terms of certain excesses at the Azusa meeting) and purge it of its ‘Africanisms’, they separated and formed their own denominations. Thus white Pentecostals conceded to the pressure of a racist society.”108 Pentecostals yielded to segregation under pressure to conform to cultural norms, as had the older denominations before it.
An Introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 11–14. 105 MacRobert, p. 65. The whites and those located in urban areas (including the African Americans) were more attracted to the Finished Work, whereas the African Americans and those in the rural–agrarian South favoured the Second Work doctrine. Those from a Reformed background endorsed the Finished Work, while the Second Work was the general position of those from Methodist, holiness or Free Will Baptist tradition. Moreover, the mainline denominations had always criticised the AG – fellowship with black Christians added fuel to their criticism. Under pressure from racist white evangelicals and coupled with the AG’s desire to gain “respectability” and acceptance by the evangelicals, the white leadership was only too willing to excise their organisation of those who caused “offence”. See pp. 69–70. 106 Ibid., pp. 70–71. 107 Yong, ‘Pentecostalism and Ecumenism’. 108 Lovett, p. 139. 50 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Somehow, the blame for redrawing of the colour lines was externalised rather than internalised. It was put squarely on racial “customs” and “prejudices” of the South, but never on the prejudices of the whites.109 A resolution passed in 1923 reads:
… because of conditions now existing in many parts of the country through no fault of the brethren, but rather those who oppose the work of the Lord, it is deemed advisable that two white Presbyters sign the credentials for the white brethren (especially in the Southland) and two colored Presbyters sign the papers of the colored brethren.110
Pressures to conform to social and cultural mores and “purity” have always existed. The Church is no stranger to such pressures. Rowan Williams commenting on racism points out, “In any case, the point is that the society of the Church in its origins creates considerable tension with the society around because it will not take for granted (even if it will not often challenge head-on) the finality and authority of the socially prevailing accounts of status and power.”111 Putting blame on impersonal structures, mechanisms or the impersonal abstract “they” is a convenient self-justifying, self- absolving alibi; it is a refusal to admit one’s complicity, one’s sin. Segregation was also justified on the grounds of mission effectiveness. Arthur Clanton, General Superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church, attempted to justify their position when he wrote:
Southern whites and Negroes did not worship together. Had such been attempted in the South, the result would have been bitter resentment among the white non-Pentecostals. This, in turn, could have seriously handicapped the future ministry of these southern preachers and their churches.112
The inter-racial period ended in 1924. But the split was made complete and final by the formation of the all-white Pentecostal Fellowship of North America at Des Moines, Iowa. The formation was incongruously purported “to demonstrate to the world the essential unity of Spirit-baptized believers, fulfilling the prayers of the Lord Jesus ‘that they may be one’ … not a single Negro denomination was invited to join.”113 Exclusion was clear. In effect, such segregation and exclusion is a betrayal of Christ and His Body; it is a violence against the Eucharistic community. In succumbing to these temptations, Pentecostalism is in Barth’s phrase the “corruption of the best which is the worst”. To put the blame of segregation on the “system” does not absolve one of complicity. The system does not function independently of human channels, human will. Volf insists:
109 Ibid. 110 M.E. Golder, a Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (PA of W) historian, reported this resolution and its rationale: “because many of the white brethren in the South were made to suffer because a black man’s name appeared in his credentials.” Cited in MacRobert, p. 74. MacRobert finds such a claim incredible. 111 R. Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 284–5. 112 Cited in MacRobert, p. 75. 113 Ibid., p. 88. Pentecost Revisited 51 Yet persons cannot be reduced to the System. The system needs persons to make it “breathe” with the spirit of evil, and persons can escape the logic of the system, as the noble history of resistance demonstrates. So if people do acquiesce, it is not because the System forces them to acquiesce, but because there is something in their souls that resonates with the logic of exclusion.114
The segregation is in effect a taming of the Spirit. MacRobert comments, “The Ruach Yahweh was locked up in individuals and in the emerging white dominated Pentecostal denominations. Ecumenism, racial-heterogeneity and the pneumatic dynamism to effect social change gave way to sectarianism, racial homogeneity and the incestuous quest for personal purity.”115 The revival that was “a demonstration of the power of the Spirit to ‘wash away the color line with the blood of the cross,’ and to purge the church of the sin of racism, had resegregated itself very quickly.”116 To be fair, not all white Pentecostals succumbed to the exclusion. There was a courageous “remnant” that resisted segregation. In taming the Spirit and falling prey to racist ideology, Pentecostals had squandered the kairos moment to be a prophetic voice and conscience of their time with regard not only to racial and ethnic issues, but also to socio-economic ones. Yong laments, “Even in light of the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 70s, however, Pentecostals have been slow to respond to the need for racial reconciliation … rather than being the pacesetters in reconciliation, Pentecostals have been slow in acting out the impulses inherent within its original ecumenical experience.”117 Though Pentecostalism had attempted to tame the Spirit, however, the Spirit Himself defies human domestication. The Spirit is uncontrollable freedom and “blows where it wills”. Cox rightly observes, “One of the key features of pentecostalism is the chronic uncontrollability that some see as its greatest strength and others as its greatest flaw … and no effort to contain the Pentecostal impulse within ecclesiastical or doctrinal boundaries has ever succeeded for very long.”118 The Memphis Miracle of 1994 points in this direction. This event will be discussed briefly in Chapter 4 and more fully in Chapter 6.
Summary: Whither Wisdom?
The deeply painful history of racism, segregation and fragmentation in a tradition that drinks deeply in the well of the Spirit is a stark reminder of our fallenness, our falsehood. The temptation to be untrue to God is real. The questions raised by Cox are critical questions for Pentecostalism: “Will it stoke the fires of xenophobia and hostility? Will it channel the motions it releases into perpetuating and deepening the ruptures that divide us? Or will it open people to new outpourings of the divine
114 M. Volf, ‘Exclusion and Embrace: Theological Reflections in the Wake of “Ethnic Cleansing”’, in W. Dyrness (ed.), Emerging Voices in Global Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), p. 35. 115 MacRobert, p. 87. 116 Cox, p. 297. 117 Yong, ‘Pentecostalism and Ecumenism’. 118 Cox, p. 151. 52 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century spirit and a fresh recognition of the motley oneness of the human family and its multitudinous fellow dwellers on our frail planet?”119 The stark realities of many of our follies in history past and present can easily lead to despair of wisdom. Can wisdom be found? Despite the follies, is wisdom attainable? David Ford highlights that wisdom is closely linked to being filled with the Spirit.120 The need to re-envision one’s understanding of Spirit baptism is critical. Revisiting history is not a nostalgic return to a “golden age”, but attentiveness to the movement and presence of God in our historical time. This attention to history can help in repenting, renewing and re-envisioning the dynamism of Pentecostalism as wisdom for negotiating new contexts and fresh challenges. Memory must be jolted so that repentance and reconciliation can be genuine. How can one who remembers one’s own exclusion by the fundamentalists and conservatives perpetuate the same exclusion of others? What would it be like if one is truly being possessed by the Spirit rather than possessing the Spirit? Until the Pentecostal Church sees and acknowledges its falsehood, its cultural and theological idolatry, it cannot take its prophetic role. As Land pointedly asserts, “After all, the church cannot very well ask the world to consider the justice, peace, unity and love of God if it is not itself living out of practising these things with visible zeal.”121 Theological traditions and practices need to come under, in Ford’s phrase, the “transformative judgment of the Spirit.”122
The LoveSingapore Movement
Before I begin, it is important that I define again how this term, Pentecostalism, is used in relation to LoveSingapore. The term is employed as we earlier described phenomenologically and in its broadest sense. It is within this defined parameter that my postulation is framed. This defined parameter is critical in the discussion of the LoveSingapore movement, since many of its leadership would not describe themselves as “Pentecostal” in its historical and theological senses.123 Perhaps the most significant link that establishes LoveSingapore to Pentecostalism is the shared conviction, emphasis and experience of the action of the Spirit in the lives of the committed pastors and leaders of the movement as well as the movement itself. The empowerment of the Spirit is most evident in its prayer initiatives and praxis. Both Spirit and prayer are at the heart of Pentecostal spirituality.124 Its ability to
119 Ibid., p. 310. 120 D. Ford, ‘Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God’, lecture given at the Lady Margaret’s Professorship of Divinity: 500th Anniversary Day Conference, 2 March 2002, University of Cambridge. 121 S.J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), p. 208. 122 Ford, ‘Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God’. 123 Such persons represent different denominations and are of different theological persuasions. LoveSingapore’s Chairman, L. Khong, is a third waver; committee member Naomi Dowdy is Assemblies of God; Moses Tay is Anglican Charismatic. 124 See Land’s Pentecostal Spirituality. Pentecost Revisited 53 contextualise and “to ‘incarnate’ the gospel in different cultural forms”125 furthers its link with Pentecostalism. Only in this sense of shared conviction and experience of the Spirit, vibrant prayer and the ability to “incarnate” the Gospel is the LoveSingapore movement linked to Pentecostalism. The LoveSingapore movement is ecumenical and outward-looking. Its ability to be “border-crossing” holds the possibility of being “the peaceful harbinger of pluralism”. I shall begin with a description of its genesis, historical background and development from its own sources.126 This is followed by an analysis of the movement.
Genesis: Antecedents and Development
The LoveSingapore movement was linked to the Global Consultation on World Evangelisation (GCOWE). In 1989, GCOWE officially launched the international AD2000 & Beyond movement. This is a powerful movement with massive networks. The movement is global in outlook, but local in expression. The global outlook is expressed in its vision statement, “a church for every people and the gospel for every person by the year AD2000.” Its primary focus is the 10/40 Window.127 Its power base is the National Church. Structurally, it is intentionally non-hierarchical, emphasising personal relationships rather than positional power. Functionally, in relation to its networks, it sees itself as catalytic, cooperative, consultative and communicative. The AD2000 & Beyond movement first found indigenous expression in Singapore through the United Prayer Resource Network (AD2000 Prayer Track), represented here by the Spiritual Warfare Network (SWN). In March 1993, several pastors and leaders responded to the invitation of Peter Wagner128 to start an ad hoc committee
125 This is Anderson’s broader definition of Pentecostalism in An Introduction to Pentecostalism, p. 14. This ability to “incarnate” is borne out in many researches done on global Pentecostalism. 126 See Dare to Believe: The LoveSingapore Story (Singapore: LoveSingapore, 2000) and an interview the writer had with LaiKheng Pousson on 18 September 2002. 127 The 10/40 Window represents the geographical region between the 10th and 40th latitudes north of the equator and stretching from North-West Africa to East Asia. On the map it looks like a rectangular-shaped window. Historically, this area has prohibited the preaching of the Gospel. This specific region is also known as the cradle of civilisation. Inside the 10/40 Window live the vast majority of the world’s unreached people groups, 85% of the world’s poorest people, most of the world’s Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, and other unreached atheists and animists. Despite the tremendous needs represented in the 10/40 Window, only 2% of the Church’s global foreign mission force is currently dedicated to this area. See PrayerLink, 344/07/1999, p. 26. PrayerLink is a bi-annual publication of the LoveSingapore movement. See also P. Johnstone, Operation World (Carlisle: OM Publishing, 1993), and George Ortis Jr, Strongholds of the 10/40 Windows: Intercessor’s Guide to the World’s Least Evangelised Nations (Seattle, Washington: YWAM, 1995). 128 C.P. Wagner, a leading expert in church growth and former Professor of Missions at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, is Coordinator for the United Prayer Track of the AD2000 & Beyond movement. He is a third waver and well known in recent years for his “third wave” power evangelism and demonic stronghold deliverance ministries. He believes that God has given “strategic-level spiritual warfare” to the Church as the greatest power boost for worldwide evangelism since W. Carey’s pioneering missionary endeavours. 54 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century for the AD2000 Prayer Track or SWN.. The term “Third Wave” is coined by Wagner to describe another phase of the Charismatic Renewal.129 His particular emphasis will be discussed later. The LoveSingapore movement had its embryonic beginning in 1993130 as a monthly pastors’ prayer meeting in the AD2000 United Prayer Track, SWN. Following the October 1993 International SWN Consultation in Seoul, Wagner officially appointed Lawrence Khong, Senior Pastor of Faith Community Baptist Church (FCBC) as the Singapore Coordinator (1994). Originally called VISION 2001, this was a mission strategy. VISION 2001 has since assumed the new name LoveSingapore. LoveSingapore began officially as a movement in 1995 with the change of name. This change was deemed necessary as its close association to SWN sounded too “militant”, and therefore unwise, especially in an environment where militant faiths are on the rise. The new name, LoveSingapore, was considered to be most appropriate because it expresses the movement’s love for God and love for the nation. It is this love that the movement is trying to communicate both to the body of Christ nationally and to those outside the Church, whether governmental or grassroots people. The leadership of LoveSingapore describes the movement as a network of churches, united in servant leadership, in order to make a difference in Singapore and around the world, by seeking to provide every person in Singapore and the unreached people groups of the 10/40 Window with the opportunity to experience the love of Jesus in a life-changing way. Ecumenicity is evident in its vision: “there’s a place and a part for every believer, every denomination, and ministry to be involved.”131 It considers the local church as its power base and desires that “the Body of Christ in Singapore can move forward together in ONE direction as ONE spiritual nation to bless the land, and fulfil our redemptive purpose as an Antioch for Asia, to unlock nations for His glory”132 (emphasis original). Nonetheless, its genesis was fraught with difficulties. But through perseverance in praying together at the AD2000 monthly pastors’ prayer since 1993, despite denominational and theological differences, this group of founding leaders gradually bonded in the Lord. One of the key leaders testified to this miracle of unity: “I see a miracle of God when busy pastors and leaders, all with strong personalities and individual perspectives, come together in mutual submission … Such trust has come only after we started spending time together, getting to know one another.
129 “Third Wave” is a sub-group (conservative wing) within evangelicalism. The “Third Wave” refers to an energising work of the Spirit among the evangelicals, subsequent to the “first wave” of the renewal that birthed the classical Pentecostal denominations and the “second wave” among mainline denominations that resulted in the charismatic movement. There is a close relationship between “third wavers” and Pentecostals in that they hold much in common with regard to the Holy Spirit and the charismata. Nonetheless, there is a key difference between them, i.e., their respective views of Spirit-baptism. Pentecostals regard Spirit-baptism as a distinct and subsequent experience of conversion, whereas third wavers consider Spirit-baptism as part of conversion. Taken from Menzies and Menzies, p. 145. 130 See Dare to Believe, p. 118. 131 PrayerLink (special edition), 228/02/95, p. 16. See also www.lovesingapore.org. sg/pastors.htm. 132 Ibid. Pentecost Revisited 55 As we became comfortable with the variety of gifts and styles among us, the spirit of suspicion began to evaporate.”133 To date, the movement enjoys the consistent participation of 120 churches of various traditions in Singapore. The December 2001 National Grand Harvest134 concluded the first phase of its seven-year existence. The year 2002 was a time of “rest”, to review and re-evaluate for the next phase of its life. Missions, mentoring and marketplace are the key emphases of the movement beyond 2001.135 From this brief background, it is evident that this movement is a vision or agenda not of a single individual, but of a group of kindred spirit pastors and leaders in Singapore. Khong, the Chairman of LoveSingapore, insists, “LoveSingapore is a surprise, an act of God’s amazing grace, a sign of his merciful love for us as a nation and people.”136 Khong underscores, “I have never regarded LoveSingapore as THE movement of God in Singapore. God is about many great things in this nation. LoveSingapore is but one stream, one expression”137 (emphasis original).
Its Vision and Ethos
That Singapore was the cradle for this dynamic movement is taken by its leadership to be a statement from Heaven – a reminder and an endorsement of the Singapore Church’s role and responsibility in the agendas of God, an Antioch for Asia. Hence, its twin vision is to be the “Antioch of Asia” and a bridge of blessings. The heartbeat of the LoveSingapore movement is expressed succinctly in their five stated strategic goals. The first four goals reflect a local focus, a vision for the nation of Singapore. The last goal is global in outlook. The goals are proactive: unite, serve, establish, launch and adopt. A task force was established comprising five key leaders, each of whom undertook responsibility for the implementation of one particular goal.
Goal 1: Unite the Body Goal 2: Serve the Community Goal 3: Establish a Prayer Cell in Every Block by 2000 Goal 4: Launch a 7-Wave Harvest in 2001 Goal 5: Adopt Unreached People Groups138
These five goals define the movement’s identity and direct all its expressions. Prayer, fasting, serving the community and evangelism/missions are the concrete expressions of these goals. In short, they are its strategies. In their early implementation, these five strategic goals were promoted as tasks; however, as the movement continues beyond 2001, these goals are no longer promoted as mere tasks, but as core Kingdom values for life. The values they embody are humility and unity, compassion, generosity, servanthood and passion for soul-winning and missions. Undergirding this is strong united prayer.
133 E. Chan, ‘A Plurality of Godly Leaders’, in Dare to Believe, p. 21. 134 This was a nationwide Gospel rally. 135 Interview with LaiKheng Pousson on 18 September 2002. 136 L. Khong, ‘God@Work’, in PrayerLink, 242/07/2000, p. 11. 137 Ibid., p. 16. 138 At http://www.lovesingapore.org.sg/about_us.htm. 56 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century The first goal is a call for greater humility and unity among the Body of Christ in Singapore. It is regarded as the fundamental principle for city transformation. The ecumenical impulse to unite the Church in Singapore is spurred by the belief that unity attracts both divine blessing (Psalm 133:3) and the attention of the unbelieving world (John 17:20–23). Unity, the core foundational value of the movement, has this potential: “A people united by a common vision, motivated by His love and moving in the power of the Spirit is a formidable force of blessing to touch and transform their communities!”139 In practice, the second goal of service demands a new spirit of compassion and servanthood. The national concrete initiative of this goal is the setting-up of the LoveSingapore Fund. Forty-five churches participate in this project to demonstrate God’s generous love by helping individuals and families who need financial assistance. The Fund serves as a quick reaction, short-term measure to assist those who have been retrenched or are in financial difficulties. Over S$2 million have been raised and more than 700 families have been helped by various means of financial assistance. This financial assistance is given to the needy regardless of race, language or religion, with no strings attached.140 The vision of the third goal to establish a prayer cell in every block141 by 2000 is boldly ambitious: “to build an infrastructure of prayer evangelism points across the nation which will serve as centres of hope and oases of healing to touch and transform the community.”142 A prayer cell in every block is therefore very strategic. The fourth goal of launching a 7-Wave harvest referred to a distinct process in the year 2001 “to facilitate the mobilisation of all Christians into a lifestyle of evangelism.”143 The launching of the 7-wave harvest was fuelled by the anticipation of an unprecedented harvest in 2001.144 Various types of evangelism were designed to saturate all of Singapore with the Gospel. These included personal evangelism,
139 Ibid. 140 Ibid. See under ‘LoveSingapore Fund’. LaiKheng Pousson mentions that this “no strings attached” policy is the deep conviction of the leadership and specifically of Eugene Seow, the key leader for the implementation of Goal 2. However, she adds that not all within the movement approve of such a liberal policy. To them, such serving with no expectation that those being helped will turn to Christ is deemed not “cost effective”, a waste of time, and a secular, non-spiritual exercise (interview, 18 September 2002). 141 “Every block” refers to the government Housing Development Board (HDB). The HDB heartland houses almost 90% of Singapore’s population. 142 At http://www.lovesingapore.org.sg/about_us/about_us.htm. Beyond housing blocks, the dream extends to planting a prayer cell in every office block, every shopping mall, every campus dormitory, every school, and every private condominium. 143 Ibid. 144 Ibid. Many leaders around the world shared this same sense of anticipation that the magnitude of the coming harvest could not be measured by anything that had ever happened before; even the cosmos itself would be electrified with its energy. The leadership sensed that because of God’s strong hand upon Singapore, the cycles of seedtime and harvest have never ceased in this land. In 2001, they were convinced that they were entering into yet another season of fruitfulness. They believed that 2001 would see a powerful combination of creative efforts to reap the ripened harvest. Pentecost Revisited 57 cell evangelism, church evangelism, community evangelism, and citywide mass evangelism. All this would be undergirded by a creative multimedia blitz to saturate Singapore with a fresh level of God consciousness.145 In part, this goal aimed to inculcate a strong harvest mentality and responsibility. Believing that the Singapore Church is to be the Antioch of Asia, a God-given destiny, global mission is the focus of the fifth goal. Just as the Antioch Church in Acts bridged the Gospel between the Jews and the Gentiles, Singapore’s Antioch calling is taken to mean that the Church must likewise play a bridging role, “creatively connecting the energies and resources of the Church [harvest force] with the needs of the unreached People Groups [harvest field] beyond our borders.”146 The movement appropriates for Singapore; in Isaiah 49:6, “It is too small a thing for you to be My servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring My salvation to the ends of the earth.”147 Active lay involvement is seen as critical to the global thrust. One of the key strategies for accomplishing this is the mobilisation of lay people, particularly Kingdom professionals.148 Just as Antioch of Acts was founded by unnamed lay witnesses, the Singapore Church, as the Antioch of Asia, must intentionally and creatively work towards an active people sector where “every believer must be given freedom to take risks and pioneer for God.”149 The leadership sees its raison d’être as fulfilling God’s redemptive purpose for Asia in changing life, reviving the church, transforming the nation and evangelising the world. The focal thrust of LoveSingapore beyond 2001 centres on the “3Ms”: missions, marketplace and mentoring. Missions, God’s redemptive plan and purpose for humanity, comprises the big “M”; mentoring and marketplace, the two other “Ms”, are tributaries of the big “M”. Mentoring has to do with generational impact, i.e., reproducing the right kind of people to fulfil the missional mandate. In brief, the three “Ms” may be expressed thus: missions is the call of a covenantal community; mentoring is the culture of the covenantal community; and marketplace is the context in which the covenantal community lives that call and practises the culture.150 Thus, creative world missions will take centre stage.151
145 Ibid. 146 PrayerLink, 103/105/98, p. 4. 147 Ibid. See under ‘Goals’ and Dare to Believe, Chapter 8. 148 Kingdom professionals are Christian men and women who integrate the worlds of business and ministry in their personal lives. See PrayerLink (‘Window of Time’), 242/07/2000, p. 22. 149 Interview with LaiKheng Pousson, 18 September 2002. 150 Ibid. 151 PrayerLink, 242/07/2000, pp. 13, 17. This mission effort is targeted at Asia, where 1.4 billion of the world’s 1.6 billion unevangelised or 87% live. Believing that God is the One who gives power to create wealth, it aims to promote marketplace ministries that will structure their businesses for Kingdom purpose and as a way of investing back into society, to restore lives and to rebuild communities. Khong envisions the business platform going hand-in-hand with humanitarian services as a key component of missions in the nations. The mentoring leadership of character – integrity, honesty and humility – is seen as absolutely 58 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Analysis of LoveSingapore’s Contributions
From the brief descriptive account of the LoveSingapore movement, it is evident that it has visibly impacted both the Christian community and the larger community. The analysis segment will attend specifically to its contributions. In Chapter 4 I shall address some problems inherent in it. The word “strategy” perhaps best describes the key contribution of the movement. In other words, the movement provides creative strategies for Christian presence and witness in Singapore in the new millennium, in three focal areas: strategy for stimulating Christian unity, strategy for nation transformation, and strategy for world missions. Undergirding all these strategies is the foundational strategy of prayer. Prayer is both the programme and the foundation of the movement, its primary activity and strength. In short, it is a lifestyle. First, in an examination of the movement’s foundational strategy, prayer, its Prayer Guides are most instructive. They reveal what is at the heart of the movement. a. Prayer: Its foundational strategy Prayer is virtually the power base of the movement. To understand its prayer initiatives and mobilisations, it is important to first consider the teaching of Peter Wagner on spiritual warfare. Wagner’s teaching on spiritual warfare has been influential on LoveSingapore’s prayer strategies. “Missions history, according to Wagner, portrays numerous examples of missionaries who converted animistic peoples through power encounters – a confrontation between gods.”152 Many of the prayers are couched in warfare rhetoric. Wagner‘s innovative teaching of warfare is hierarchical, comprising three levels: ground level spiritual warfare deals with exorcising demons from people; the occult level involves confrontation with demonic forces behind structured occultism such as Satanism, witchcraft, New Age astrology and the like; and the strategic or cosmic level is a direct and aggressive confrontation with territorial spirits, which are demons controlling geographical regions in order to dominate people groups. Wagner believes that the key to world evangelism is engagement at the strategic level of spiritual warfare.153 “Spiritual mapping”, “identificational repentance” and “prophetic acts” are part of the strategy. Spiritual mapping has to do with identifying demonic strongholds and demonic geographical activity; in other words, uncovering the devices or strategy of Satan so as to disarm Satan’s control and strongholds over “various kinds of social networks such as neighbourhoods, people groups, cities and nations dispersed over specific geographic regions.”154 “Identificational repentance” has to do with confessing the sins on behalf of non-Christian people groups in order to “get to the critical to God’s work. Khong notes the tragic weakness of pastors more ready to monitor than to mentor. He hopes to develop a mentoring system to counter this that will empower younger emerging leaders in small accountability groups, pp. 12, 16. 152 D.E. Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit: A Ritual Approach to Pentecostal/Charismatic Spirituality, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), p. 67. 153 C.P. Wagner, Confronting the Powers (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1996), pp. 21–22. 154 See A. Yong, Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal–Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 238. The biblical references to spiritual powers such as the “prince of Persia” or the “prince of Pentecost Revisited 59 roots of any present-day social and spiritual sicknesses” that prevent the reception of the Gospel. “Prophetic acts” are public displays styled after the ministries of the OT prophets, intended for the purpose of community evangelisation.155 Wagner’s theology is replete with spirits and demons. This resonates with the cosmology and experience of people in the two-thirds world; transpersonal forces of evil are not imaginary foes. Not surprisingly, his theology has invited many criticisms as well as disdainful dismissal especially in the West.156 The fear and criticism of this movement as unbiblical and intoxicated with power is not wholly unwarranted. In all revival movements aberrations are inevitable, though not necessarily definitive of their character. Understandably, Wagner’s teaching is discernible in the LoveSingapore movement, but it has also evolved and come into its own identity. The Wagner association is not necessarily negative. At least it reminds the Christian community of its spiritual authority and ability to engage authoritatively in spiritual warfare against the “powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12). The distinctive emphasis of the warfare prayers that LoveSingapore engages in is repentance, reconciliation and redemptive praying. LaiKheng Pousson explains:
The prayers are based on four “W’s” – worship, weep, war, and welcome. Prayers of worship are prayers of enthronement and acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty and control. Prayers of weeping are prayers of repentance (own sins) and identification with the sins of the nation. Prayers of war is announcing the power and life of the Word of God to deal with forces of darkness that enslaves and blinds. Prayers of welcome is praying the visionary prayers of God’s heart – redemptive praying that welcome His glory, welcome His change, welcome His Kingdom into situations of difficulties, darkness, as well as other religious sites. The prayer of welcome is redemptive praying – praying the opposite of existing realities. It is praying God into the situations.157
Greece” (Dan. 10:13, 20) are interpreted to mean “territorial spirits” whose objectives are the destruction of lives and the obstruction of the Gospel message. 155 Wagner (1996), p. 31. Cited by J.F. Hart, ‘The Gospel and Spiritual Warfare: A Review of Peter Wagner’s Confronting the Powers’, JGES, 10 (Spring 1997): 18. 156 Many academics of Pentecostal–Charismatic persuasion besides both conservative evangelicals and liberals, and a former colleague of Wagner, the late R. Guelich, professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, are critical of Wagner’s brand of spiritual warfare. Another detractor, social anthropologist DeBernardi, considers the spiritual warfare movement to be potentially divisive and offensive to non-Christians, and links its source to a non-biblical origin in Frank Peretti’s influential Christian fiction, This Present Darkness. (See Facing Faiths, Crossing Cultures, pp. 192–3). Yong, a more generous critic, suggests that credit should be given to Wagner and the Third Wavers at least both for their efforts to make sense of the empirical data they encounter and their attempt at theologising, whether one agrees with them theologically or not: “Better for us to engage the latter in self–critical dialogue than to dismiss them along with the popularizers out of hand”, Discerning the Spirit(s), p. 239. 157 Interview with LaiKheng Pousson, 18 September 2002. She admits that some participating churches may be engaging in warfare prayers that are negative Rambo-type rather than positive. However, she adds that the negative, militant and confrontational forms are not what LS as a movement teaches or practices. For LS, warfare prayers are prayers that enforce the victory of Calvary – it is touching heaven, changing earth, by lavishing the powerful love 60 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Its innovative and creative prayer strategies and emphasis on the Holy Spirit and His workings as fresh and new enliven both private prayer and public united prayer assemblies, turning a dull duty into dynamic joyful participation. The result of the corporate united prayer either in small (cell groups), semi-large (local church) or large (combined churches) contexts is a convergence of experience that may be described as “the sensation of multiplication of the power of the Spirit and an intensification of the awareness of the Spirit’s presence.”158 It is this vibrant encounter with the Spirit’s presence and power that inspires and emboldens its evangelism, which is reflective of the distinctive Pentecostal spirituality. Its strategy of prayer has certainly raised a deeper prayer awareness and intensity, particularly for united and concerted prayer in the lives of many pastors as well as lay people. LoveSingapore believes that the spiritual climate of the land can be changed through strategic prayers – the power and key to national revival and national salvation. Its experience of the Spirit inspires this active expectation and anticipation of God’s intervention in contemporary history, to turn Singapore Heavenwards. The three key prayer initiatives at the national level are: the annual Pastors’ Prayer Summit, 40-Day Fast, and Day to Change Our World. Believing that leadership is critical to effective mobilisation, the prayer strategy and activation must begin with the pastoral leadership. Monthly pastors’ gatherings since 1993 remain the movement’s most strategic prayer initiative. Pastors’ Prayer Summit has been an annual event since 1996. This annual event is regarded as a significant key event in the lives of many pastors, as it has touched them deeply, bringing greater unity, reconciliation, healing of wounds and personal renewal. It remains one of the major building blocks of unity in Singapore. Statistics indicate that participation has grown from about 90 pastors (1996) to 140 pastors (1997), to 285 pastors (1998), to 480 pastors (1999), to 683 leaders of all kinds in 2000, including the Indian Network and Chinese Network pastors. Intercessors are key to the movement – the “harvest warriors”. Camp Gideon was planned for the purpose of identifying serious-minded intercessors, concerned for the harvest of 2001 and the destiny of Singapore.159 “The objectives are to foster greater unity through strong relationships, facilitate prophetic activation, attending to what the Spirit is saying and to pray through together powerfully as a company of like-minded harvest warriors.”160 “Harvest is a time of war because the real battle for salvation of souls is a spiritual battle, a matter of life and death” (emphasis original).161 of God upon individuals and the masses in the secular spheres as well as religious sites. On- site prayers at religious sites are not confrontational and damning but “building”, as religious sites constitute a statement of people looking for a relationship with God or a supernatural being. This is a core conviction of LS. Thus, warfare prayers at religious sites are prayers for divine revelation to take place, since God is pleased to reveal and relate. 158 Cited in Albrecht, p. 243, footnote 46. 159 Interview with LaiKheng Pousson, 18 September 2002. See http://www. lovesingapore. org.sg, under Harvest Intercession Strategy. Camp Gideon convened in November 2000. LoveSingapore also initiated teams of Camp Gideon intercessors to go on strategic prayer drives cum prayer walks around the city. Participation was by invitation only, with the full knowledge and permission of participants’ pastors. 160 Ibid. 161 http://www.lovesingapore.org.sg, under Harvest Intercession. Pentecost Revisited 61 Prayer is not the responsibility only of the clergy and specialists, but the privilege and responsibility of all believers. Fully committed to this truth, LoveSingapore’s prayer strategies involve the participation of all believers. Harvest PrayerWave is another special prayer mobilisation for both individual and corporate levels. The purpose is to unite the Body of Christ in prayer for a supernatural move of God in the Year of Harvest. The aim is to saturate the nation with prayers. Prayer walks and prayer drives162 are designed to encourage the participation of all believers as well as to empower them in this privilege and responsibility. It is a call for Christians to take active responsibility for the salvation of the nation. b. Prayer guides This section examines only the prayer guides designed for use in the three Harvest PrayerWaves of 2001. Its theology is expressed implicitly in the prayer guides. The content of the prayers in these guides may be summed up with two words: “audacious” and “BIG”. Language of power imbues the prayer guides, understandably so since, as Albrecht notes, “The language of power has always played a large part in Pentecostal/Charismatic liturgy and spirituality. The language reflects a reality. Pentecostals not only see God as an all powerful Spirit, they believe that God manifests God’s power in their world.”163 Prayer guides come with themes and scriptural texts. Scriptural texts reinforce the ethos of LoveSingapore that prayers are not just theme-focused, but Word-oriented. The prayer guides serve as prompters in prayer; the intent is not a mechanical rehearsing of prayers, but an openness to allow the Spirit to lead so as to pray spontaneously, discerning God’s mind beyond the suggested pointers. A sense of eschatological urgency of harvest is apparent in the prayer guides. Warfare between light and darkness, Kingdom of God and realm of Satan, God’s salvation versus Satan’s sabotage rhetoric intersperse the guides. Harvest PrayerWave 1 from January 1–31 has the theme, “Thy Kingdom Come”. Wave 1 was a call for God to establish His Kingdom concretely in the nation of Singapore so that, in all aspects of its existence, it would align itself to the divine blueprint. It was also a call for God’s Kingdom to come powerfully to the Singapore Church, thereby arising to its destiny as the Antioch of Asia. The Lord’s Prayer served as the model for Wave 1. It involves “appropriation” – praying the Word through the
162 The emphasis of prayer walks and prayer drives is “praying on site with insight”. This involves what is called “spiritual mapping” in order to hold informed intercession; in other words, to pray on location for targeted geographical areas or communities (local and overseas), to sow either prayers of blessing, discerning the needs of the community and the binding of certain “intuited” bondage/s of certain targeted areas, or spiritual warfare against demonic strongholds. It is believed that in this manner believers/intercessors can effectively repent for the sins of that area, break spiritual strongholds over the community, and see God heal their land. There are many reported testimonies that these activities are effective, especially in “softening the ground” for pre-evangelism and friendship-building within the community. An example of this is an excerpt of an email report of LaiKheng Pousson to Rev. Dr N. Dowdy on 1 May 1998 concerning the national charity walkathon “Take the City Walk”: “Some 40,000 believers from diverse denominational backgrounds prayerwalked a prescribed route to sow prayers of blessing for the nation. It is seen as one of the spiritual benchmarks in the history of the Singapore Church. Many attested to a definite spiritual climate change after May 1”. 163 Albrecht, p. 247. 62 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Spirit to address the contemporary situation, needs and problems of Singapore. The final week concluded with a bold declaration over Singapore: “From generation to generation, the redeemed of the Lord in this land will be as countless as the stars of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore.”164 Wave 2 (1July to 9August) is held in conjunction with LoveSingapore’s annual 40- Day Fast. “Bridge of Blessing”, the theme of the 40-Day Fast and Wave 2, symbolised the role of the Singapore Church in the nation. The theme of this 40-Day Fast is founded on God’s mission statement in His covenant with Abraham.165 The prophetic nature of the theme was affirmed when on 14 June The Straits Times provided a sneak preview in its write-up of the National Day Parade (NDP) and its theme, which had a fascinating resemblance to a vision given at an overnight prayer at St Andrew’s Cathedral attended by some 500 mostly young people on 1 January 2000.166 The convergence of the two events was interpreted as a definite sign for the Church to seek fervently to actualise her destiny as Antioch – as the Bridge of God’s redemptive blessings.167 Part of the agenda of the 40-Day Fast was to overthrow status quo by prayer and to introduce change through compassionate action. The Church is to reach out to disciple nations – nations in rage, nations in pain. Like a bridge over troubled water, Singapore will lay herself down, helping others to forge a better future.168 In order to be this strong bridge, it is necessary for the Church individual and corporate to be strongly blessed by praying THE PRAYER OF JABEZ (1 Chron. 4:9–10) daily for themselves, their family and church throughout the 40-Day Fast. LaiKheng Pousson explains the significance of using the prayer of Jabez. She highlights “pain” as the parallel between Jabez’s and Singapore’s experiences.169 The purpose of the enlarging multiplication is for more responsibilities and opportunities to be a blessing to others for God’s sake. Recognising the pitfalls of the “bless me” Christianity, the prayer of protection “keep me from evil” accompanied the request for enlarging blessing.170 The sub-themes of Wave 2 all served the main theme of being the Bridge of Blessing through personal renewal, repentance, reconciliation and persevering, and holding
164 At http://www.lovesingapore.org.sg; see under ‘HarvestPrayer Wave 1’. 165 Ibid. See under HarvestPrayer Wave 2, ‘A Personal Note’. 166 See http://www.lovesingapore.org.sg/PrayerWave/40day.htm. The NDP’s 2001 theme was taken as a sign, and in the words of that intercessor, “a resounding ‘amen’ from heaven regarding our responsibility in world mission … also a timely affirmation of our 40- Day Fast theme this year: Bridge of Blessing!” 167 The Church is to see herself as having the answer to societal problems because of “Christ in us” hope of Singapore. 168 Ibid. (cf. Simon’s and Garfunkel’s song, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’). 169 Ibid. She describes, “Singapore is a nation born in pain – the separation from Malaysia on 9 August 1965 … The separation was a traumatic experience … The birthing pain lingers in our national psyche. And in view of the explosive scenario swirling around us today, we need God to deeply heal us as a people. So secure in Him, we will not be tempted to hurt others [near and far] and cause pain! This 40-Day fast is a good occasion for us – individually and corporately – to release our personal and national pain to God.” 170 Ibid. The justification for such an unabashed multiplication is based on the understanding that God is a Blesser who delights to bless. Pentecost Revisited 63 on to the prophetic mantle of the Singapore Church’s destiny as Antioch and as the Bridge of God’s blessings to others. Wave 3 (1 November to 31 December) comprised the climax of the Harvest PrayerWave with the theme of “Turning Point”. Expectation of an unprecedented harvest coupled with external and global crises intensified the need for various “turnings”. It convened with the sub-theme of turning God-wards wholeheartedly at various levels – individual, church and nation. Intense prayers were offered to turn Singaporeans God-wards by prayer proclamations, personal testimonies, power demonstration, power evangelism, dismantling strongholds through warfare prayers, and identificational repentance. First, identificational repentance at church level was intended to “repent of and renounce the baals in our history and heritage: man- made traditions, outdated structures, systems in the Church that drain energy, waste resources, stifle creativity … rob the Church of true spiritual authority in Christ.” Second, at the nation level was the aim to “repent and renounce the three baals of: materialism – unbridled greed, pride of life, lust for worldly wealth, power and control. Humanism – the humanistic philosophies that deny or discredit God. False worship – all types of belief systems that mock God and enslave people in deception, darkness and death.”171 Ending Wave 3 with the sub-theme of turning the city outwards, for the Singapore Church to rise up to her destiny as both Antioch and Blessing to the nations and people groups. The proclamation of the final two days of the year (30 and 31 December) is ambitious in vision:
Singapore is a fruitful vineyard, a tender vine by a living stream, whose branches extend beyond the borders of her land. Wherever Singapore goes, she’ll be God’s bridge of blessing, budding, blossoming and filling the whole world with fruit. Then it shall be said among the nations: Our mouths are filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. The Lord has done great things for us through Singapore – restoring our dignity, repairing our communities, rebuilding our fortunes, renewing our hopes, reviving our spirits and redeeming our lives. To God be the glory!172 c. Strategy for Christian unity Another key element to the movement’s strength is the recovery of Christian unity transcending denominational and theological differences. This testifies eloquently that Christian unity need not be assimilation. This embrace of difference and otherness is a significant embodiment of the true spirit of Christian fellowship and unity, unity in diversity.
Christian unity does not allow for embrace of heresy or syncretism … In addition, unity does not mean doing the same things, getting everyone involved in the same projects or ministries. In fact, greater unity comes when we have enough love and trust to accept, affirm, and bless each other in pursuing the full range of callings God lays on the hearts of His people. We can free one another to be and do what God wants us to be and do, and still nurture a bond of love among us.173
171 Ibid. 172 Ibid. 173 L. Khong, ‘A Supernatural Move of God’, in Dare to Believe, p. 30. 64 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century The success of its strategy, intentional efforts and emphasis on confession and reconciliation, healing of animosity and suspicion between various denominations who formerly viewed each other as “competition” at best and “enemy of the Gospel” at worst is remarkable. Transparency among pastors is deemed the critical element in forging unity among the heterogeneous group of leadership, “to move beyond independence and indifference, so that a growing resonance rises from the Body around their united vision to turn Singapore God-ward.”174 It stimulates and renews many churches, fostering a climate of friendship, and encourages them out of an isolationism to active cooperation.175 The sharing of resources, the exchange of pulpits, and the common vision and responsibility for the destiny of Singapore fostered a better understanding and greater appreciation for difference without being divisive and exclusionary. Its ability to mobilise and unite Christians of different theological traditions in servant leadership to a common vision of seeing Singapore turning God-wards is no easy task. d. Strategy for nation transformation Undergirding the strategy of serving the community is the understanding of Job 29:7–17. This means that serving the community must be done with a Job type of spirituality, in the posture of a servant. LaiKheng Pousson explains this concept: “Servant-leadership is stooping down to make other people great. The leadership of LoveSingapore is convinced that God has greatly blessed the Singapore Church and it is time to use wealth, power, influence to sow back, to build up, to restore, to give people dignity, being spent on behalf of those who could not return one iota of economic benefit.”176 Proactive and significant efforts are channelled into building bridges into the community: “Serving the community is an apostolic strategy, it is the church’s gateway to walk into the community, and help the community come into the church.”177 This involves taking territorial responsibility for and commitment to the community, i.e., “to see the whole community as their parish and learn to pastor the city, not just an individual congregation.”178 Such responsibility and commitment require voluntarism. Churches are encouraged to be creative and innovative in serving the community with no strings attached: “In servant evangelism, your good deeds and acts of kindness must be intentional yet unconditional. Your ultimate intention is to lead the unsaved to Christ. But your acts are unconditional in that you would bless people regardless of their response.”179 It is a way of building bridges of friendship into the community. Part of bridge- and friendship-building is prayer of blessing for one’s family, neighbours, colleagues and friends on an individual or small group basis. Reaching out in neighbourliness, showing genuine interest and concern, or initiating conversations with neighbours along common corridors while waiting for the elevator at one’s
174 See http://www.lovesingapore.org.sg, under ‘Calendar 2001 – Pastors’ Prayer Summit’. 175 A number of pastors gave testimonies to this. See Dare To Believe, pp. 120–22. 176 Interview with LaiKheng Pousson, 18 September 2002. 177 Dare to Believe, p. 125. 178 Ibid., pp. 125–6. 179 Ibid., p. 58. Pentecost Revisited 65 apartment block, are bridge-building exercises.180 This comprises an attempt to understand one’s social space and location as an insider, a living part of the community. Serving the community is multilevel, from the individual, cell groups, the local church to community constituency, and finally at the national initiative of LoveSingapore through the LoveSingapore Fund. Ultimately, the strategy for nation transformation requires the Singapore Church to embrace a corporate vision, corporate repentance and corporate prayer. e. Strategy for world missions For world missions to succeed, unity in the Body of Christ is indispensable. “Let them be ONE that the world may be WON” (John 17:21). Thus, LoveSingapore sees strategic partnerships as the way to do missions in the new millennium. The 10/40 Window is the primary focus of mission in the twenty-first century. Concentration on the 10/40 Window is based on the movement’s commitment to give every person a valid opportunity to hear the Gospel and experience the saving power of Jesus Christ.181 The missions strategy in the twenty-first century missions is to be characterised by servant-leadership. As an expression of servant- leadership, missions must transcend a survivalist mentality and success syndrome. Forays into the countries of the 10/40 Window must focus not on expansion, but on blessing. In order to bring God great honour among the nations, the emphasis of missions should raise questions such as, “How can I make Myanmar great? How can I make East Timor flourishing and showcasing God’s goodness and glory?”182 Such a missions posture is revolutionary. The leadership sees Singapore as well positioned and well resourced to fulfil its Antioch calling. Believing that mission is the responsibility of every believer, it seeks to inspire passion and commitment among all God’s people to fulfil their Antioch responsibility. Part of its strategy is to mobilise busy Kingdom professionals and the energetic young to embrace their Antioch responsibility.183 The four missions objectives of LoveSingapore are:
180 This activity may seem mundane, a common courtesy, but in the modern Singapore context it is highly unusual and therefore has impact value. Urbanisation and modernisation have created a sense of social “alienation” and isolation among Singapore’s unique high-rise dwellers. This social alienation is not only an inter-, but also an intra-phenomenon. Flat dwellers have “lost” the sense of “kampong” spirit (kampong is a Malay word meaning village), which refers to a sense of neighbourliness, camaraderie and helpfulness. It is not uncommon for neighbours to meet along common corridors or elevator landings without acknowledging or greeting each other. People who remember the good old days of kampong often lament this loss. The Singapore government has made concerted efforts to encourage and promote kampong spirit, not just among flat dwellers but throughout the nation as a whole. 181 PrayerLink, 344/07/99, p. 26. 182 PrayerLink, 242/07/2000, pp. 22–3. 183 Ibid., p. 23. 66 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century 1. Increase awareness among Singapore churches of the changing context of world missions today: the obligations, obstacles, and opportunities for local church involvement. 2. Impart vision among pastors to turn every local church into God’s seedbed for world evangelisation through intentional church planting. 3. Inspire passion and commitment among God’s people to fervently pray, joyfully give, and urgently go make disciples of all peoples. 4. Initiate networking among local churches and mission agencies towards greater synergy for world missions, thereby realising Singapore’s missionary potential and redemptive call as Antioch of Asia. 184
A Brief Summary
From the analysis, we note that what is unique about this movement is the way it has contextualised itself by a “redemptive appropriation” of the national political agenda and vision. The tiny scale of the nation of Singapore does not deter both the political and the LoveSingapore leadership from having a large vision. Singapore’s Prime Minister Goh challenges Singaporeans, “We could be just another ordinary city in Asia, and with a vision limited by our geography and population size, or we could become an international city of excellence which breaks out of our physical and demographic limitations. The choice is obvious.”185 In fact, Singapore is already taking giant steps towards becoming a world-class city – a hub for finance, information technology, education, media and the arts, and even life sciences. The parallel to this political vision is LoveSingapore’s vision to become the missions hub for Asia, a vision believed to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Like Prime Minister Goh, the choice to rise to the responsibility of being Antioch of Asia is obvious for the leadership of LoveSingapore. While some segments of the Singapore Church are sceptical and dismissive of the designation of Singapore as Antioch of Asia, the leadership of LoveSingapore in contrast does not seek to trivialise, but maximise this prophetic bestowal upon Singapore. To the leadership of LoveSingapore this prophetic title is not an occasion for pride, but a matter of spiritual responsibility; “this ‘Antioch of Asia’ thing is really a stewardship issue … carrying a big responsibility for the shalom and welfare of Asia.”186 Prophetic inspiration is a powerful mobilising force within the movement, igniting an ambitious vision that is audacious both in its scope and intensity. This audacious vision is nothing less than the entire nation of Singapore turned God-wards, a Christian nation. Thus, in preparation for the realisation of this vision is the calling for prayers for God to raise up the Daniels, the Josephs and the Esthers to take their place in the seats
184 Ibid. LoveSingapore encourages the Church to exploit information technology and multimedia as tools for world missions. Technology is a tool not meant to replace the leadership of the Spirit. 185 Cited in the article ‘Listen to What the Spirit in Saying’, compiled by LaiKheng Pousson, in PrayerLink, 103/05/98, p. 4. 186 LaiKheng Pousson, ‘Singapore: Bridge of Blessing’, in PrayerLink, 242/07/2000, p. 111. Pentecost Revisited 67 of power in Singapore for the sake of the Kingdom of God. The wider scope of this audacious vision is that it will be a model for the world – “Today Singapore, tomorrow the world.”187 Prophetic responsibility coupled with its understanding of God gives wings to the audacity. “Physical and demographic limitations are nothing to the Lord of the Nations. God delights in using the small and the weak. The greater challenge has to do with the limitations we place on ourselves, and on the Sovereign Lord. May we break out of our small mindsets and strongholds of insecurity and insignificance. May we overcome the grasshopper-syndrome of unbelief and intimidation.”188 Its audacity and seeming collusion with political vision both inspires and repulses. Supporters regard it as divinely raised by God to unite the Christian community for nation transformation and world mission, a clear demonstration of God at work. Critics of the movement range in their responses from ambivalence to repulsion. Both titles Antioch of Asia and Bridge of Blessing are audacious in scope. In part, the audacity stems from LoveSingapore’s understanding of the Church as the “Priest of All”:
God defines His Church, not only in relation to Himself, but also in relation to HIS world. Our relation to God is high privilege. We are His treasured possession. Our relation and responsibility to the world is holy priesthood. This is heavy-duty responsibility. God has not forgotten the world’s peoples … Israel does not have “most favoured nation” status. God brings her forth as a servant to the nations, a priest to all peoples. Holiness is not pious isolation from the world, but priestly intercession in touch with a rebellious world in need of grace and mercy. The church is not to be a holy huddle of priests blessing one another week after week. Exodus 19 calls us to be priests for the unchurched, the unblessed and the unreached in every nation.189
In a sense, its audacity of vision is “Word-based”, i.e., largely an appropriation of the Old Testament texts, whatever one’s evaluation of the validity of its hermeneutic practice. What prevents LoveSingapore from being absolutely triumphalistic is its keen awareness of self-idolatry and pretensions. Attention to the Holy Spirit sharpens its sense to the presence of self-idolatry and competitive spirit so characteristic of Singapore, pervading even the Church. But does attention to the Spirit extend to seeing its own theological pretensions and idolatry? In one portion of the Wave 1 prayer guide (Day 4, Week 3), a pointed question is asked: “How many brothers and sisters have we stepped on in our zeal to succeed for God even in this great vision to win Singapore?” The accompanying exhortation in that section is for repentance and admission of guilt and to pray for new eyes and heart to see God in the face of our “enemies” … for new intimate fellowship with former “Esaus”. Indeed, such repentance and humility is counter-cultural. Its neighbours often regard Singapore and its political leadership as “arrogant”, and this to a degree is descriptive of the ecclesial leadership as well. In one of the identificational repentances for the nation of Singapore in the prayer guide, three things were listed: gifted leadership, administrative excellence, and communication of ideas, which form our national idolatry as well as ecclesial idolatry.
187 Dare to Believe, Chapter 9, ‘Today Singapore, Tomorrow the World’, pp. 111–12. 188 PrayerLink, 103/05/98, p. 4. 189 At http://www.lovesingapore.org.sg – see ‘Wave 2 Prayer Guide’. 68 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century The call in this identificational repentance is to dismantle this independent and arrogant spirit, because it stands in the way of God’s movement and work. The experience of the Spirit’s power and presence provides the liberating contexts for healing of animosity and suspicion, where forgiveness and reconciliation are practised. Reconciling activity is regarded as pleasing to God as well as the Kingdom, whose key opens the floodgates of revival and brings healing to the nations. To a degree, it has been successful in reconciling intra-religious differences. It has demonstrated an ecumenical spirit and united many formerly factious Christian traditions in Singapore in unparalleled ways. An inclusive spirit in addition to embracive, not abrasive, love generally mark its efforts of proclamations and good works.
Summary Conclusion
This revisit shows that there are disjunctions in the life and practice of Pentecostalism; it is not immune to the narratives of violence. Nonetheless, in summing up this chapter I wish to underscore again the promising potential of Pentecostalism to be the peaceful harbinger of plurality, despite troubling elements in its history. The Memphis Miracle of 1994 and the LoveSingapore movement are instantiations of the efficacy of the embracive reconciling power of the Spirit. What is prominent in the three events revisited is that God through the Spirit is acting in redemptive embrace, the welcome of the other. This is a welcome that shatters deeply entrenched boundaries of exclusion. The first Pentecost gathered the disciples into a Eucharistic–Charismatic community. Lukan narratives in Acts which inform and sustain Pentecostalism’s beliefs and practices portray consistently the symphony of the Spirit (besides spectacular demonstrations of power in healing and miracles) as gracious freedom, of crossing boundaries of all sorts, healing, embracing and unifying. This unbounded generosity of divine embrace required readjustment and conversion on the part of the early Eucharistic–Charismatic community, especially with regard to the eradication of the greatest boundary, the Jew–Gentile divide. A complex of tangled readjustments and conversions with regard to this marked its history. The Holocaust stands as a poignantly painful reminder to Gentile Christianity of its complicity when the embracive generosity of the Spirit is forgotten and prophetic self-criticism is lacking. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Azusa Street Revival recaptures the embracive ecumenism of the early charismatic community. Seymour’s expansive vision of embracive koinonia is founded on his acute insight of “The one lump, one body of Christ” imagery. Early Pentecostalism understands itself to be a Eucharistic community of the Spirit, embracive, inclusive, reconciling, and transcending social, cultural and historical boundaries. However, soon deep betrayal of the spirit of the movement taints its history. Racism, the caucasian/African American divide, ruptures again the community of the Spirit. It has squandered opportunities for acting redemptively and effecting counter-cultural reconciliation. Singapore’s then Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, recently presented to the community leaders a draft Code on Religious Harmony, “essentially a pledge affirming that groups will practise their religion bearing in mind Singapore’s secular Pentecost Revisited 69 and multi-religious context.”190 Leaders of the Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO) are invited to understand the Code, decide if they agree, and propose changes as they consider fit.191 Implicit in this gesture of the Singapore government is a tacit acknowledgement of the limits of political–social intervention. The government initiatives have thrown wide open the door of opportunities for Christianity especially to rise to its prophetic responsibility towards the religious others as well as prophetic critique of its inherited theological understanding. LoveSingapore inhabits the positive potential of Pentecostalism and has captured the movement of the Spirit, i.e., reconciliation and reintegration as its core value. However, its rhetoric and strategies also raise some questions. The strategy deals only with the “how” of Christian presence and witness. Though the “how” is important, the more fundamental issue of meaning, i.e., “what” kind of Christian presence and witness are we making, needs to be wrestled with. Christian presence and witness is more than proclamation with a series of generous acts and good works. It has to do fundamentally with the “who” we are and “Whose” we are. If this is so, then our mediation of God is critical. Theological wisdom is not a luxury as the Singapore Church seeks to fulfil its Antioch calling. The way the Church embodies itself as the “Bridge of Blessing” in actual engagement with the others is important in a multi-faith context. Without proper understanding of religions, if in power will Christian policy also become an exclusionary mechanism rather than the blessing it seeks to be? To see human problems and nation transformation at a cosmic level is too simplistic. Battles are considered fought and won in the Heavenlies alone. Where is the place for dialogues, for negotiation, for demanding engagement? When all energies are invested on spiritual warfare, is genuine human understanding of and friendship with the other possible? Certainly, through acts of generosity it has touched many in the community. However, I suggest that there is a need to ask a deep question of the meaning of “generosity”. Are the acts of generosity encouraged and actually practised reflective of divine generosity or Singapore’s? Does generosity go beyond “acts” to attitude, an attitude not of strength and power but vulnerability, of gracious giving as well as humble receiving, of helping and learning from those whom we help, in particular the religious others? Michael Barnes puts this pointedly: “Relationship with the other has intrinsically theological dimensions. Christians are called not just to speak of God who is revealed in Christ but to listen critically yet with generosity to what is spoken about God by the other.”192 Is its generosity patronising? What image of God and God’s generosity is being mediated by its action and witness? However, LoveSingapore’s revolutionary servant-leadership posture in missions; reconciliation thrust; passion for the Kingdom and compassion for others; and culture of generosity have great potential for peacemaking and proclamation. Its attempt to be God’s “Bridge of Blessing” and take responsibility for the shalom of
190 STI, 15 October 2002. The PM also stressed that this Code is not a legal agreement or law, but a guide as to how we, in Singapore, should practise our religion. 191 Ibid. 192 M. Barnes, SJ, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) , p. 23. 70 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Singapore and beyond is audacious and admirable. LoveSingapore needs more than a strategy; it needs a theology for Christian presence and witness. In the complex and volatile context of competing salvationist and expansionist religions, strategies must be deeply rooted in theological wisdom. Strategy without theological wisdom is not sustainable in the long run. Without deep theological wisdom born out of a deep spirituality of participating in the life of God, strategies may instantiate the negative rather than the positive. The next chapter will test my hypothesis of Pentecostalism and LoveSingapore’s potential by subjecting both to a biblical challenge. PART II Constructive This page intentionally left blank Chapter 4 Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore
Introduction
In the previous chapter, I argued for the potential of Pentecostalism, and in particular the LoveSingapore movement, as a peaceful harbinger of plurality. Because Christian prophetic witness can easily be compromised by incoherent beliefs, in addition to abrasive and insensitive practices, applying a prophetic hermeneutic to such practices is critical now that it has entered into the next phase, beyond 2001. Chapter 4 comprises an interrogation of Pentecostalism in general and LoveSingapore in particular. This chapter is divided into two major sections: descriptive and diagnostic. The objective of this interrogation is to assess whether its rhetoric and strategic practices resonate with the intentions of Scripture, and whether they are culturally responsive and sensitive to the socio-religious diversity of Singapore. Ultimately, I shall determine whether they truly mediate the richness, character and grace of the triune God.
Descriptive – Rhetoric and Strategic Practices
The prophetic mantle “Antioch of Asia” signifies “a big responsibility for the shalom and welfare of Asia.”1 Mission as shalom is a more holistic and integrated understanding of missions involving the spiritual, i.e., salvation of souls, and the social, i.e., nation transformation dimensions. This understanding is a significant departure from the dominant conservative evangelical’s model of mission, which is primarily proclamation and church planting, and has defined how the Singapore Church practises missions. Taking on the responsibility for the shalom and welfare of Asia is not only a huge responsibility, but also an audacious one given the social– political–religious climate of the region. Perhaps Lawrence Khong’s personal spiritual experience of encounter with God may illuminate why the movement dares to take on such an audacious task.2
1 LaiKheng Pousson, ‘A Different Spirit’, PrayerLink, 242/07/2000, p. 21. 2 L. Khong, ‘A Supernatural Move of God’, in Dare to Believe (Singapore: LoveSingapore, 2000). He related how in 1995 the Lord confronted him with this startling question, “Lawrence, do you believe that all these people can be saved? Do you believe that the day will come when every one of them will give their lives to the Lord Jesus?” Khong recounted that he was dumbfounded by that challenge. Though Khong’s response to the startling divine challenge was one of faltering and struggling to believe, the audacious vision – the salvation of Singapore – was embraced and incubated in prayer. He interpreted 74 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century This section will explore what I perceive to be the key rhetoric that mobilises and ignites the imagination of the geo-network churches of the LoveSingapore movement. Apparently, the rhetoric flows from the idea of participation in God’s mission. The notion of “enforcing” (I shall be critiquing the use of this language below) the Kingdom of God on earth because of the victory of Calvary describes the specific form of participation. Thus, the call to enforce God’s Kingdom on earth may be assumed to be its key rhetoric. In turn, the rhetoric of enforcing the Kingdom of God is translated into catchy, succinct slogans, “Touching heaven, changing earth” and “History belongs to the intercessors”. These slogans evoke a strong sense of “power”, of agency, of authority, of possibilities, of change. Implicit in the slogans is a specific conception of God, human agency and history. God is an active, living, loving, personal God that one encounters. Tom Smail’s astute assessment of the charismatics’ understanding of God as “God of contemporary eventfulness, who touches and changes people and makes them new for himself”3 well describes the LoveSingapore movement’s understanding. Since God is the active, living personal God, the possibility of miraculous divine intervention in the world is the foregone conclusion. History then is not a closed system, for God is the Lord of history. Underlying the rhetoric too is a sense that destinies are not yet fixed – they can be altered. Human agency and faith are instrumental to destiny change. It is only logical that a God with such credentials would inspire daring faith. Daring to believe generates optimism and expectancy in its activities. Aggressive and high visibility activities are the natural outworking of this daring belief.4 Rhetoric of power is a potent stimulant. Often, images of power can easily eclipse the emphatic thrust of “touching heaven, changing earth” that the movement intends. The thrust is first being in touch with the God who loves and in touch with the community, people who need His love. Love is the driving force of the movement, as its change of name from VISION 2001 to LoveSingapore clearly suggests. Its strategic practices may be described as a “conspiracy of love” motivated by love for God and compassion for humankind. “We are going to love and bless our neighbours and nation – unconditionally.”5 What the leadership of LoveSingapore intends is through the strategic practices “to demonstrate faith in love, hope in love in contrast the divine challenge as an invitation to break away from the grasshopper mentality to see Singapore as a God-given inheritance to the Church, p. 9. 3 T. Smail, ‘The Cross and the Spirit: Towards a Theology of Renewal’, in Smail, A. Walker and N. Wright (eds), Charismatic Renewal: The Search for a Theology (London: SPCK, 1993), p. 50. 4 However, some within the ranks express their unease with such high-profile initiatives. They are deemed as potentially upsetting to the harmony of Singapore’s multiracial, multi- religious society. In response to the expressed unease, Khong reminds, “It’s no secret that it is our Christian responsibility to make sure that every person in our city has the opportunity to hear the Good News of Christ’s salvation. We should be open about everything we do. There’s no need to hide and there’s nothing to hide. An ‘underground’ operation will only cause alarm and breed suspicion. Besides, as God-fearing people who feel passionately for Singapore, we are committed to be active citizens to care for one and all … we have absolutely no interest in saying anything negative about other faiths”, see Dare To Believe, pp. 13–14. 5 Khong, Dare to Believe, p. 14. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 75 to fear, in contrast to hopelessness in the context of what’s going on in the region.”6 One may assume then that power and love are the twin emphases that impel its strategic practices. The strategic practices are the intentional activities of the movement to fulfil that specific destiny, i.e., to be God’s bridge of blessings to the nation and beyond.
Reconciliation
Reconciliation is regarded both as a prerequisite and a way of loving and blessing the nation. Reconciliation must begin first with the Church, the Body of Christ. The leadership believes that shalom and welfare can flow from the Church to the nation and beyond only when the strongholds of disunity, distrust and competition are first disarmed through spiritual warfare. Working towards Christian unity is not an easy task, as language and theology; denomination and ethnicity are deep divides.7 Animosity and suspicion are easily bred in the small geographical space of Singapore through longstanding isolation from and competition with other different as well as similar Christian traditions. Uniting the Body of Christ is seen as the first critical step, the movement’s core principle based on John 17:20–23. Khong underscores, “Without the church of the city united under the banner of Christ, city transformation will remain an elusive dream.”8 Unity is power. Joe Aldrich comments, “A unified people with a unified plan of action can become a formidable force … What would happen if believers, walking by means of the Holy Spirit, united themselves around the project of reaching a lost community? Is it possible that nothing they plan will be impossible for them?”9 For LoveSingapore, uniting the Body implies more than sharing a common vision, cooperating together, sharing of resources; it involves an ongoing culture and practice of reconciliation both intra- and inter-denominationally. Specific platforms are planned for times and acts of reconciliation. These are times of individual and corporate identificational repentance. The leadership believes that reconciliation is not possible without such identificational repentance. This practice of reconciliation has been highly effective in forging ties and friendship among many local pastors, as I have already mentioned in the previous chapter. LoveSingapore claims that the wounds of the nation’s past must be dealt with in an identificational “prophetic” act in order for national revival to happen. On 9 August 1997, in conjunction with Singapore National Day Celebration, LoveSingapore presented the climax of its annual 40-Day Fast with Day to Change Our World, a season of humbling for the Church in Singapore. Allegedly, the wounds of the national past were perceived to be “… deep-seated fears and insecurities; resentment and bitterness linked with British colonialism and Japanese atrocities of
6 Interview with LaiKheng Pousson, 18 September 2002. 7 See Chapter 4 of Dare to Believe. G. Annadorai reports that animosity is rife even intra and with same language groups (the specific case of Indian pastors in the city). But animosity is not an insurmountable wall, as miracles of reconciliation are reported time and again in PrayerLink. 8 Khong, Dare to Believe, p. 29. 9 J. Aldrich, founder of Prayer Summits, commenting on Gen. 11:6. Cited in PrayerLink, Special Edition, 228/02/95, p. 16. 76 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century World War II.”10 In a reconciliation act to purge and heal these negativities, British Prayer Track leader, Roger Mitchell, stood in identification with England, while Paul Ariga repented on behalf of Japan. It was an emotional moment for all who participated and who were present. Many shed tears as Paul Ariga sobbed and repented on behalf of Japan before Elizabeth Choi, an elderly lady who had been tortured for 200 days at the hands of Japanese soldiers; and before Anglican Canon James Wong, whose father was murdered by the Japanese. Reportedly, “As the aggrieved parties extended heartfelt forgiveness, walls of hatred and bitterness tumbled down … Putting the past behind her, the Singapore Church arose to release blessings upon Britain and Japan! Not only was the past (national history) dealt with at that event but also present ecclesial relations. Pastors and Christian leaders stood in identification with their respective denominations, and repented of pride and carnality which have so robbed the church of spiritual vitality and power.”11 Such identificational repentance for reconciliation becomes a pattern of practice at geo-network local church level as well. The intent of this culture of reconciliation is to inculcate a different spirit for the sake of the Kingdom. Many testimonies of revival through reconciliation are reported.
Prayer
LoveSingapore believes prayer is God’s Idea. Like reconciliation, prayer is also a way of blessing and loving the nation. Prayer is regarded as an act of participation as well as the key to the Singapore Church fulfilling its prophetic responsibility. In other words, “Prayer is the ultimate act of partnership with God.”12 Prayer is seen as an effective means of enforcing the Kingdom of God on earth. By “enforcing”, it means speaking Kingdom reality into earthly reality, a way of subverting the empirical reality. This is what praying the Word means for the movement. “Touching heaven” frames its multifaceted practice of prayer: spiritual warfare, intercessory prayers, annual 40-Day Fast, concert of prayer, prayerwaves. Implicit in the concept of “touching heaven” is the strong sense of spiritual authority based on the Word of God. This spiritual authority is exercised in prayer by enforcing the victory of Calvary over the “unsaved” whether in one’s family, spheres of influence, community, nation and beyond. Prayer evangelism is another form of prayer that LoveSingapore espouses. Warfare prayer in the power of the Spirit is deemed critical to loosen the grip of Satan’s power over humanity (2 Cor. 4:4). John Robb of World Vision’s MARC writes, “Through Christ’s redemption, human stewardship over the earth is being restored. And through prayer, we as His redeemed people reassert our God-given dominion over the world, ruling and reigning with Christ. Through believing prayer, we open the door for God’s intervention in our troubled world, and open ourselves up to become part of God’s answer to that world of need.”13 Robb’s writing helps to understand the prayer urgency and fervency of LoveSingapore.
10 Ibid., p. 7. 11 Ibid., p. 7. 12 W. Wink, cited by John Robb in PrayerLink, ‘Start to Finish’, 344/07/1999, p. 20. 13 Cited in Luis Bush and Beverly Pegues, The Move of the Holy Spirit in the 10/40 Window (Seattle, WA: YWAM Publishing, 1999), p. 96. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 77 Evangelism – The Grand Harvest
Evangelism is another key expression of the movement. Besides lifestyle evangelism, social–cultural festivals are also turned into evangelistic opportunities. Believing that God is actively concerned and ever ready to intervene in salvific ways, national revival, national salvation and national destiny seem like achievable goals – possible happenings. Fuelled by the belief of divine interest and involvement – a sense that nothing is impossible – intensified the anticipation and fervour leading to what was proclaimed as the imminent unprecedented Grand Harvest of December 2001. All the other evangelistic efforts throughout the year 2001 built up to this national-level Grand Harvest. The faith in seeing an entire city turned God-wards in repentance has its biblical precedent in the book of Jonah where the entire city of Nineveh repented (3:10). The only hindrance to this happening would be the lack of belief in the Church, because this goal is reckoned achievable if every Christian in Singapore plays his/her part actively and in faith. However, the anticipated harvest of 2 million Singaporeans at the Grand Harvest event in December 2001 did not materialise. The actual number of “saved” was a mere fraction – about three thousand. LaiKheng Pousson lists several reasons for the failure – lack of unity within the leadership to carry things through, lack of persevering leadership who would pull out all the stops and pull together from start to finish, overestimating the unity and maturity level bodywide, and unbelief. In retrospect, she comments that a key setback to national salvation is unbelief: “We struggle with unbelief in a very deep way. I think all along unbelief has been a key thing. That’s why it constantly surfaces in prayer too. In spite of its show of faith – there is an unconscious unbelief even within the leadership. We want to believe but really in the innermost core of us we struggle.”14
Acts of Kindness
Acts of kindness are the strategic and concrete material expressions of the Singapore Church being God’s bridge of blessings. The Church is to love and bless the nation by serving it with no strings attached. It is to embrace incarnational compassion. Interestingly, serving the community in love actually turns out to enhance the unity in the Body of Christ.15 The LoveSingapore Fund is the national initiative started during the 1998 Asian economic crisis. All contributions to this fund come strictly from the congregations, as the leadership of LoveSingapore does not endorse soliciting funds publicly from foundations or corporations. Churches cover their own administrative costs so that 100 per cent of all the money it collects goes towards the needy.16
14 Interview with LaiKheng Pousson, 18 September 2002. She recalls that the leadership started out strong and united in the whole vision and purpose, but along the way some of them drifted and relationships also distanced. The unity and perseverance dissipated in the last three years. 15 Eugene Seow, ‘Breaking Down Barriers’, in Dare to Believe, p. 41. The May 1998 Walkathon – ‘Take the City Walk’ – was the first national initiative to raise funds for charity. Some 40 thousand Christians from 70 churches participated in the walkathon, which raised a total of S$1 million (p. 42). 16 Ibid., pp. 44, 49. 78 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century What the leadership hopes to inculcate with this no strings attached policy is a spirit of servant-leadership and a culture of creative generosity. Community penetration is part of loving the community and a key way of evangelising, an entry gateway into the community. It is an attempt to bridge the Church and the community. Community penetration involves not only prayerwalking, but also taking territorial ownership of the community, being the spiritual gatekeeper of the community.17 It means pastoring not only the Church in the community, but the community itself as a God-given responsibility. Pastoring the community involves actively building bridges of friendship and serving it with no strings attached. Serving the community is not conceived as a touch-and-go random project, but a long-term commitment. The commitment is costly, entailing money, time, resources and energy. The concept of pastoring the community and not just a local Christian congregation is a positive step forwards. It means being inside the community, understanding the community from the inside and serving it.18 Implicit in this notion is that the space between Church and community is porous and in a way facilitates “border crossing” and development of friendship.19 LoveSingapore is moving beyond the traditional paradigm of missions. As the Antioch of Asia, the Singapore Church “must play an active bridging role, creatively connecting the energy gifts, and resources of today’s harvest force with the needs of the harvest field, primarily the unreached peoples in Asia.”20 LaiKheng explains LoveSingapore’s shift:
The days of traditional missions are over. God will show us new dynamic ways to suit the changing context of world missions. It will not be a one-size-fits-all sort of strategy. But it will be multicoloured … multi-faceted. God will give us the ideas and expertise to refresh, restore, replenish, and rebuild … transforming the devil’s graveyards into the Lord’s vineyards. We will literally disciple the nations and bring redemptive lift through the creative transcendence of Kingdom heartware and hardware via business, education, technology, skills training, media and the arts, health and medical services, humanitarian projects, and most urgently, crisis relief!21
17 Ibid., p. 65. 18 It was through earlier mistakes that some began to realise the importance of knowing the community from the inside in order to serve with love and kindness. Without knowing the community and its needs, acts of kindness can be misconstrued and meaningless. Eager to express acts of love, churches distributed loaves of bread throughout Singapore, including the higher income groups. However, the higher income groups did not appreciate that particular expression of love and kindness. Instead, it caused resentment as the gesture was viewed as an insult to their status. 19 Agape Baptist Church has been successful in community penetration. Its consistent acts of kindness have impacted the Pek Kio community. Today, most of the people living there – from shop keepers to Police Post; from the Residents’ Committee to the residents themselves – know Agape Baptist Church. See Dare to Believe, pp. 61–5. 20 PrayerLink, ‘A Different Spirit’, 242/07/2000, pp. 21–2. 21 Interview with LaiKheng Pousson, 18 September 2002. In part, this shift seems to be inspired not only by its prophetic mantle of “Antioch of Asia”, but also by the Singapore government’s example and commitment to acts of kindness to its Asean neighbours. It is suggested that the Singapore Church must rise up and not fall behind the government’s Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 79 To do this, the Singapore Church must imbibe a different spirit, humbling itself to make others great. This posture in missions is no longer a “conquest” of the other or expansionistic, but servanthood. When the emphasis is focused on making the others great, mission is not manipulative but creative. It is a non-confrontational and peaceable way of making God known through creative acts of love that build up those whom it intends to reach and contribute to their flourishing. Perhaps the most revolutionary and loving idea is Lawrence Khong’s suggestion that the Singapore Church contribute money to Indonesian Muslims for the specific purpose of rebuilding their mosques that Christians burned down in retaliation for churches destroyed by the Muslims. This is to signify the Church’s complicity in evil, and an expression of repentance and reconciliation. It is a concrete fulfilling of Christ’s command to love one’s enemies and repay evil with good. This act has far-reaching implications, especially for peace and human flourishing in a multicultural and multi-faith context.
Diagnostic: The Problems with the Practices
The description of the strategic practices reveals the zeal and vibrancy of LoveSingapore. While the strategic practices are commendable, a concerted attempt at a holistic approach to mission, they also raise a number of disturbing questions. This section will discuss in turn the problems of the strategic practices.
Reconciliation
LoveSingapore’s emphasis that reconciliation is integral to Christian unity resonates strongly with Scripture. To some extent, LoveSingapore’s ecumenical thrust has been successful in Singapore. This is evident by the fact that the 120 geo-network churches are of different denominations, which while maintaining their respective denominational and theological distinctiveness transcend the differences and display friendship and unity. Not only this, LoveSingapore has also to an extent effectively contextualised the Gospel in Singapore. There are some obvious parallels between example by coming up with new and creative ways to touch and transform the nations. In 1998, PM Goh set aside S$12 million to sponsor worthy Asean scholars who had been denied higher education due to economic crisis in their nations. Besides this, Singapore International Foundation regularly sends out professional volunteers in teams to bring practical help, ranging from medical to educational services to Asian nations. Kingdom professionals are the counterparts of Singapore International Foundation. A specific crisis relief called “Love Turkey” was launched in the wake of a disastrous earthquake that hit Turkey in 1999. Pastor Charles Carroll (Community of Praise Baptist Church) and his team from HighPoint Community Services (volunteers who were former drug addicts) made a long-term commitment to rebuild Turkey. They have already built 50 homes in the earthquake zone of Akyazi. This housing estate is officially named Singapur Evleri, or Singapore Homes. Most of the funding came from people in Singapore. And a year later (2000), Carroll and his team broke ground for the new Mustafa Kemal primary school in Duzce. See full story in PrayerLink, ‘A Different Spirit’, p. 22, and PrayerLink, ‘Window of Time’, 242/07/2000, pp. 16–17. 80 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century LoveSingapore’s strategic practices and the Singapore government’s policies and vision. A noticeable example of this is the government’s concerted push for national unity, and racial and religious harmony. This finds resonance in LoveSingapore’s call for Church unity and reconciliation. Their concurrence is translatable and makes for easy rallying as they resonate deeply with the aspiration of Singaporeans both ecclesially and politically. In all appearances, its practices have been effective and successful. Yet, despite its success, there are already signs that all is not well. a. Presumption and heretical tendency? Dissipating unity and a distancing of friendship within the ranks of the movement are signs of illness. This raises the sobering question, “Why is its unity eroding now?” The dissipation and distancing should alert the movement to seriously question its assumptions and the foundation of its unity. Foundation, I suggest, is the important issue here. What indeed, constitutes the foundation of its unity and friendship? Is reconciliation merely a means to an end? Probing these questions may help in identifying the problem. It becomes clear that the problematic has to do with presumption. The presumption is discernible in terms of knowledge and in terms of responsibility. It seems that LoveSingapore presumes to know exactly what God’s purpose is and then instrumentalises that knowledge. It presumes to know exactly that God’s purpose is for unity and the way to unity is by reconciliation; thus, reconciliation becomes the strategic practice. What is amiss here is not knowledge per se, but exact knowledge and its instrumentalisation. Unity is instrumentalised into the practice of reconciliation. Hence, it makes unity and reconciliation means to the specific end – the key to the revival, and specifically the salvation, of Singapore. Khong apparently espouses such an instrumentalisation: “In working toward Goal 1, we do not seek unity for unity’s sake. Attaining 100% involvement means little without progress toward our vision of a nation won for the Lord. In our hearts echo Jesus’ words about the purpose of a united body ‘… so that the world may believe …’”22 In effect, this statement implies that unity is instrumental, i.e., for the purpose of believing in Christ and winning the nation to Christ. The mistake here is one of making what is consequential, constitutive. Certainly, the destiny of the nation should be one’s concern. But LoveSingapore presumes it is its responsibility, arrogating too much responsibility to itself as it were. Humility requires that one acknowledge that the destiny whether of individuals or nations is not within one’s prescript. Once unity is instrumentalised, heretical tendency easily follows. Without doubt, unity is the explicit concern in the prayer of Jesus in John 17:20–23. However, what is not beyond dispute is that Jesus’ prayer of unity is for the explicit and primary purpose of mission.23 Jesus’ prayer for unity among His disciples is first and foremost for the sake of God’s glory. David Ford comments, “In John’s Gospel … the infinitely attractive intensity of love and glory [that] is both central and embracing … Everything
22 Khong, Dare to Believe, pp. 30–31. 23 G.R. Beasley-Murray comments that there is no consensus among exegetes regarding the third clauses “… that the world may believe” and “… that the world may know” in 17:20–23 as to whether they are coordinates with the first two clauses or consequence of the prayer for unity. See John, Word Biblical Commentary vol. 36 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), p. 307. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 81 is to be understood from the intimacy between Father and Son – creation, history, the Church, our identities, the future, and above all, death and life. This is therefore what is primary for the Christian community and its mission: utter universality with utter intimacy in God.”24 Indeed, God’s glory is the ultimate end-all. Anything less becomes heretical. Instrumental logic is the logic of control. Ironically, the practice itself is a subtle form of control. It is a desire to control with exact knowledge so as to engineer national destiny and outcome rather than relinquish that control to God. The destiny of the nation is a God-problem. Taking it out of God’s hands is a real temptation in the efficiency-minded society of Singapore, a theological idolatry. Ultimately, this theological idolatry raises the issue of divine and human agency. Fundamentally, the foundation of unity must be located in who God is. That means, unity for God’s sake. To affirm this is not to preclude the missiological significance of the prayer. Rather, it is to put unity in its right priority. Lesslie Newbigin articulates it well: “At the heart of mission is simply the desire to be with him and to give him the service of our lives … Mission is an acted doxology.”25 Misplaced priority is erosive of the good. In the early inception of the movement, it was the experience of the Holy Spirit that brought them together, transcending denominational and theological differences. Passion for the lost and a deep sense of urgency to complete the task of the Great Commission strongly motivated the movement. It seems likely that the potent conjunction of passion/perceived urgency, and power/phenomenology of the experience of the Spirit, caused the movement to stress the missiological significance of Pentecost, to the neglect of the ecclesiological dimension of Pentecost. Not surprisingly, this overemphasis eventually erodes what is good – an imaginative passion. Inadvertently, this imaginative passion, vision of mission, is overtaken by the success of mission. Thomas L. Brodie reminds us laconically, “It is not that the church has a mission, but that the mission has a church.”26 Quite possibly too, the characteristic drivenness of Singaporeans relative to task and its pragmatism cause the neglect of what is essential, Christian togetherness. Put in another way, the characteristic drivenness of Singaporeans militates against the important capacity for “communal play”; Chan comments:
Play may be understood as the ability to suspend temporarily the usual course of life to enter a different world, a world in which another dimension of relationship opens up to reveal a more profound meaning of living together … by which the shared values of a Christian community are imbibed … If the community does not learn to enjoy each other at play, it is doubtful that it truly understands what it means to “enjoy God forever,” which is “man’s chief end.”27
24 D. Ford, ‘Jesus Christ in Scripture, Community and Mission: The Wisdom of John 1:1–18’, in Philip L. Wickeri (ed.), Scripture, Community and Mission: Essays in Honor of D. Preman Niles (London: The Council of World Mission, 2003), p. 307. 25 L. Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1989), p. 127. 26 T.L. Brodie, The Gospel According To John (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 65. 27 S. Chan, Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1998), pp. 114–15. 82 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century The unity of the believers that Jesus prayed for is explicitly consonant with the deep reality of the Father and Son “as we are one” (17:22). In fact, as Schnackenburg puts it, “Unity is the mark of divine being.”28 In other words, this unity is rooted in the very nature of God. Similarly, Brodie declares, “Thus the unity is both vertical and horizontal. It is within God, yet it is reflected in a down-to-earth way in God’s commandment of love.”29 If so, loving the world is not possible without loving and mutual indwelling being nurtured in the community of faith. It is imperative for the leadership to confront itself with this question: is its unity and friendship grounded in an instrumental logic or the theological logic; as Ford puts it, on “indwelling the intimacy of God”?30 To be shaped by the narrative of instrumental logic is to constantly devise justifications for all actions and relations. It impoverishes the life of mutual indwelling. “Friends need no justification. Friendship is a gift and like most significant gifts it is surrounded by mystery. We finally cannot explain friendship anymore than we can explain our existence. We can only delight in our friends.”31 The theological logic of “indwelling the intimacy of God” cannot be instrumentalised. It remains fundamentally constitutive of our Christian identity, being and relationship. Fellowship with God gives ultimate value to one’s very existence. This implies that “God loves me and not merely my services apart from me.”32 Relationship of fellowship must take priority over relationship of task or work. Thus, both missiology and ecclesiology must flow from indwelling the much larger and fundamental reality of God, the Ego Eimi. b. Dimensions of memory Another problem with its actual practice of strategic reconciliation lies precisely with the dimensions of memory. The key question is, “What is the role of memory here?” There seems to be an inadequate understanding of the role of memory that misses a central aspect of Christian life and practice. Peter Hocken points out the centrality of Christian life and practice, memorial or anamnesis: “Our faithfulness always involves recalling to mind the acts of God on our behalf since the beginning. In … Deuteronomy, the Israelites are constantly urged to remember and not to forget, and in the prophets, Israel’s sin is described in terms of forgetting God (Jer. 3: 21).”33 Biblically, there is a positive and a negative kind of remembering. Perhaps LoveSingapore’s inherent triumphalism and a reductionistic approach to issues mitigate the role of memory. This leads to a confused equation -- forgiving is forgetting, a spiritual amnesia of sort. On the contrary, forgiveness and memory are inseparable. Timothy Radcliffe underscores this: “The forgiveness of the Last Supper is not primarily about forgetting … Forgiveness, within our tradition, is that utterly
28 Cited in Brodie, p. 505. 29 Brodie, p. 516. 30 Ford (2003), p. 307. 31 S. Hauerwas, Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), p. 155. 32 V. Brummer, The Model of Love (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 166. 33 P.D. Hocken, The Glory and the Shame (Guildford, Surrey: Eagle, 1994), p. 124. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 83 creative moment in which Jesus is raised from the dead. It is not what enables us to forget. It makes memory possible.”34 Memory, not amnesia, is critical to Christian identity and forgiveness shaped by the memory of this specific event. Consequently, what and how one remembers is also critical to the practice of reconciliation. LoveSingapore in dealing with the present fracture in its unity must remember that the movement is created by the Spirit and is characterised chiefly by forgiveness, healing and reconciliation. Implicit in that reconciliation is the experience of fellowship, a “welcoming of stranger, an overthrowing of distance”. Forgiveness involves more than words spoken and action performed. L. Gregory Jones posits, “Forgiveness is not so much a word spoken, an action performed, or a feeling felt as it is an embodied way of life in an ever deepening friendship with the Triune God and with others.”35 Hence at the primary level of memory, LoveSingapore needs to remember: “The Christian story is not primarily about how God in Jesus came to rescue sinners from some impending disaster. It is about God’s work of initiating us into fellowship and making us true conversational partners with the Father and the Son through the Spirit and, hence, with each other (1 Jn. 1: 1–4).”36 Friendship sums up the goal of human existence; as Aquinas argues, “the goal of life is to be befriended by God”.37 Loving, being friends with God and people, is humanity’s telos. The Day of Pentecost in the Book of Acts stands as a testimony to the possibility and reality of this telos, Spirit-birthed love and friendship, unity in diversity, transcending culturally inscribed borders. Yet, the narrative of Acts also “presents us with a people of God who had to struggle constantly to reach beyond their own limitation in order to realize more of the implications inherent in Pentecost.”38 Possibility and reality are etched in Scripture for the Church’s remembrance. Inevitably, an inadequate understanding of the role of memory leads to a simplistic practice of reconciliation. Memory is confused with blame-finding, essentially a kind of unforgiveness. Forgetting is assumed to be a more appropriate spiritual posture and less messy than remembering. Donald Shriver counters such a posture: “Forgiveness begins with memory suffused with moral judgment. Popular use of the word forgiveness sometimes implies that to forgive is to forget, to abandon primary concern for the crimes of an enemy. Quite the reverse: ‘Remember and forgive’ would be a more accurate slogan. Forgiveness begins with a remembering and a moral judgment of wrong, injustice, and injury.”39 Shriver further maintains that remembering is indispensable to just reconciliation. He argues, “Forgiveness in a political context, then, is an act that joins moral truth, forbearance, empathy, and commitment to repair a fractured human relation. Such a combination calls for
34 T. Radcliffe, Sing a New Song: The Christian Vocation (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 2000), p. 23. 35 L.G. Jones, Embodying Forgiveness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. xii. Cited in S.E. Fowl, Engaging Scripture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), p. 84. 36 Chan (1998), p. 78. 37 Cited by Hauerwas, p. 154, footnote 23. 38 F.D. Macchia, ‘From Azusa to Memphis: Where do we go from here? Roundtable Discussions on the Memphis Colloquy’, Pneuma, 18:1 (1996): 116. 39 D.W. Shriver Jr, An Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics (NY: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 7. 84 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century a collective turning from the past that neither ignores past evil nor excuses it, that neither overlooks justice nor reduces justice to revenge, that insists on the humanity of enemies even in their commission of dehumanising deeds, and that values the justice that restores political community above the justice that destroys it.”40 Without memory, forgiveness is not possible, nor is reconciliation sustainable. If so, the reconciliation event called by LoveSingapore on 9 August 1997 appears impoverished. The event itself was good, necessary, admirable and moving; but reconciliation and repentance are more than emotional, visual, symbolic, identificational acts. Moreover, the event itself is too simplistic – many nagging questions remain: “Can a single individual repent on behalf of an entire nation?” “Can one reduce reconciliation to a single act or even a series of acts of identificational repentance, even though such form of repentance is significant?” “What is the motivation behind this event – sentiments? Desire for national revival? Or a deeply ethico-theological motivation?” “Is healing truly possible without dealing with root causes?” “How extensively are the past national hurts dealt with?” “Is it possible that such supposedly deep seated wounds might be erased in a one-off event?” To claim “instantaneous” erasure and healing is both overconfidently simplistic and triumphalistic. It borders on treating the act of reconciliation as a form of magic. This simplistic approach to reconciliation is not grounded in reality and thus is incapable of doing justice to the complexities and ambiguities of national history and memory. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has well summed up the complexities of hurts and forgiveness in his book on ethics:
The only question is whether the wounds of this past guilt are in fact healed, and at this point, even within the history of the internal and external political struggle of nations, there is something in the nature of forgiveness … It is recognised that what is past cannot be restored by any human might, and that the wheel of history cannot be turned back. Not all the wounds inflicted can be healed, but what matters is that there shall be no more wounds … This forgiveness within history can come only when the wound of guilt is healed, when violence has become justice, lawlessness has become order, and war has become peace.41
Complexities are stubborn facts that are not easily resolved. Final resolution is not always possible this side of the eschaton. Intractable complexities forbid reductionistic approaches to repentance, healing and reconciliation. Frank D. Macchia aptly notes, “Repentance cannot be a one-time event if it is to open a person to deeper insights and effect change throughout an institution.”42 Process of engagement is essential. Repentance is a process entailing memory, costly identification, admittance, and painful face-to-face engagement in reconciliation between the offender and the oppressed, the wrong-sufferers and the wrongdoers. The lack of doing justice to memory is also apparent among LoveSingapore geo-network churches in their practice of reconciliation at the intra-local levels. Reconciliation is seized upon almost
40 Ibid., p. 9. 41 D. Bonhoeffer, in E. Bethge (ed.), Ethics (London: SCM, 1955), pp. 53–4. 42 F.D. Macchia, ‘From Azusa to Memphis: Evaluating the Racial Reconciliation Dialogue Among Pentecostals’, Pneuma, 17:2 (Fall 1995): 210. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 85 formulaically as a means to a quick fix of “forgive and forget”, a spiritual panacea as it were to difficult, complex and deep-seated problems, whether that be spiritual or personal kinds, but particularly with ecclesial numerical growth. This is a worrying trend; quick-fix identificational prayers do not do justice to the many dimensions of memory, such as the particulars of what is wrong in the local church, and the lives of individuals within the church, let alone the wrongs perpetuated in Church history, such as the tragic history of racism within Pentecostalism. If memory is to act as a protest, and a reminder against the repetition and triumph of evil, then that means that one should not employ just any way of remembering, but one must remember history morally. Confronting memories adequately requires moral courage, humility and process. In a time-controlled, efficiency-oriented society of Singapore, process is often sacrificed. The purpose of acuity in memory is not vengeance, but hope, repentance and justice. Acuity in memory entails self-critique before God. If self-critique before God is not part of one’s memory then one is not likely to have deep reconciliation. In essence, a failure of memory and self-critique is, in the final analysis, a failure of hope. Despite dark shadows in Church history, glimmers of hope are also evident when the Church arouses its memory and awakens to self-critique. This is illustrated in the Memphis Miracle of 1994. For a long time, the evil of racism was ignored by white Pentecostalism. The tragic racism that followed the Azusa Street Revival stands as an evil contradiction to the embracive work of the Holy Spirit. Macchia recounting the history of white Pentecostalism indicts, “The history of the PFNA is in direct opposition to the work of the Holy Spirit experienced in the integrated fellowship among various racial groups in the early years of the Azusa Street revival.”43 Defective memory, indeed, the lack of moral courage, and an absence of self- critique before God caused the PFNA to accommodate to the racist culture of the American society despite their experience of racial reconciliation via the Azusa Street Revival. For almost a century, North American Pentecostals perpetuated the evil of racism. Though the history of Pentecostalism is tragically marked by the dark evil of racism, the courage to confront its history morally sets into motion something good – an attempt at justice. It took a conscientious remembering of this dark side of the history of Pentecostalism in the historic event at Memphis 1994 to effect a beginning of just racial reconciliation between whites and African Americans. Some two hundred whites and African Americans participated at the Memphis meeting. Representative denominational leaders publicly confessed and repented of the sin of racism. The historic event in Memphis 1994 stands as a sign of hope.44
43 Macchia (1995), p. 204. The PFNA, an entirely Anglo-American organisation, was formed in October 1948 in Des Moines, Iowa. The roots of the AG’s position on race relations are to be found, in part, in this development. Though there were notable voices within the Assemblies of God that resisted the dominant racist position, C.M. Robeck Jr noted that the only norm or canon to which it had ever appealed with reference to race relations was American law and society, not Scripture. Racism was considered a social problem rather than a sin by the AG. Ibid., pp. 207–9. 44 Macchia notes that not all read the event of Memphis positively. To an extent honesty and sincere convictions are discernible in the road leading to Memphis, but the major impetus of Memphis did not occur on a higher moral ground than the effort to combat the threat of 86 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Memphis 1994 was a courageous attempt to do justice and right the wrongs in the history of Pentecostalism. Cecil M. Robeck Jr describes the event as marking “the beginning of a ‘reconciliation strategy’ for effective Pentecostal ministry into the 21st century … a miracle in the making. It is an event which may yet prove to have been a watershed in Pentecostal racial relations. But it is immature, and needs our help.”45 Like Memphis, LoveSingapore is still immature, in its infancy theologically, and needs help; it may well learn from Memphis. Hence, self-critique before God is an indispensable process. Macchia offers this caveat: “The celebration of the Pentecostal partnership at Memphis must be cautioned, therefore, by the stark reality of a future not yet seen … Only the future can tell the outcome and, as always, the offended ones will have the keenest insight into the true nature of the results.”46
Prayer
LoveSingapore’s passionate commitment to prayer is indeed commendable; it is its gift both to the Christian community and to the larger social community in Singapore. It restores a fervency and confidence both in God and the discipline of prayer and fasting. Prayer is a human response to divine initiative. Prayer as relational is clearly emphasised, evidenced by a certain sense of familiarity and intimacy with God that exudes from its praying. Fundamental to its dynamism and confidence is the strong belief in a God who answers prayers. Its distinctive passion and confidence in praying flow from the experience of the power and presence of God made real by the Spirit and a way of inhabiting the Word. Clearly, the orientation of its prayers is to God. This God-wards orientation of its prayers is also linked to strong emphases on power and the supernatural. It perceives the boundaries between the natural and supernatural as permeable, but without collapsing the two realms. Encounter with the supernatural is assumed and anticipated. This encounter in Peter Wagner’s term is “power encounter”, “a practical visible demonstration that Jesus Christ is more powerful than the spirits, powers, or false gods worshiped or feared by the members of a given people group.”47 Thus, spiritual warfare as a spiritual dynamic of resisting and neutralising “demonic powers that hinder evangelism and missions”48 appears to be the privileged prayer practice of LoveSingapore.
denominational extinction, specifically the all-white Pentecostals PFNA. Racial reconciliation cannot be tokenism. Significant institutional restructuring and sacrifice need to be in place for such reconciliation to be meaningfully sustained. For the full evaluation of Memphis and especially the Memphis Manifesto, see Ibid. and Macchia (1996), pp. 113–14; and B.E. Underwood’s article at http://www.pctii.org/arc/underwood.htm. 45 Cecil M. Robeck Jr, ‘Racial Reconciliation at Memphis: Some Personal Reflections’, Pneuma, 18:1 (Spring 1996): 140. 46 Macchia (1995), p. 217. 47 C.P. Wagner, How to Have a Healing Ministry Without Making Your Church Sick (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1988), p. 150. Cited by E.K. Pousson in Spreading the Flame (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), p. 158. 48 E.K. Pousson, ‘A “Great Century” of Pentecostal/Charismatic Renewal and Missions’, Pneuma, 16:1 (Spring 1994): 97. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 87 Warfare prayer is largely influenced by Wagner’s teaching of principalities and powers as transpersonal forces that control over specific geographical territories and people groups. Wagner roots this understanding in biblical references to “spiritual power such as the ‘prince of Persia’ or the ‘prince of Greece’ (Dan. 10: 13, 20), and to the implied regional assignment of Legion (Mk. 5: 9-10), Third Wavers have coined the phrase ‘territorial spirits’ to designate these forces of darkness which have as their objective the destruction of lives and the hindrance of the gospel message.”49 Wagner takes Jesus’ example of binding the strongman (Lk. 11:21–22) as a biblical model for engaging in warfare and power confrontations which he defines as visible and practical demonstrations “that Jesus Christ is more powerful than the spirits, powers or false gods worshipped or feared by the members of a given people group.”50 Thus warfare against such territorial spirits becomes indispensable to fulfilling the Great Commission. It is reported that this prayer dynamic “actively encompassing all six continents is introducing new spiritual dynamics for evangelism and missions with documented results in terms of countable disciples of the kingdom.”51
Power and presumption/pretensions? Arguably, zealous prayer is the dynamic strength of LoveSingapore, if quantity is an indicator. Yet even its dynamism is not problem-free. The problem here is one of theological heresy, an overemphasis on spiritual warfare as the tool of world mission especially among those in the 10/40 Window. It promotes a “closure theology” that the unreached peoples in the 10/40 Window “can be reached very soon through inter alia the strategic use of modern technology and spiritual warfare. There exists the notion that we can effect evangelisation and revival by human means. The current predominant historical pre-millenarian eschatology of God’s kingdom as both present and future seems to give room for such optimism – sans the guarantee of sure success through human efforts, of course.”52 It neglects the most basic form of prayer, petition, in which one acknowledges one’s fundamental dependence on and relatedness to God and divine initiative. Consequently, prayer becomes a means of control. Control is assumed to be in the hands of the prayer warrior or intercessor, as it were, who enforces control over problems, events, resistance, etc., whether human or demonic, through warfare prayers. This turns prayer into an ideology of control rather than a profoundly theological activity, which also undermines the nature of petition. In this way, a system of cause and effect seems to govern the practice of prayer which undermines answer to prayer as gift. Chan avers, “Petition is the extension of the gift God shares with us, the gift of subcreation, whereby he works things not apart from us but through us … Real asking, giving and receiving are deep interchanges
49 A. Yong, Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal–Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 239. 50 Wagner, Confronting the Powers (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1996), p. 102. Cited by A. Yong in Discerning the Spirit(s), p. 241. 51 Pousson (1994), p. 97. 52 D.S. Lim, ‘A Critique of Modernity in Protestant Missions in the Philippines’, JAM, 2:2 (September 2000): 159. 88 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century between friends, not business transactions.”53 Furthermore, its proclivity towards instrumentalisation vitiates its own relational understanding of prayer. Through the alchemy of instrumentalisation, prayer is transformed into a technique to manipulate the powers. Such instrumentalisation is “an abuse of relationship”.54 This concept of spiritual warfare, prayer as a means of enforcing God’s Kingdom reality in empirical reality, is also problematic and raises questions. There are two critical questions here. What kind of power does God exercise over human beings? What kind of power and authority is given to believers? The real problem here with spiritual warfare is not with power itself, but with the kind of power it seems to espouse. Prayer is enforcing the Kingdom of God. But enforcing has a negative connotation. It suggests an imposition of will that is overbearing. In light of this, enforcing is certainly not the right verb to use or a biblical idea relative to prayer. Underlying this concept of enforcing lies an idolatrous understanding of power – a technological or a political notion of power. Paul Fiddes writes, “We often project a worldly idea of power on to God. We attribute to God political notions of power, assuming that it means coerciveness, being able to compel others to do what we want.”55 Fiddes also insists, “No theory of God’s action can be non-relational and non-mutual.”56 Clearly, the way that the triune God deals with history, human problems and evil negates such a concept of enforcing. In the same vein, Tom Smail cautions:
An uncritical and unqualified use of power language can easily give the impression that we think that God deals with evil in all its forms by unleashing against it a violent onslaught of superior supernatural force, by which it is immediately crushed and subdued. We can use militaristic language in a very naïve way which suggests that the goodies have better weapons than the baddies, that all they need to do is to equip themselves with the supernatural energy and gifts of the Spirit and may then expect to advance from triumph to triumph in his overwhelming power.57
Smail’s caution is perceptive. Precisely, spiritual warfare is assumed as the “superior weapon” for routing “the enemies”, i.e., pitting more power against opposing power. Such an understanding fails to do justice to the ways of God. God does not constantly resolve human ills and evil by veto or divine immunity. His consistent way of exercising power is by costly participation and identification. To affirm this is not to preclude the fact that God can and does act in power and unilaterally at times. Nonetheless, it is obvious that God’s way of advancing His Kingdom and will in empirical reality is not by enforcing or imposing, but by loving lure, or “persuasive love” as Fiddes suggests. This is most manifest in the life and death of Jesus. Smail writes, “He overcame all the violent force and energy of evil that fell upon him there [at Calvary], not by exercising greater force and violence, but by renouncing them altogether. The power of Jesus, and therefore the power of the Spirit that Jesus imparts from the cross, is the power of Calvary love. It is by that love, nothing more
53 Chan (1998), p. 140. 54 Ibid., p. 131. 55 P. Fiddes, Participating in God (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2000), p. 139. 56 Ibid., p. 123. 57 Smail, pp. 61–2. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 89 and nothing less, that God delivers, remakes, heals, frees and saves.”58 This costly identification defines the power of the triune God. Moreover, when problems are reduced to battle between God and the devil in the realm of the spiritual, there is a danger “of adopting a paranoid world-view, and then becoming entrapped and socialized into the paranoid universe.”59 A case in point: at the conclusion of the significant 1998 Pastors’ Prayer Summit, one of the key staff pastors of one of the members of the LoveSingapore leadership died in a car accident on his way to work. This pastor’s death was interpreted in terms of a spiritual warfare, i.e., allegedly a diabolical attack launched by Satan. It was perceived as a clash of power because Satan’s desire is to sabotage revival. Apparently, one of Satan’s strategies to unsettle and disrupt unity and revival is to stir up fear by causing death.60 This understanding not only has serious theological implications, but also raises a number of questions. Who holds the power of life and death, God or Satan? When there is a marked absence of God’s intervention in our troubled world, does it mean that the believers are failing in enforcing the Kingdom of God? Is failure to enforce God’s rule, then, a sign of a lack of vigilance in prayer? Is this assuming too much responsibility that in fact is not the prerogative of human beings, but of God? Furthermore, a crude cosmic and moral dualism, wherein everything is either divine or demonic, tends to elide the realms of the natural, the paranormal, the human and the political. It also suggests a technological idolatry, the need to explain every phenomenon rather than allow the coexistence of the inexplicable, the mystery that defies human grasping. Collapsing everything into spiritual warfare is to turn a metaphor into a metaphysic. There is a need for an integrated understanding of and approach to the whole of created reality. Though spiritual warfare is an integral part of biblical narratives, how it is appropriated and practised among some geo-network churches raises serious concerns. Presumption is again the problem in spiritual warfare. It presumes to have access to special knowledge or privileged information, i.e., what specific spirit or spirits rule over which particular people groups through word of knowledge, discernment of spirits and private revelation, which is allegedly confirmed by historical research. Such presumption reflects types of Gnostic and esoteric tendencies. Even the alleged confirmation through historical research is questionable. Often the practice and claim to privileged information through spiritual warfare lacks openness to biblical critique and accountability. Another attendant problem is that the practice of spiritual warfare seems to emphasise the self’s ability, i.e., the intercessor may tap into such “knowledge” rather than gain awareness through the Spirit’s revelation.61 Land comments,
58 Ibid. 59 A. Walker, ‘The Devil You Think You Know: Demonology and the Charismatic Movement’, in Smail, Walker and Wright (1993), p. 89. 60 Dare to Believe, pp. 36–7. 61 It is not uncommon to hear intercessors preface their claim to “insight” or “knowledge” at certain spirit stronghold sites or situations or events with “I sense that there is…”. Though there is an attempt to confirm the insight or knowledge, the “confirmers” are usually a closed circle of intercessors rather than a larger body of believers or church. 90 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century “All worthwhile knowledge must be gained and retained prayerfully because only the Spirit can lead into all truth. Even correct knowledge will lead to presumption without constant prayerful thanksgiving, intercession and praise.”62 A prayerful posture is one of tarrying as long as it takes to discern the will of God, the mind of Christ and the leading of the Spirit. In contrast, the fixation on the efficacy of spiritual warfare appears to be a time-saving technique, a short cut to spiritual victory and transformation. Instrumentalisation and the logic of control miss a critical element of prayer, which Soren Kierkegaard notes perceptively: “The true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God wills.”63 If prayer is truly participation in divine action, then, tarrying in prayer, attentiveness to God, an engaged dialogue and genuine understanding of the other, as well as of events in the lived world, are indispensable.
Evangelism – The Grand Harvest 2001
This event was undertaken with great anticipation and optimistic hope. Without doubt, it was motivated by zeal for God, urgency of time, and compassion for the lost. Compassion for the lost is positive, but urgency is not. Urgency becomes a negative element when it assumes too much responsibility for the salvation of humanity; a “we have to save the world” mentality. Mission is turned into an ecclesial enterprise, forgetting the fact that mission is and remains God’s mission. Mission is not human action, “but the presence of a new reality, the presence of the Spirit of God in power.”64 National salvation cannot be engineered, not even by the best of faith in evangelistic endeavour. God and God alone is Saviour. Often this sense of urgency is a subtle form of control, a control of history and destiny. Newbigin cautions, “Like its Lord, the Church has to renounce any claim to a masterful control of history. By following the way her Lord went, the way of suffering witness, she unmasks the powers which claim this masterful control and confronts each succeeding generation with the ultimate goal of history.”65 Triumphalism and optimism are correlates. Inevitably, triumphalism in prayer leads to optimistic triumphalism in evangelism. However, the optimistic anticipation and expectation of the unprecedented harvest were proved mistaken.
Unbelief or idolatry? Unbelief was ostensibly the fundamental problem for this unfulfilled harvest expectation. This diagnosis by the leadership raises several questions. Is unbelief the real problem here? Does it mean the God can be held hostage by one’s belief or unbelief? Does it mean that God is unable to act when
62 S.J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), p. 166. 63 A. Dru (ed.), The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard (Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 572. Cited in P.W. Gooch, Reflections on Jesus and Socrates: Word and Silence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 109. 64 Newbigin, p. 119. 65 Ibid., p. 118. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 91 there is no faith? What is faith? How is it expressed? Is statistical conversion a reliable or true measure of one’s faith? It seems obvious from the fervour, passion and preparation put into the Grand Harvest that the issue is not unbelief. On the contrary, they demonstrate faith, if anything at all. At least, it is clear that evangelism is its imperative commitment. Perhaps the real problem is not unbelief but something more fundamental – idolatry. It is idolatrous, i.e., a wrong belief – a technological, rather than a deeply biblical, understanding of God, prayer and human responsibility. Both its political understanding of God and its proclivity towards instrumentalisation of spiritual knowledge (discussed earlier) affect its evangelistic endeavour, cause and effect logic. Faith can easily slide into a form of technique to be mastered for a desired outcome, rather than a life of dependent trust in God. Instrumentalisation goes hand in hand with quantification. To assess the success of evangelism/mission thrusts in terms of statistical conversions betrays a captivity to the geist of modernity; more specifically, the American ethos of “can do”. Robb comments, “We Americans sometimes bring a success mentality to prayer along with a materialistic, technical way of thinking which assumes we can just pull a lever and get a particular result.”66 Robb’s comment alerts one to the fact that it is easy to succumb to this temptation. Consequently, success rather than faithfulness becomes determinative of human faith response. To imbibe the success syndrome in mission is also to miss an important biblical understanding. Consider the mission efforts of the apostle Paul. The Lukan narrative of Paul’s “prisoner” vocation is illuminating; “Luke shows that the prisoner Paul continued to witness to the resurrected Jesus. He may not always log numerical successes, but the Lukan point appears to be that, whatever the results, the prisoner seized every opportunity to preach, teach and bear witness.”67 The danger in putting such weightage on “faith” in determining the significance, success or failure of evangelism or mission is that such naïveté is incapable of coping with the ambiguities, complexities and mystery of God, of events, of existence, of human resistance, and of the disappointment of hope. Resistance and non-cooperation with God’s will are an evident existential reality. Fiddes confirms, “The resistance to co-operation that God meets in the world is a complex and tangled story, and one of which we usually catch only a glimpse.”68 However, its reductionistic emphasis on faith where the clash of powers are played out in the arena of prayer and intercession, and where decisive victories, changes, destinies of individuals, families, communities and nations are fought, won and decided, tends to underplay the fact of ambiguities and complexities. A monochrome spirituality is incapable of accounting for the actual experience of freedom and choices in the lived world of both human and nature; “In fulfilling the divine purpose, God makes room for the response and co-operation of the created world.” Doing so involves risk, a risk that God is willing and confident to take…
66 J. Robb, ‘Overcoming Resistance through Prayer’, in D. Woodberry (ed.), Reaching the Resistant (Pasadena: W. Carey Library, 1998), p. 191. 67 B. Rapske, The Book of Acts and Paul in Roman Custody (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1994), p. 394. 68 Fiddes, Participating in God, p. 147. 92 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century “the risk of tragedy within the triumph.”69 LoveSingapore’s inherent inability to cope with the disappointment of hope is evidenced by its assumption that the anticipated harvest did not happen as a direct result of unbelief in a fundamental core, even among the ranks of its leadership. Not surprisingly, a naïve triumphalistic approach to reality can hardly cope with what Fiddes aptly describes as “tragedy within the triumph”. In part, the inability to cope with “tragedy within the triumph” and mystery is also connected to its fixation on securing certainty, demonstrative power and a narrow understanding of the nature of God’s empowering undergirding its power evangelism. LoveSingapore’s practice of power evangelism is closely linked to Wagner’s teaching. Wagner and the Third Wavers concentrate on the more phenomenal and visible charismata – healing and prophecy – as key to Church growth. A Pauline, rather than a Lukan, perspective on the charismata is foundational to their framework. Robert Menzies, a classical Pentecostal scholar, argues that in neglecting the specifically Lukan perspective, Spirit-inspired proclamation, it loses an important dimension. He writes, “Luke’s perspective on divine enabling is much broader than a narrow focus on the dramatic signs. Although Luke acknowledges and even highlights the positive and powerful impact of miracles, his emphasis on verbal witness is even greater … The ability to bear bold witness for Christ in the face of persecution or hardship is central to Luke’s concept of ‘power evangelism’ (e.g. Lk. 12: 8–12; Acts 4: 31).”70 This aspect of “staying power” and the context of hardship and persecution are the missing elements in a triumphalistic understanding of the Spirit’s empowering. Menzies also argues that “staying power” under opposition and hardship is the indisputable focus of the Spirit’s work in the Lukan narrative.71 The “staying power” is shaped by the context of suffering and persecution in which the Early Church flourished. Hence, Menzies insists that “staying power” serves as a constant reminder of the reality of opposition and suffering on the one hand, and of our vulnerability and weakness on the other. Focusing on “staying power” as divine empowering keeps power evangelism in perspective and balance and helps avoid the danger of triumphalism.72 I suggest that it also keeps an inordinate sense of urgency in check. This will mitigate the “control” tendency so that evangelism will be carried out as a concern for others qua
69 Ibid., p. 141. 70 W.W. Menzies and R.P. Menzies, Spirit and Power (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), p. 153. Robert Menzies adds, “Other dimensions of God’s enabling stressed by Luke include the ability to bear witness with special power and effectiveness, charismatic insight, and a special awareness of and sensitivity to God’s redemptive plan’ (p. 158). Though I agree with Menzies’s argument, his clean dichotomy of Lukan and Pauline perspectives is not as convincing. In fact, Paul’s ministry embodies bold verbal witness and staying power (Spirit’s empowerment) in the face of opposition and hardship (cf. 2 Cor. 12:9–10). Triumphalism is certainly an un-Pauline concept – it is rather Wagner and the Third Wavers’ selective interpretation and appropriation of Pauline theology. See Gordon Fee’s articulate exposition on this in God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994). 71 Menzies and Menzies, p. 153. 72 Ibid., pp. 153–4. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 93 others and not, in Newbigin’s words, as a “unilateral initiative”.73 George Lindbeck observes that the New Testament attitude towards evangelism is “a mixture of urgency and relaxation”.74 Thus, to be a faithful witness requires a healthy sense of urgency and relaxation. This attitude is particularly prominent in the apostle Paul, based on his understanding of mission. At the heart of Paul’s theology of mission is not the question of the eternal destiny of the unsaved, but the eschatological event – the gathering-in of the full number of the Gentiles and the salvation of all Israel (Romans 9–11). Newbigin explains:
In Romans 9–11 where Paul gives his most fully developed theology of mission, and here the center of the picture is the eschatological event in which the fullness of the Gentiles will have been gathered in and all Israel will be saved. This is in spite of the fact that the vast majority of Jews have rejected the gospel … Paul is not thinking in terms of the individual but in terms of the interpretation of universal history. The center of the picture is the eschatological event in which the fathomless depths of God’s wisdom and grace will be revealed … Until that day, we are all on the way. There is no room either for anxiety about our failure or for boasting about our success. There is room only for faithful witness to the one in whom the whole purpose of God for cosmic history has been revealed and effected, the crucified, risen, and regnant Christ.75 (italics, mine)
Acts of Kindness
LoveSingapore’s attempt to be God’s bridge of blessings to the nation and beyond is worthy of affirmation. Reports of positive receptivity of the various targeted communities testify to its “success” as God’s bridge of blessings. Yet even this practice does not escape cultural seduction.
Ambiguity: Disinterested generosity or manipulation? In fairness, the motivation behind community penetration is compassion. However, upon scrutiny, its ostensible “no strings attached” policy becomes highly ambiguous when expressions of compassion and kindness are used as an “entry gateway” into the community. When compassion and kindness are instrumentalised, the goal (entry gateway) eclipses the person (the other who is in need). The person becomes a means to an end, rather than an end in herself. Its noble intention is entrapped by cultural seduction – a form of market “exploitation” and materialism. Timothy Radcliffe captures this astutely in his writing: “All human societies have markets, the buying and the selling and exchange of goods … It is the fundamental model that dominates and forms our conception of society, of politics and even of each other. Everything is for sale … This culture of consumerism threatens to engulf the whole world, and it claims to do so in the name of freedom, but it locks us in a world where nothing is free.”76 Consequently, this ambiguity (“no
73 Newbigin, p. 119. 74 George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984), p. 58. In fact the best antidote to an inordinate sense of urgency is joy and doxology. See Newbigin, Chapter 10. 75 Newbigin, p. 125. 76 Radcliffe, pp. 46–7. 94 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century strings attached” and “entry gateway” into community) reduces kindness into a form of “manipulation” that is benign, but nonetheless a manipulation. Manipulative relationship compromises the Christian witness, as it is a form of control. The danger of not attending to this inherent ambiguity is that the practice risks becoming dislocated from the character, grace and purposes of God, degenerating into a manipulative control of marketing strategy to obligate the recipients rather than a true expression of divine generosity and kindness. In turn, manipulative control objectifies and disempowers the other whom it seeks to help and thus destroys mutuality. Domestication of the other is an intrinsic danger within such a practice of generosity; it is a form of tyranny and violence. John MacMurray writes against this form of tyranny, “It destroys the mutuality of the personal by destroying the equality which is its negative aspect. To maintain equality of persons in relation is justice; and without it generosity becomes purely sentimental and wholly egocentric.”77 A manipulative tendency is also evident when the value of blessing the community is computed on a monetarised calculation, i.e., expensive gifts are more effective for value impact. Such computation demeans the meaning of gift and kindness.78 This reflects the endemic spirit of consumerism in contemporary society, rather than a Christian value system. Again, this practice raises questions. Does this not reinforce the materialism that is so prevalent in many cultures, and also undermine its own practice of identificational prayer that repents of materialism? Is that practice of generosity a virtue of the Spirit, a new spirit in contrast to a technique, a spirit of the marketplace? The apostle Paul highlights the danger of self-deception in good works in 1 Cor. 13:3. Self-deception is all too easy to fall into. This should alert LoveSingapore to the importance of acts of kindness needing also to be subject to self-critique. Disinterested generosity is more than performing projects in love; it cannot be abstracted from the context of relationships. An attitude of responsive receptivity becomes critical even in the Christian practices of good deeds. b. Cultural idolatry Inherent ambiguity in its practice of generosity leads easily into cultural captivity. LoveSingapore’s accommodation of culture is exposed when the Church enters the community presuming to have the “power” and “solution” to its needs. This style is paradigmatically reminiscent more of Singapore’s political paternalism and vision, than of God’s kind of generosity. Fundamental to Singapore’s beneficent political paternalism is that the citizens’ needs or problems are, to borrow Strawson’s words, “managed or handled or cured or trained”.79 Singaporean political beneficence is more akin to a technique of control. Control will eventually undermine works of kindness, transmuting them into unkindness as the needy are objectified
77 J. MacMurray, Persons in Relation (London and New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), pp. 189–90. Cited in Brummer, p. 161. 78 A pastor who is involved in community blessing commented that one must earn the right to speak. He believes that penetrating the community is a costly venture, in that gifts must not be tokens. He reports, “Giving quality gifts costs big money but makes a big impact.” See Dare to Believe, p. 59. 79 P.F. Strawson, Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays (London: Methuen and Co, 1974), p. 9. Cited in Brummer, 158. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 95 into a charity project to be “worked” upon, problems to be fixed, lost to be won. This reflects a Singapore obsession with methodology and effectiveness. Methodology and instrumentality are correlates. It is this apparent obsession with effectiveness, searching for the ultimate methodology via techniques that supposedly release revival power, that betrays the movement’s “intoxication with modernity”. “Modernity is foundational for the character and identity of both Americans and American Evangelicals [who] … have features of modernity that are constitutive of their very character and identity … a reliance on technique in the case of Evangelicalism.”80 Techniques of control even in beneficence leave little room for mutuality or reciprocity. Beneficent “tyranny” is destructive in its objectification of the other, which ultimately failed to be “a moment of religious fulfilment of imitatio dei.”81 LoveSingapore’s emphasis on servant-leadership and being a servant to the nation(s) is indeed on the right track. But how does this work operationally? Power is once again the issue here. As discussed above, what is wrong is not power itself, but the kind of power it privileges – unilateral or relational. Cowan and Lee’s critique of America’s practice of unilateral power serves well here: “One kind of power, the kind most celebrated in dominant U.S. culture, is unilateral. Effects move in one direction. The more a person can have influence while remaining free of influence, the greater the power. Having effects is power in the unilateral model.”82 The alternative to unilateral power is relational power, “power as the capacity to receive effects as well as to have effects.”83 Relational power defines servant-leadership. At core, it is anti- instrumentalist. Robert Greenleaf suggests that the best test of servant-leadership lies in responding to two questions: do “those being served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect [of one’s leadership] on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, not be further deprived.”84 Stated differently, it is “reciprocal empowering for growth towards the Kingdom.”85 Also implied in the concept of servant-leadership is a posture of vulnerability (risk and potential of suffering), without which generosity degenerates into a tyranny rather than a free gift of love, a sharing of life. True generosity is a vulnerable and risk-filled lifestyle. Certainly, seeking the shalom and welfare of the nation is a worthy effort. But what does it mean to seek the shalom and welfare of the nation? What is entailed?
80 Lim, p. 150. 81 M. Gopin, Between Eden and Armageddon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 155–6. 82 M.A. Cowan and B.J. Lee, SM,, Conversation, Risk & Conversion (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997), p. 33. 83 Ibid. 84 R. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness (New York: Paulist Press, 1977), pp. 13–14. Cited in R. Heuser and B.D. Klaus, ‘Charismatic Leadership Theory: A Shadow Side Confessed’, Pneuma, 20:2 (Fall 1998): 161. 85 R. Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 286. 96 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Biblically,
shalom is the peace which emerges when human beings are in right relationships with themselves, their neighbours, the earth and all its creatures, and God … right relationship has two characteristics: justice and mercy. Right relationship means the proper balance of justice and mercy called for by the real social circumstances within which we find ourselves in our time and place.86
Jeremiah 29:4–7, in particular, verse 7 – “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” – is significant for this deliberation. The prophet Jeremiah voices a startling claim that the shalom of those in exile and the shalom of the ones who dominate them are inextricably linked. Jeremiah’s pronouncement must have been an auditory aggravation to the exiles. Jeremiah’s words declare a vision that is antithetical to empirical reality. Human partisan vision can only discern divisions, whereas God envisions a world without tribal hatreds, a world without strangers; “Imagine the surprise of a vanquished, grieving, angry community on hearing that they must seek a world of justice and mercy on behalf of the very ones who have inflicted such disruption and torment upon them, that upon the peace of ‘their’ city, hangs the peace of God’s vanquished people.”87 Shalom is demanding and contradictory to human nature. It becomes apparent that seeking the shalom and welfare of the nation amounts to more than social good deeds. It inevitably entails entering the troubling arena of “public life, that is, into the places where racism, sexism, and political and economic injustice are perpetrated and must be confronted.”88 To live out God’s eschatological shalom means not to wait “passively for the end of the world but actively anticipating what the human world looks like when its relationships are being shaped by the reforming Spirit of God.”89 Will LoveSingapore be able to live up to this calling in a highly controlled political ecology like Singapore? How can this biblical idea of shalom be contextualised in a multicultural and multi-faith context of Singapore? Will its commitment to shalom and the welfare of the nation become a site, an occasion of epiphany? Finally, does LoveSingapore dare to live radically in the logic of outrageous generosity and shalom by funding the rebuilding of mosques in Indonesia that Christians in retaliation burned down? It might be that following through the logic of outrageous generosity and shalom will nurture hope for God’s promised future. Will the Antioch of Asia take up this challenge? Does LoveSingapore love enough?
86 Cowan and Lee, pp. 120–21. 87 Ibid. See also Gopin’s discussion of shalom from classical Jewish sources in Between Eden and Armageddon, for a insightful treatment on peacemaking (pp. 66, 75, 77–8, 137, 177–9, 182). 88 Cowan and Lee, p. 122. 89 Shriver, p. 36. Interrogating Pentecostalism: A Biblical Challenge to LoveSingapore 97 Summary
The above diagnosis is not meant to devalue the practices, but to be alert to the inherent ambiguities and problems of the practices that could become dislocated from the Spirit of God. It also shows the inability of present rhetoric ultimately to sustain these practices, no matter how inspiring. Perhaps, for short-term activities, inspiring and highly motivational rhetoric suffices. However, for the long haul, demanding and costly discipleship requires more than inspiring rhetoric. In sum, I affirm LoveSingapore’s attempt at contextualising the Gospel. This is clearly seen in the way it rallies the Christian community with goals and practices that resonate deeply with Singaporeans. Both LoveSingapore and the Singapore government’s commitment to pursue reconciliation as a way of peaceful coexistence are commendable. Certainly, their fundamental urge for reconciliation is absolutely right and especially needed in a region that is potentially volatile given recent global and local events. I have already noted in an earlier chapter that the Singapore political style of racial and religious harmony is effected by top–down social engineering. Though such top–down social engineering has been remarkably successful in the past, the current global events and the ripples they caused in the very fabric of Singapore society indicate a need to go beyond this kind of engineering. Several nasty racial episodes of suspicion and exclusion were reported in The Straits Times. Though these episodes are isolated cases, questions of identity, difference, loyalty and belongingness are raised afresh by Singaporeans. However, from the discussion of the problems inherent in the practice itself, it becomes apparent that a better theology of reconciliation is much needed if its practice is to be sustainable. A theology of reconciliation is needed that is capable of factoring in the complexities and richness of hope and that avoids a one-sided assimilation to the Singapore culture. Its attempt to contextualise deeply the Gospel, which is the right direction, has, however, neglected what is essential, a biblical critique of Singapore culture. Without this objective cultural critique, one becomes captive to one’s culture. When this happens, contextualisation can easily slide into cultural assimilation; the Gospel ceases to be transformative and the Church loses its prophetic speech. Clearly, the diagnosis of its problems indicates that a better biblical theology is required to undergird its practices and contextualisation. The prophetic mantle requires prophetic imagination and passion that dares question its own assumptions and agenda. All the problems revolve around this fundamental question: “Who or What is God like and how does God relate to the world?” A related question is, “What and how are believers to participate in God and His work?” Thus, the fundamental issues are the who and how; in other words, person and power issues. A biblical hermeneutic of person and power becomes critical to shaping the strategic practices. A sustained reflection on person and power must focus on the life of Jesus, “a life without the deceptions and self-protections that mark most of our lives. This is a life that empowers us to reconstitute ourselves in opposition to all stories that seek the maintenance of power at all costs. This new sense of identity enables us 98 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century to reinterpret ourselves as persons who exist in the world without the violence that constitutes the primal scar of our self-incurvature.”90 This alternative way that I am suggesting in the next chapter is a pneumatic approach, a re-reading of the theology of the Spirit in Pentecostalism. Pneumatology is the key to Pentecostalism’s accounting of God.91 I shall argue that this pneumatic approach provides a more adequate and dynamic theological framework. It is in and through the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of the eschaton and revelation – that we come to understand more adequately the reality of the triune God in Christ and His relation to the world, and the meaning and role of Christian identity and witness.
90 J.C. Pugh, The Matrix of Faith: Reclaiming a Christian Vision (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001), pp. 116–17. 91 R. Del Colle, ‘Postmodernism and the Pentecostal–Charismatic Experience’, JPT, 17 (2000): 107. Chapter 5 An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism
Introduction
The interrogation in Chapter 4 shows that two fundamental problems with LoveSingapore’s strategic practices revolved around the questions of the “who” and “how”, i.e., the person and power issues. The diagnosis indicates that LoveSingapore’s potential for good – as the peaceful harbinger of plurality – is vulnerable and corruptible. The framework of its strategic practices is entrapped within instrumental logic, which erodes the dynamism and creativity of its intent and passion, its prophetic voice and mission. Quite possibly, this entrapment is unconscious and undiscerning rather than a conscious, intentional move: the outcome of the conjunction of the lack of sustained theological reflection and the cultural intoxication with efficacy and methodology. As a result of this unwitting entrapment, the creative and transformative power of the deep symbols1 of love, unity, shalom, the Kingdom of God and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, to name a few, have been atrophied, affecting its mediation of God. Though LoveSingapore’s practices have been found vulnerable to corruption in this interrogation, yet for Pentecostalism as a whole to be the peaceful harbinger of plurality is not beyond promise and hope. Early Pentecostals possessed an implicit, not explicit, theology of the Spirit. The vitality of Pentecostalism lies in its lively orality, its narratives of God at work. Pentecostalism is better gifted at narrating than theologising.2 However, this does not mean a complete absence of
1 I am borrowing Farley’s concept of deep symbols – or god-terms. He terms deep symbol as language of reality and reality orientation. Deep symbols are words of power that shape the values of a society and guide the life of faith, morality and action. As words of power, they are themselves subject to powerful forces of discreditation and even disenchantment. See E. Farley, Deep Symbols: Their Postmodern Effacement and Reclamation (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996). 2 S.J. Land points out that the reason for the overwhelmingly oral nature of Pentecostalism is it grew out of and centred in revivalistic, participatory, populist-oriented worship. As a result, there were no systematic treatises; that would be a kind of second- order activity removed from the atmosphere of prayer, praise and witness. However, most of the people were literate, and some at Azusa even “highly educated”, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), p. 19. This is more descriptive of Pentecostalism in the past. Today there are many emerging Pentecostal scholars with reputable academic credentials who integrate head and heart, critical theological thinking and scholarly research with Pentecostal experience – the gift of the Spirit. 100 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century theologising; rather, its narrating is a form of tacit theologising. Its basic problem is with “traditioning”.3 Thus, disjunctions exist between early Pentecostalism and contemporary Pentecostalism. As I have pointed out in the previous chapter, pneumatology is key to Pentecostalism’s account of God. I suggest that the promise and hope lie in an alternative way, reconceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism in a way that will better reflect the ideal type of Pentecostalism. This alternative way of conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism involves the biblical, historical and theological. The objective of this present chapter is not merely to retrieve the theology of the Spirit in Scripture and Pentecostal history, but also to reassess and to reconceive the theology of the Spirit for present contextual realities. Secondarily, it is to rehabilitate the strategic practices of LoveSingapore.
The Problem: Sign Misinterpreted
Pentecost is a sign that is frequently misread by both “outsiders” as well as “insiders”, leading either to a cynical or triumphalistic reading of the Pentecostal reality. The general misconception among “outsiders” is that Pentecostalism makes a paradigmatic shift from Christ to the Spirit, from love to power. In part, this misconception stems not only from their phobic attitude to a “christologically uncontrolled charismatic enthusiasm”, i.e., the fixation on the Spirit and power of a large segment of contemporary Pentecostalism, but also from a tendency towards Christomonism subordinating pneumatology to Christology in the process. This Christomonistic tendency is sometimes seen as a legacy of the western tradition on the filioque issue. Hollenweger comments that the filioque debate “restricted the doctrine of the Holy Spirit to the realisation of a Christ-centred theology and the doctrine of salvation. The creator spiritus, the life-giving ruach Yahweh is a perplexing lost entity for the west.”4 Inevitably, a deficient pneumatology and a basic “under-realised” eschatological perspective follow. Often, pneumatology becomes only a matter of creedal affirmation. The confluence of these factors leads to a general experiential eclipse of the Spirit as God’s empowering presence in the life of many non-
See W. Hollenweger’s review of H. Cox, Fire From Heaven (London: Cassell, 1996) in his ‘Fire from Heaven: A Testimony by Harvey Cox’ Pneuma, 20:2 (Fall 1998): 197–204, and Hollenweger, ‘The Critical Tradition of Pentecostalism’, JPT, 1 (1992): 7–17. 3 Often, what is received in the narration is the powerful phenomenology of pneumatic experiences, with a narrow understanding of Spirit-baptism. Specifically, in its official documents, Spirit-baptism is reduced to empowerment for life and service (emphatically mission). 4 Hollenweger, ‘All Creatures Great and Small’, in David Martin and Peter Mullen (eds), Strange Gifts?: A Guide to Charismatic Renewal (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), p. 44. Though issues of pneumatology are central to Pentecostal self-understanding and theological developments, the classical filioque debates have not been the concern of its tradition (see Jeffrey Gros, ‘Toward a Dialogue of Conversion: The Pentecostal, Evangelical and Concilliar Movements’, Pneuma, 17:2, Fall 1995: 197). D.L. Dabney concurs with Hollenweger that the adoption of the filioque contributed to the subordination of pneumatology to Christology, thus missing the breadth of the work of the Spirit. He also notes that often Christology and pneumatology are played off against each other from the Reformation to our day. See Dabney’s ‘Pneumatologia Crucis: Reclaiming Theologia Crucis for A Theology of the Spirit Today’, SJT, 53 (2000): 511–24. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 101 Pentecostal churches. Theologia crucis almost to the exclusion of theologia gloriae seems to define their fundamental theological perspective. In contrast to the outsider’s eclipse of the Spirit, the insider’s misreading leads often to a chaotic emphasis on the Spirit. Though its rhetoric affirms the centrality of Christ, regularly in practice the focus leans emphatically on the Spirit, and almost exclusively on power demonstrations, displaying a “Corinthian-like” tendency, an enthusiasm of the Spirit.5 To an extent, this is due to a collocation of a simplistic and phenomenological reading of Pentecost and power, captivity to efficacy and methodology, and an “over- realised” eschatological perspective. The logic of power makes theologia gloriae definitive. Consequently, excesses (some tragic) and triumphalism habitually mark its faith and practice.6 This not only invites aversion from non-Pentecostals, it also fails to do justice to the heritage of early Pentecostalism, and especially to the polyphonic nature of the Pentecost event in the biblical narrative. However, the alleged paradigm shift from Christ to Spirit or from love to power is unthinkable for early Pentecostalism. Its experience of the Spirit tells a different and richer story. Christ is the consuming passion of early Pentecostals’ experience of Spirit-baptism: “It is Christ who lies at the heart of Pentecostals’ experience although the power by which He is known is that of the Spirit.”7 Similarly, Yong remarks, “… the Spirit is the relational medium that makes possible the incarnational and paschal mysteries.”8 Furthermore, Pentecostalism’s eschatological insight is more complex than its rhetoric. Land points out,
The eschatological shift is not a shift away from Christ to the Spirit, from love to power, or from gradual to instantaneous change of persons and society. These realities are more fused together than split apart or even prioritised. It is an infusion – because of the Spirit’s effusion – of apocalyptic vision and power which alters the way in which Christ, church, the Christian life and change are seen.9
Nonetheless, the overemphasis on the Spirit and power within contemporary Pentecostalism is an index of the inadequacy of its “traditioning” practice.
Ideological Reductions
Both the outsiders’ and the insiders’ misreading are forms of reductionism. Any forms of doctrinal reductionism “involve a submission of the mystery of Christ to a merely human logic that eliminates its infinite ineffability in favour of easily
5 See S. Chan, Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 9 ; also Pneuma, especially 13:1 (1991) articles addressing similar issues. 6 Peter Hocken in his The Glory and the Shame (Guildford, Surrey: Eagle, 1994) makes a fair and insightful reflection on Pentecostalism. 7 M.S.H. Clark and I. Lederle et al (eds), What is Distinctive about Pentecostal Theology? (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1989), p. 44. 8 A. Yong, Spirit–Word–Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2002), p. 30. 9 Land, p. 63. 102 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century grasped simplicities.”10 Such reductionism causes both outsiders and insiders to miss the “much more” dimensions of the Spirit and the Spirit’s activity in their respective pneumatologies. Conversion to God’s immeasurable more is essential to avoiding an impoverished pneumatology on both sides. This entails overcoming Christ–Spirit, intimacy–power dichotomies. I suggest the pneumatological approach, which is thoroughly Trinitarian, as a means of overcoming the dichotomies. Pneumatology is critical to a fuller understanding of God and participation in God. Yong and Mark A. McIntosh both posit this thesis in different words. Yong asserts, “Pneumatology is central to a robust Trinitarian vision of God.”11 McIntosh regards pneumatology as the matrix for Trinitarian thought.12 Primarily, the crux of inadequate pneumatologies has to do with the interconnection between the passion of Christ and power of the Spirit. If Pentecostalism hopes to read the Spirit and his activity well, it is critical to reconceive this sign. Rightly discerning the Spirit is a distinctive Pentecostal emphasis. However, to be able to interpret the Spirit and with the Spirit requires Christians not only to become and learn from people of the Spirit, but also to become practised at testifying about what God is doing in the lives of others (italics, mine).13 It demands, Fowl argues, patience, or what Luke Johnson calls, “the asceticism of attentiveness”.14 But in contemporary Pentecostalism, nurtured in a culture addicted to technological efficacy and instantaneous quick-fix, such “asceticism of attentiveness” has no currency. Understandably then, the ability to interpret the Spirit and with the Spirit suffers. Without such attentiveness, it is easy to confuse partiality with fullness, as St Augustine astutely discerned:
… but by the apostasy of pride which is called the beginning of sin it strives to grab something more than the whole and to govern it by its own laws; and because there is nothing more than the whole it is thrust back into anxiety over a part, and so by being greedy for more it gets less.15
Practising an “asceticism of attentiveness” is indispensable for a fuller and richer understanding of the Spirit and His activity.
Scriptures: A Critical Dialogue with Empirical Pentecostalism16
The fundamental fragility in the empirical Pentecostal conception of the Spirit lies in its inability to connect adequately the inextricable relationship between the
10 Hocken, p. 189. 11 Yong (2002), p. 49. 12 M.A. McIntosh, Mystical Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 155–6. 13 S.E. Fowl, Engaging Scripture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), p. 116. He argues this in his interpretation of Acts 11 and 15. See also S.J. Grenz, ‘Culture and Spirit’, ATJ, 55:2 (2000): 37–51. 14 Fowl, pp. 118–19. 15 McIntosh, ‘Ecclesiology and Spirituality: The Church as Noetic Subject’, paper presented at the Society for the Study of Theology Conference 2001, ‘Theology and Spirituality’ (2 to 5 April), p. 6. 16 This critical dialogue includes LoveSingapore as well, since I have already established the link between LoveSingapore and Pentecostalism. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 103 empowering work of the Spirit and the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Calvary and Pentecost are regarded as two successive stages of God’s activity. Smail makes this perceptive observation:
Pentecostal reception of the Spirit is seen as in some sense the goal and end of the whole Christian enterprise. The work of Christ is indeed a necessary and indispensable preparation for it, we shall not get there without Jesus and the cross; but to enter into Pentecost is to pass beyond the cross into a new supernatural world in which centre stage is held not by the incarnate, crucified and risen Lord, but by the Spirit and the dramatic manifestations of his triumphant power.17
It is not that Pentecostalism denies the centrality of the Christ event; conversely, this is its explicit teaching. The problem lies in bifurcating the events of the cross and Pentecost into the “pardon department” and the “power department”. The attending danger with such compartmentalisation is the privileging of the experiential (power of the Spirit), and often the experiential becomes disconnected from the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Herein is the fragility inherent in the promise of Pentecostalism/LoveSingapore – a facile alternative of the either/or, theologia crucis or theologia gloriae. However, this dangerous bifurcation is neither inevitable nor incorrigible. As Macchia highlights, a consistent Pentecostal theology of the Spirit’s empowerment is not viewed as a journey away from the cross or a “journey ‘beyond’ the figure of Christ”; rather, it is an intensification of an involvement of the “prophetic ministry of Jesus for all creation” (italics, mine).18 Passion and Pentecost are not antithetical realities. Pentecost is not about the Spirit’s independent agency and autonomous freedom to operate in isolation from the other Persons of the Trinity. Rather, Pentecost reveals how intricately interconnected both they and the events are. Instead of a sequence of disconnected events, the cross and Pentecost are in fact deeply interwoven, as narrated in Luke, John and Paul’s writings. The intent of the following section is a listening to the Johannine, Lukan and Pauline testimonies of the Spirit, not a thorough exegesis of these biblical texts. It is to bring these biblical witnesses into a critical dialogue with Pentecostalism. These texts singly and together provide a fuller understanding of pneumatology that is crucial for reconceiving the Spirit within Pentecostalism. Though Luke–Acts is definitive for Pentecostalism’s understanding and appropriation of the Spirit,19 John, however, provides the most extensive commentary on the Spirit. I shall begin with the Johannine farewell discourse.
17 T. Smail, ‘The Cross and the Spirit: Towards a Theology of Renewal’, in Smail, A. Walker and N. Wright (eds), Charismatic Renewal: The Search for a Theology (London: SPCK, 1993), p. 55. 18 F.D. Macchia, ‘The Struggle for Global Witness: Shifting Paradigms in Pentecostal Theology’, in M.W. Dempster, B.D. Klaus and D. Petersen (eds), The Globalization of Pentecostalism: A Religion Made to Travel (Oxford: Regnum, 1999), pp. 15–16. 19 The Spirit occupies a prominent place in Lukan narratives – there are 17 references to the Holy Spirit in his Gospel, “mostly in relation to the Spirit’s ministry with Christ during his earthly ministry.” Of the synoptic gospels, Luke has the most references to the Spirit, with six references in Mark and 12 in Matthew (cf. L.D. Pettegrew, The New Covenant Ministry of the Holy Spirit: A Study in Continuity and Discontinuity (London: University Press of America, 1993), p. 48. 104 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Spirit in Johannine Farewell Discourse
Jesus’ farewell discourse in John 13–17 provides the most extensive account of the role of the Spirit in the New Testament.20 Words like “more”, “much” and “greater” in the farewell discourse exude a sense of overflowing abundance. This overflowing of God’s immeasurable “more” is closely linked to the coming of the Spirit. The central thrust of the discourse is to enable the disciples to continue in faithful and fruitful discipleship after Jesus’ “departure”, i.e., his death, resurrection and ascension (14:18) through the overflowing abundance that the Spirit brings. Thus, the ascension of Jesus is not bereavement, but a superabundance of continuing presence, speech, guidance and power. a. The Spirit and relationality “Pneumatological relationality”, to borrow Yong’s terms, is central to the Johannine discourse. The entire farewell discourse is framed within the context of perichoretic relationships of love, the new commandment to love one another as Jesus has loved them (13:34). Language of intimacy marks the discourse: “abides with you and he will be in you” (14:17); “I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you” (14:20); “those who love me … my Father will love them … make our home with them” (14:23); “abide in my love” (15:9). Clearly, John’s metaphor for this relational intimacy is “indwelling”. Indwelling relationships of love, i.e., “abiding in the true vine” (15:1–11) are pivotal in John’s Gospel because they are central to the triune God. The Spirit in John’s Gospel is the Spirit of fellowship. This indwelling of the Spirit of fellowship in the disciples is parallel to the divine indwelling of the Son and the Father recorded in the Prologue to John’s Gospel. Moreover, the indwelling of the eschatological Spirit also signals that the ascension of Jesus does not leave the world bereft, aware of a divine void or absence (14:17–18); on the contrary, it is enlivened with a permanent presence of rich creativity. Welker describes it as “the concentrated presence of Christ … grasped in diverse structural patterns of life and experience.”21 The coming of the Spirit makes this indwelling intimacy an experiential possibility. What the Spirit does is to cause believers to know God by intimate encounter. The deep intimacy that Jesus speaks of in 14:20 is “an image of abiding, of knowing union. It is where the Spirit of Christ comes to us, and lives with us and fills us with God’s love. But we each retain our own personality. God does not invade us; God does not negate us. Instead we receive God’s Spirit in our spirit and cooperate with our creator in the way we live.”22 All these point to relationality as the primary work of the sovereign freedom of the Spirit of fellowship.23 For John, eternal life is the radical orientation to this telos. Thus, the fundamental coming of the Spirit is to capacitate the believers for this “homecoming”, this telos. Jesus’ gift of the promised
20 Fowl, p. 99. 21 M. Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), p. 222. 22 E. Storkey, The Search for Intimacy (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995), p. 4. Cited by M.J. Cartledge, Charismatic Glossolalia: An Empirical–Theological Study (Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2002), p. 191. 23 I have already argued this point in Chapter 3, on Pentecost in Acts of the Apostles. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 105 Spirit to the disciples opens up a radically profound way of being and relationships both individually and in community. b. The Spirit as guide into all truth The necessity of Jesus’ going away and the Spirit’s coming is made clear in 16:5–15. Through the Spirit–Paraclete, not only the person of ascended Jesus but also “Jesus’ words become and ‘remain’ present.”24 This means that an ongoing revelation or the continuing “presence” of divine speech is an actuality made real by the coming of the Spirit, since He will communicate the “much more” that Jesus mentions. As the divine intimate indweller of both God and Christ, the Spirit–Paraclete (14:16, 17, 26) is the Witness–Revealer par excellence. Hence, the Spirit is the competent exegete of God’s will and Christ’s teachings (14: 26; 15: 26; 16:13f.) to the believers. What the Spirit will disclose are the truth and assertions of Jesus: “But when he, the Spirit of truth comes … guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; … speak only what he hears … tell you what is yet to come … bring glory to me by taking what is mine and making it known to you” (16:13–14). In short, it is to witness to “God’s self-revelation inaugurated in Jesus.”25 In John, truth has to do more with the relational than the propositional. Clearly, Spirit-disclosed revelations are not some independent esoteric knowledge dislocated from God’s salvific purposes in history. Moreover, the teaching function of the Spirit is not mere regurgitation, as Land avers: “It is not the role of the Spirit only to repeat Scripture.”26 Rather, it has to do with discernment and interpretation. Dunn writes, “… the teaching function of the Spirit for John is not limited to recalling the ipsissima verba of the historical Jesus. But neither does the inspiring Spirit create wholly new revelation or portray a Jesus who is not in substantial continuity with the once incarnate Jesus. Here is both freedom and control – liberty to reinterpret and remould the original kerygma, but also the original kerygma remains as a check and restraint.”27 In the Spirit, to borrow Cartledge’s terms, “consistency and innovation” conjoin. Disclosing also involves reminding and enabling the believers to understand the person and words of Jesus in the light of his death and resurrection. Teaching and bringing to remembrance are not a mechanical exercise of repetition and recall, but rather a Spirit-capacitated connecting and understanding of what Jesus has said and done in the past from the perspective of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Fowl argues, “Simply repeating the words of the past will not be sufficient to carry on as faithful followers of Jesus … The past does not simply exist as an uninterpreted sense data. The past is always a particular sort of remembering.”28 This is clearly manifest in the speeches in Acts. Cartledge writes, “Both consistency and innovation are present within the idea of reminding … The reflection by the apostles upon the
24 Welker, p. 223. 25 G. D’Costa (ed.), Resurrection Reconsidered (Oxford: One World, 1996), p. 153. 26 Land, p. 118. 27 J.D.G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (London: SCM, 1975), p. 352. Cited in Fowl, p. 99, footnote 2. 28 Fowl, p. 101. 106 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century story of the people of Israel and the teaching of Jesus suggest a new twist in the story of the people of God (Acts 2: 14–41; 4: 8–12; 7: 1–53).”29 The Spirit opens believers to “the imagination of Jesus … [to an] inherently relational, communal pattern of knowing – first, because sociality is the sign of a divine reality that simply cannot be privately possessed, and, second, because this knowing- as-communion among human beings is the sign of a knowing that participates truly in the communion that Jesus shares with the Father in the Holy Spirit.”30 Fowl suggests, “Because the Spirit speaks this ‘more’ in unison with the Father and the Son, believers can act in ways that are both ‘new’ and in continuity with the will of God.”31 The coming of the Spirit brings about an experiential knowledge of God in the believers that “generates a fresh vision of the Kingdom of God, a vision that incorporates an ethic that is consistent with an epistemology which joins knowing and loving.”32 Spirit-capacitated understanding of the Christ event is not purely a matter of cognition but also “cruciformity”, a way of living in conformity to Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Such Spirit-disclosure also produces what Craig Dykstra terms “imaginal insight”33 in the believers. Raymond E. Brown writes that the disclosing by the Spirit is “more than a deeper intellectual understanding of what Jesus has said – it involves a way of life in conformity with Jesus’ teaching.”34 Similarly, Yong expresses, “Truth is the power that sets free … As seen in the gospel narratives, truth is a way of life, Jesus’ way of life, to be exact.”35 Thus, knowing, understanding and living are interconnected. Oliver Davies describes the Spirit: “The Spirit is indeed like the breath that forms another’s voice, which Jesus breathes upon his disciples. By virtue of its indwelling in the other Persons of the Trinity on the one hand and in the church on the other, the Spirit represents the integration of human life into the fullness of the divine life, and the kinds of speaking of and to God which it prompts are the mark of our participation in the Sonship of Christ and our sharing in the divine speech.”36
29 Cartledge, p. 20. He continues, “No doubt these interpretations of Scripture in the light of Pentecostal experiences seemed highly innovative to some, and it is perhaps not too speculative to suggest that they arose as the Spirit also reminded them of the teaching of Jesus about his ministry and mission. From our vantage point, centuries later, the Spirit can still remind us of what Jesus has said in a secondary sense, through the passages of the New Testament reflected upon over time. Such reminders may well lead to innovative action for the sake of the gospel” (pp. 20–21). 30 McIntosh, ‘Ecclesiology and Spirituality’. 31 Fowl, p. 101. 32 J.D. Johns and C. Bridges Johns, ‘Yielding to the Spirit: A Pentecostal Approach to Group Bible Study’, JPT, 1 (1992): 123. 33 C. Dykstra, Vision and Character (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), p. 87. Dykstra defines imaginal transformation as moral growth through those “events that give our lives their particular shape and quality, and out of which our responses to life often seem to flow”. In these experiences “the deepest patterns of the nature of reality and existence, and our relationship to them, are revealed, and our own essential convictions are rooted in them”, (pp. 87–8). Cited by Johns and Johns, p. 134. 34 R.E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), p. 715. 35 Yong (2002), pp. 285–6. 36 O. Davies, A Theology of Compassion (London: SCM, 2001), p. 208. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 107 c. The Spirit as enabler Spirit-capacitated participation in the life of the triune God is polyphonic. It involves not just indwelling divine presence, but also continuing the divine mission begun by Jesus. The enabling operation of the Spirit is two- directional: witness and edification. Unlike the intermittent presence and activity of the Spirit in the OT, the coming of the outpoured Spirit–Paraclete will rest upon and indwell the disciples permanently (14:16f.). The sending of the Spirit–Paraclete to the disciples is for them to continue his work, even “greater works” (14:12), “so that the reality of God’s presence in the world is committed to a faithful community, whose witness to God’s action is not a past event, but a constant repetition, although a non-identical repetition, of this new life, this saving transformation.”37 In the same vein, Brown comments, “The Johannine notion of true witness goes beyond an eye- witness report … it includes the adaptation of what happened so that its truth can be seen by and be significant for subsequent generations.”38 According to Brodie, “the traditional (and apparently correct) interpretation of this is that the basic work of Jesus, his mission to the world, finds its ‘greater’ expression in the period after his own ministry … through the believers, his word is really brought to the ends of the earth. What is spoken of, therefore, is not just the performing of miracles, though these are included, but the larger work of which miracles were merely signs – the renewal of the world and, indeed, of creation.”39 “Greater works” points unmistakably to the cosmic scope of renewal. However, the cosmic scope is unintelligible without traces of power demonstrations of the Spirit. The Spirit not only enables the disciples in terms of imitation – “non-identical repetition of his transformative love … self-abandonment and participation in his weak, defenceless, forgiving practice of love”;40 the imitation for witness is also in terms of strength or power. It is clear from the biblical witness that the Spirit rests, indwells and anoints Jesus’ ministry while He was on earth. Jesus’ ministry performed not only acts of compassion, but also acts of power evidenced by physical healings, exorcism and miracles, including the raising of Lazarus in the power of the Spirit. The eschatological Spirit brings about abiding intimacy both of love and of power to the disciples. The indwelling of the Spirit of the eschaton invalidates the common dichotomy of love and power; instead, love and power are united in Him. Binary choice between one or the other remains inadequate and does not do justice to the biblical witness and the profound transforming reality and power of the resurrection, which flows “everlastingly, unstintingly, and freely from the one whom he [Jesus] called Abba.”41 In truth, a crucial theological task of Pentecostalism is as Land posits:
37 D’Costa, p. 152. 38 Brown, p. 1129, footnote 1, cited in Paul Fiddes, ‘The Fourth Gospel and Shakespeare’s The Tempest’, in G. Sauter and J. Barton (eds), Revelation and Story: Narrative Theology and the Centrality of Story (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), p. 33. 39 T.L. Brodie, The Gospel According to John (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 465. 40 D’Costa, p. 154. 41 McIntosh (2001), p. 7. 108 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century … to integrate the language of holiness and the language of power … It is a theological and pastoral mistake to dichotomise, confound, or simply to identify love and power … the basic theological challenge and most pressing pastoral need is to show the integration of righteousness, love and power in this apocalyptic movement of spiritual transformation.42 d. The cross and the Spirit The process of participation in divine life is linked to the Spirit’s ongoing disclosing of the teaching and “glory” of Jesus to the disciples. It seems that John regards crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and Pentecost as a single “hour” of glory. In fact, Gunther Bornkamn notes that the specific concept of glory itself in John’s Gospel is anchored to the paradox of the crucifixion: “So Jesus’ death is not merely a passage through to glory but in the proper sense a breakthrough.”43 Bornkamn adds, “What is said about Jesus in these very discourses, Easter, Pentecost and Parousia coalesce.”44 John alludes to the close correlation of the passion of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit throughout his Gospel. The coming of the Spirit is in fact dependent on Jesus’ “going away”, which is “John’s comprehensive term for his death, his rising and his ascension.”45 And the clearest indication of the connection between the cross and the Spirit is made in John’s passion and resurrection narratives (19:30–35; 20:19–23). The power of the resurrection is tied closely to the devastation of the crucifixion. The great paradox is that Jesus’ suffering and death, instead of signalling impoverishment and termination, set in motion an unimaginable power of the eschaton, new creation, and the unceasing overflow of God’s abundance by the resurrection of Jesus. D’Costa puts it succinctly: “the resurrection is the disturbing gift of the Spirit.”46 Jesus’ resurrection appearance to his disciples behind locked doors displaying his wounds and breathing his Spirit upon them reveals “the risen Christ is the crucified Christ – indicating that the marks of his sufferings are the very stuff out of which his risen glory is fashioned.”47 Jesus’ voluntary self-surrender – his life, death, resurrection and ascension – defines the shape of real power and is paradigmatic of the way of God’s power. In other words, theologia crucis is the criterion for critiquing all power. The power of the Spirit is the power of Calvary with all its attending implications for the Christian faith and practice. There is no theologia gloriae without theologia crucis. In fact, for John, the way of the cross and the way of the Spirit are identical. Smail declares, “There are not two circles, one with the cross at its centre and another with the Spirit at its centre. It is to him that the Father has given the Spirit, and it is by him that the Spirit is given to his people, as the Spirit of his passion and only so as the Spirit of his power.”48 The Spirit is key in overcoming the false dichotomy of passion and power,
42 Land, p. 23. 43 G. Bornkamn, ‘Towards the Interpretation of John’s Gospel’, in J. Ashton, SJ (ed.), The Interpretation of John, second edition (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), p. 107. 44 Ibid. 45 Smail, p. 58. 46 D’Costa, p. 158. 47 Smail, p. 59. 48 Ibid., p. 60. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 109 and enabling the believer to hold in balance the twin realities of the passion of Christ and the power of the Spirit.
Lukan Narrative – Pentecostal Outpouring
In Lukan theology, the risen Christ is experienced as present in the community pre- eminently through the Spirit. Fee says, “It was the resurrection of Christ and the gift of the promised (eschatological) Spirit that completely altered the primitive church’s perspective, both about Jesus and about themselves.”49 By attending to the Spirit who reveals Jesus and reminds them of his teachings, the early disciples discovered what it is to be. The lavish outpouring of the eschatological Spirit at Pentecost brought about a series of Copernican-like reorientations in the Early Church’s understanding of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, of God’s Kingdom, of both self and its corporate identity, of history, and of otherness. Roger Stronstad argues that by including in Peter’s speech (Acts 2:2–4, 17–21) “… both texts from Isaiah and Joel, respectively, Luke teaches that Jesus is the eschatological Spirit-anointed prophet and that subsequently his disciples become the eschatological community of Spirit-filled prophets.”50 He maintains that the phenomenal signs that accompanied the outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2:2–4) signal “for the second time in the history of his people, God is visiting his people on his holy mountain and mediating a new vocation for them – prophethood rather than royal priesthood.”51 R. Miller argues similarly the prophetic theme, but from the perspective of persecution. He posits that Luke “establishes a ‘persecutional interlock’ that ties together the persecution of Israel’s prophets of old, Jesus and his disciples … the persecuted prophet is a major paradigm in the characterization of the primary figures in Luke–Acts.”52 The Spirit of prophecy and revelation poured out at Pentecost energised the disciples as a prophetic community powerful in works and words, i.e., signs and wonders with prophetic speech, as well as powerful under persecution, capable of laying down their lives in the ultimate sacrifice of martyrdom. By uniting the disciples with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Spirit capacitated them to do both “the more” and “the greater works” spoken of Jesus (John 14:12). Their corporate experienced reality of the Spirit and Spirit- capacitated understanding re-energised their active participation in the redemptive activity of God and joyful anticipation of the coming Kingdom of God. a. Pentecost: Christ, intimacy and glossolalia In the ecstatic “pandemonium” of the event of Pentecost, it is all too easy to assume that Pentecost is only about the
49 G.D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peasbody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1994), p. 803. 50 R. Stronstad, The Prophethood of All Believers: A Study in Luke’s Charismatic Theology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), p. 25. 51 Ibid., p. 59. 52 R.J. Miller, ‘Prophecy and Persecution in Luke–Acts’, unpublished PhD dissertation (Claremont Graduate School, USA, 1986), p. 284. Cited in S. Cunningham, ‘Through Many Tribulations’: The Theology of Persecution in Luke–Acts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), p. 39. 110 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Holy Spirit and power. Countering this assumption, Bishop J.H. King avers that Pentecost is a decisive revelation of the Trinity.53 The dominant role of the Holy Spirit is to make manifest and real the lordship of Christ, the finality of God’s action in Christ. Eric Franklin posits, “Luke sees the inspiration of witness to the lordship of Jesus as the Spirit’s primary function. Because of his use of the ideas of Joel 2 and of his belief that the exalted Jesus possesses and bestows the Spirit as a gift (Acts 2:33), he thinks of it primarily in Old Testament terms.”54 Douglas Farrow echoes this: “Peter’s address … is a sermon on the ascension of the risen Jesus to the throne, that is, to Israel’s throne and the throne of the Presence from which the Spirit goes forth.”55 What makes Peter’s sermon significant is that though the powerful visual–audio–vocal phenomenology of the Spirit’s coming was arresting,56 the focal point of Peter’s sermon was not fundamentally about the Holy Spirit, nor the resurrection event, but God’s deeds of power in Christ. In effect, Peter’s sermon is a Spirit-capacitated “remembering” in line with the promise by Jesus in Jn. 14:26: “the Paraclete … will teach … remind you of everything I have said to you.” Peter’s Spirit-empowered speech was not a mere repetition or recapitulation of historical facts; rather, “the reminding, the re-presentation, is identical with the glorification of Jesus.”57 In brief, the specific focus of the coming of the Spirit is to attest to the truth that Jesus is the “anointed, ascended and crowned” Lord. It becomes clear that the outpouring of the Spirit is not to witness to the Spirit himself, but to Christ who is the focal point of the Christian faith. This fulfils the farewell discourse in John concerning the coming of the Spirit who will testify to and glorify Christ. Like John, Luke portrays relationality as the primary role of the Spirit. In fact, relationality is at the heart of both pneumatology and trinitarian theology. Yong writes, “Pentecost becomes the supreme symbol of the Spirit’s relational power in bridging the gap between God and humanity as a whole.”58 The Spirit’s work is relational and reconciliatory precisely because it is revelatory. This revelatory work of the Spirit at Pentecost makes intimacy with the triune God an existential reality.
53 King is of the Pentecostal Holiness Church. Cited in Land, p. 199. 54 E. Franklin, Christ The Lord: A Study in the Purpose and Theology of Luke–Acts (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), pp. 33–4. Jesus’ ascension is critical to Franklin’s understanding of Lukan theology. Franklin believes that the ascension is more significant than the event of the resurrection in the Lukan schema. He writes, “Without it, even with the resurrection – at least as Luke describes it – he would not have been other than one of the prophets. Only with the ascension could that Old Testament figure be really worshipped as Lord” (p. 35). 55 D. Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999), p. 25. He adds, “Peter’s Pentecost sermon, the theological front piece of Acts, is nothing more nor less than an argument that this goal has finally been reached in the person of Jesus – anointed, ascended and crowned. The point is clinched with the quotation from Psalm 110” (p. 26). Following Franklin, Farrow maintains that the ascension is the pivotal climax to Jesus’ entire ministry. 56 Stronstad comments, “In the light of Israel’s history the meaning of the first two signs, the metaphorical wind and fire, would be self-evident signposts, both to the disciples and to the assembled crowd, that a theophany is happening” (p. 55). 57 Bornkamn, p. 107. 58 Yong (2002), p. 30. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 111 Perhaps this explains the joyful familial intimacy in Pentecostal worship. Intimacy is the reality of God revealed throughout Scripture. “Ultimately, God’s intimate embrace of humanity is demonstrated in the incarnation, life and the passion of Jesus Christ. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost brought the presence of God to his people in an intimate way.”59 Since intimacy requires communication and participation, I would like to suggest that glossolalia is an aspect of Spirit-wrought intimacy. Glossolalia is essentially a response to the inbreaking of divine revelation – “a transrational language of the heart.”60 As language is vital to relational intimacy, it seems quite possible to assume that Luke uses glossolalia as a symbol of intimacy as John uses the metaphor of “indwelling” for intimacy. Chan suggests that glossolalia is a Pentecostal idiolect, “which helps him or her to express the inexpressible in prayer, they become the ‘occasion’ for a new theophany and a new level of intimacy with God.”61 Frank Macchia also regards glossolalia as both a theophanic sign and an indispensable language the closer one draws to the divine mystery of the triune God: “It is a sign of renewed language and relationships which invite, even require, our participation for the breaking in of the Kingdom in the world.”62 Glossolalia is a form of interpersonal participation. Cartledge writes, “Through glossolalia the ‘self’ participates in the Trinitarian life of God.”63 In other words, Spirit-inspired glossolalia allows the believers to engage and experience the unity of the divine life both individually and corporately. Hence glossolalia symbolises not only participatory union with the divine, “it is also a prophetic sign of the ecumenical and spiritual union of the churches.”64 In fact, Yong affirms Macchia’s insistence that “the early missionary and ecumenical vision of tongues should always remain central to the truth of Pentecostal glossolalia.”65 Macchia adds that glossolalia can only be experienced fully when it is experienced in solidarity with others in koinonia. As such, tongues signify the breaking-down of barriers.66 However, Pentecostalism’s (particularly classical Pentecostals’) dogmatisation of glossolalia into evidential tongues often elides the creative relational and reconciling significance of glossolalia. Frank Stagg makes a provocative suggestion in his comment on Luke’s portrayal
59 Cartledge, p. 191. 60 Phrase used by Heidi Baker, ‘Pentecostal Experience: Towards a Reconstructive Theology of Glossolalia’, unpublished PhD dissertation (King’s College, University of London, 1996), p. 218. Cited by Cartledge, p. 194. 61 Chan, Pentecostal Theology, p. 78. 62 Macchia, ‘The Question of Tongues as Initial Evidence: A Review of Initial Evidence, Edited by Gary B. McGee’, JPT, 2 (1993): 126. Cited by Cartledge, p. 197. 63 Cartledge, p. 193. 64 A. Yong, ‘Tongues of Fire in the Pentecostal Imagination: The Truth of Glossolalia in light of R.C. Neville’s Theory of Religious Symbolism’, JPT, 12 (1998): 63. 65 A. Yong, ‘The Truth of Tongues Speech: A Rejoinder to Frank Macchia’, JPT, 13 (1998): 109. Elsewhere, Macchia suggests that glossolalia becomes the basis for contemporary ecumenical dialogue. See ‘The Tongues of Pentecost: A Pentecostal Perspective on the Promise and Challenge of Pentecost/Roman Catholic Dialogue’, JES, 35:1 (1998): 1–18. 66 Macchia, ‘Sighs Too Deep for Words: Towards a Theology of Glossolalia’, JPT, 1 (1993): 66–7, footnote 73. Cited in Cartledge, p. 197. 112 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century of the Spirit in Acts: “There may be significance in the fact that it is in the three chapters in which tongues are mentioned that the gospel breaks through to a new group: Jews, God-fearing Gentiles, and followers of John the Baptist who had not followed Christ.”67 Certainly this significance cannot be discounted. b. Spirit and power It is difficult to read Luke and miss his advocacy of Spirit and power.68 Fee points out that the first-century believers both understood and assumed the Spirit to be manifested in power, so much so that the terms “Spirit” and “power” are sometimes used interchangeably in Luke (1:35; 3:22; 4:1 and 14; 5:17). The whole public ministry of Jesus is to be understood in terms of the Spirit’s activity (Lk. 3:22; 4:1 and 14) and it is without question that Jesus’ healing ministry is performed by the power of the Spirit.69 Similarly, Bosch underscores that in Lukan theology, “The Spirit of mission is also the Spirit of power (Greek: dynamis). This is true of the mission of both Jesus (Lk. 4:14; Acts 10:38) and the apostles (Lk. 24:49; Acts 1:8). The Spirit is thus … the one who empowers to mission.”70 For Luke, the specific promise of empowerment indicates that God’s power is available to human beings through His gift of the eschatological Spirit who will work mightily through them. Pentecost is indeed about the Holy Spirit and power. It is about the Spirit precisely because the Spirit is God’s empowering presence. Pentecost is also truly about power because the Spirit is continuing the reconciling mission of Christ. Significantly, God’s deeds of power (Acts 2:5–11) are the subject of glossolalia at Pentecost. Luke consistently portrays the Spirit as the source of power for service, but not in the way that it is commonly and narrowly “traditioned” in empirical Pentecostalism. The tapestry of power that Luke weaves in his narratives is far more developed and complex. Signs, wonders and miracles that attended the apostles’ proclamation of the Gospel are not the only visual demonstrations of power. Bosch observes that Luke often uses the words parresia, “boldness” and parresiazomai, “to speak boldly” in Acts (cf. 4:13, 29 and 31; 9:27; 13:46; 14:3; 18:26; 19:8), suggesting that the boldness is made possible by the power of the Spirit.71 Beverly Roberts Gaventa argues, “In Acts boldness (parresia) almost always manifests itself in the context of adversity … The juxtaposition of adversity and boldness is not accidental but integral to the entire Book of Acts.”72 It may be assumed then that Luke regards
67 Cited in M.W. Dempster, ‘Pentecostal Social Concern and the Biblical Mandate of Social Justice’, Pneuma, 9:2 (Fall 1987): 153, footnote 45. Classical Pentecostals construct their argument for evidential glossolalia from Acts 2:4, 10:46 and 19:6. 68 Luke devotes considerably more space in his two-volume works on the miraculous and the spectacular than the other Gospel-writers. Luke’s apparent advocacy of power can easily be misread as advocating naïvely a theologia gloriae. Menzies and Menzies contend that Luke presents verbal witness rather than miracle-working power as the primary product of the Spirit’s inspiration; W.W. Menzies and R.P. Menzies, Spirit and Power (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), pp. 146–52. 69 Fee (1994), p. 35. 70 D.L. Bosch, Transforming Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000), p. 114. 71 Ibid. 72 B.R. Gaventa, ‘“You will be my Witnesses”: Aspects of Mission in the Acts of the Apostles’, Missiology, 10 (1982): 417–20. Cited in Bosch, p. 121. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 113 the power to endure (not crushing opposition); boldness (parresia) to continue to speak in the threat of violence and persecution; ability to forgive and to reconcile, to remain faithful within an environment marked by hostile opposition, problems and sufferings, to be the more profound expressions of power. A careful attention to Luke’s narratives in Acts reveals that they are not narratives of constant uninterrupted victory and signs and wonders. Contrary to some of contemporary Pentecostalism’s claims, Marva Dawn observes, “The accounts of the early Christians in Acts make abundantly clear that their powerful witness to their community and neighbours arose out of their weakness.”73 This interplay of power and weakness is apparent in the first Pentecostal outpouring recorded in Acts 2. Dawn highlights:
The whole occasion is a startling combination of God’s power and human weakness: the fire of the Spirit poured out in the power of courage and languages; the weakness of the disciples, not understanding how they could speak so forcefully and in divergent tongues; the dominion of God, whose “deeds of power” (v.11) are the subject of their speech; the belittlement when the apostles are scoffed for being drunk; the sovereignty of God whose ancient promises are fulfilled; the weakness of Jesus (as narrated by Peter), who accomplished those sovereign purposes by being handed over to the crushing contradiction of crucifixion; the crowning glory that “the entire house of Israel [could] know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom [we] crucified” (v. 36); the humbled weakness of being “cut to the heart” (v. 37); the glorious power of forgiveness and Holy Spirit giftedness; the utter frailty of Christians in the midst of a corrupt generation (v.40).74
On the one hand, triumphalistic naïvety of some expressions of empirical Pentecostalism often ignores this fact. On the other, redaction criticism in Lukan studies often concludes too hastily that Luke’s theology is one of theologia gloriae without theologia crucis.75 Both fail to appreciate the narrations of triumphs as well as tragedies, power and weakness that consistently intersperse the Book of Acts. In Luke’s accounting, triumphs and tragedies, power and weakness are not oppositional realities; rather, they are consistent with theologia crucis. An example of this is the story of Stephen, a man described as “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”, “full of God’s grace and power” and doing “great wonders (terata) and signs (semeia)” in Acts 6:5,8. “By using the same descriptive terminology Luke links the prophetic role of Stephen to that of Jesus and the Twelve.”76 Like Jesus, Stephen, a Spirit- empowered prophetic person, becomes a casualty of persecution and violence. Luke apparently frames the Stephen narrative to correspond to Jesus’ own passion
73 M.J. Dawn, Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 52. She cites several examples. Peter can hardly believe that he’s actually been delivered from prison (Acts 12:1–17); Paul testifies to Festus, Agrippa and Bernice in chains (25:23 to 26:32). 74 Ibid., p. 79. 75 Cunningham, p. 17. He adds that this conclusion has not gone unchallenged in recent years. The result of renewed inquiry is that several scholars have concluded there is indeed a theology of the cross in Luke. 76 Ibid., p. 203. 114 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century – Stephen’s deep trust in God (7:59) and forgiving love to his enemies (7:60) in the face of violence and death.77 The way Luke narrates the Stephen episode clearly suggests that his apparent tragedy was in truth his triumph both with God in Heaven and with God’s mission on earth. Here theologia gloriae and theologia crucis meet. The charismatic vision of glory that awaited him with God (7:56) points to his triumph with God in Heaven, and the eventual spreading of the Gospel to the Gentile world in unimaginable scope is a triumph on earth.78 Linda M. Maloney rightly observes that Luke was “not the least bit timorous about interpreting the events in daily life – even threatening aspects, such as persecution (cf. Acts 4:23-31) as the signs of God at work in their midst. His books assured his own church, too, that it had been thus from the beginning: the apostles and the first Christians, one and two generations earlier, had also acclaimed their trials and triumphs as the work of God, in continuity with God’s mighty work in Jesus and in Israel from the beginning.”79 Precisely because the Spirit poured out at Pentecost is the power of the eschaton, the apostles received power to reconstruct their lives and ministries that reflected the reality of the life, death and resurrection of Christ – the presence of the Kingdom of God. Clearly, the Spirit often works, as Smail succinctly describes, “within the rhythm of Christ’s cross and resurrection.”80 Likewise, Paul alludes to this rhythm as definitive of the Spirit-filled life in Phil. 3:10–11.
Pauline Orientations
Spirit and power are also interchangeable terms in Paul. In 1 Cor. 2:4, dunamis and pneuma are explicitly linked. Fee notes that Paul often joined the two words in such a way that the presence of the Spirit means the presence of power (1 Thess. 1:5; 1 Cor. 2:4; Gal. 3:5; Rom. 1:4; Eph. 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:7) and vice versa (2 Thess. 1:11; 1 Cor. 4:20, 5:4; 2 Cor. 4:7, 6:7, 12:9 and 12, 13:4; Col. 1:11 and 29; Eph. 1:19 and 21, 3:7 and 20; 2 Tim. 1:8). Power figures largely in Pauline theology of the Kingdom of God: “The Kingdom of God is not a matter of word but of power”
77 Cunningham lists a number of parallels between Stephen and Jesus. Both performed signs and wonders (6:8; 2:2). Both were brought before the Sanhedrin for testimony before their deaths. Both were cast out of the city (Lk. 4:29; Acts 7:58) by their persecutors. The most remarkable parallels are the last three sayings of Stephen before his death, which all echo sayings of Jesus in his passion (7:56, cf. Lk. 22:69; 7:59, cf. Lk. 23:46; 7:60, cf. Lk. 23:34). Cunningham argues that the Stephen–Jesus parallels are not cases of imitation – i.e., that Jesus is a model to imitate – but of continuation, i.e., what God begins to do in Jesus, he continues to do through his disciples. See pp. 208–12. 78 Smail adds that Professor William Manson often points out, “this is the only place in the NT where the exalted Lord is said to stand at the Father’s right hand. In all other references he is said to sit, because sitting is the attitude of regnant majesty. But when the martyr who has followed the Lord all the way to the death comes, to receive him and to honour him the Son of Man rises from his throne … That is indeed the triumph of heaven” (p. 69). 79 L.M. Maloney, ‘All that God had Done with Them’: The Narration of the Works of God in the Early Christian Community as Described in the Acts of the Apostles (NY: Peter Lang, 1991), p.193. 80 Smail, p. 70. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 115 (1 Cor. 4:20). It is power because the Kingdom has already been inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit is characterised by the power of the Spirit.81Power includes the extraordinary and the miraculous, but for Paul they do not exhaust it. Paul understood the Spirit’s power in the broadest possible way because of his thoroughgoing eschatological framework: “On the one hand, the future had broken in so powerfully that signs and wonders are simply matter-of-fact (1 Cor. 12:8–11; Gal. 3:5); on the other hand, the Spirit also empowers for endurance in the midst of adversity (Col. 1:11;2 Cor. 12:9–10) – and for everything else as we endure, awaiting the final glory, of which the Spirit is the guarantee.”82 Thus, Paul’s use of the term power is variegated. Often, power refers to the visible manifestations that evidence the Spirit’s dynamic presence (1 Cor. 2:4–5; 1 Cor. 12– 14; Gal. 3:2–5; Rom. 15:19, 12:6; 1 Thess. 5:19–22).83 Power also points to Spirit- capacitated ability to live out the love of Christ in interpersonal engagements (as in Eph. 3:16–20). In Pauline understanding, “life in the Spirit” is powerful because it is relational. This is evident by Paul’s consistent concern for “the weak”, “the other” and the disempowered, primarily on the basis of grace (1 Cor. 4:7).84 Enriched sociality – life for others – is made possible by the ministry and presence of the Spirit (the fellowship of the Spirit, cf. 2 Cor. 13:14; Phil. 2:1). Gunther Thomas comments, “As embodied power the Spirit becomes a perceptible power for others.”85 He adds, “… the Spirit is the power of individuation … the dynamic force for community without pulling down individuality. The Spirit nourishes social life while simultaneously preserving and transcending cultural distinctions … and cultivating diversity.”86 Similarly, John V. Taylor writes, “The fullness of the Spirit is known primarily in a new degree of communal awareness of the reality of God and the reality of Jesus Christ, and in a new communal sensitiveness towards other people.”87 Paul also frequently conjoins power (dunamis) and weakness (asthenia). In fact, he often glories in his weakness. Without doubt, Paul assumes the closest correlation between the Spirit’s power and present weaknesses (Rom. 8:17–27; 2 Cor. 12:9). Fee comments, “knowing Christ”, in Paul’s view, “means to know both the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings (Phil. 3: 9–10). Suffering means to be as the Lord … Nonetheless, Paul also expects God’s more visible demonstration of power, through the Spirit, to be manifested even in the midst of weakness, as God’s ‘proof’ that his power resides in the message of a crucified Messiah.”88 Similarly, Ford
81 Fee (1994), pp. 35–6. 82 Ibid., p. 8. 83 Ibid., pp. 824–5. 84 A.C. Thiselton, ‘Signs of the Times: Towards a Theology for the Year 2000 as a Grammar of Grace, Truth and Eschatology in Contexts of So-called Postmodernity’, in D. Fergusson and M. Sarot (ed.), The Future as God’s Gift (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000), p. 30. 85 G. Thomas, ‘Resurrection to New Life: Pneumatological Implications of the Eschatological Transition’, in T. Peters, R.J. Russell and M. Welker (eds), Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 271, footnote 47. 86 Ibid., p. 271. 87 J.V. Taylor, The Go Between God (London: SCM, 1976), p. 201. 88 Fee (1994), p. 825. He notes that one has to understand Paul’s inherent ambivalence with regard to “power” and “weakness” within his thoroughgoing eschatological perspective. 116 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century writes, “Paul’s Gospel relates power and weakness differently. It is not that he simply replaces power with weakness. Rather both are reinterpreted through the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.”89 However, it does not mean that Paul regarded weakness, poverty, sufferings and death in themselves as good things, but rather knowing that God relativises all these. Ford adds, “But in the light of the gospel, receptivity to God goes the way of crucifixion, and ‘the grace of God’ means that the Macedonians in ‘their extreme poverty’ can risk becoming even poorer (8:1–2). This is the opposite extreme from neutral knowing, and at its heart is the knowledge of a particular love which transforms the ego of the beloved (5:14-15).”90 It is also significant to note that Paul situates the charismata in 1 Cor. 12–14 (generally regarded within Pentecostalism as the empirical proof of the Spirit’s power and presence) under the theology of the cross, expressed in 1 Cor. 13. Love is not the negation of the charismata, as some non-Pentecostals assumed, but, as Ralph Del Colle puts it, “the contextualisation of the spiritual gifts under the cross.”91 Glossolalia and glossolalic prayer (Rom. 8:26–27) are examples of the “power– weakness” paradox. Indeed, glossolalic prayer is a sign of God’s freedom and power, but not power/strength as it is commonly implied in Pentecostalism. This inarticulate and unintelligible speech and Spirit-groaning reflect a position of weakness, not of strength, because they indicate our weakness and partiality and utter dependence on God. Fee explicates:
By praying through us in tongues, the Spirit is the way whereby God’s strength is made perfect in the midst of our weakness, which is where the ultimate strength lies for the believer … we thus pray in the Spirit out of weakness, implicitly trusting the Spirit to pray in keeping with God’s purposes. Such praying is thus freedom and power, God’s power being perfected in the midst of our weakness.92
It is clear that the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and the Spirit inform Paul’s understanding of power. Hence, in Pauline theology Spirit, power, sufferings and weakness are allowed to coexist gladly. Paul does not harmonise these paradoxical realities, since the radically new reality of the eschaton inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ cannot be described without resorting to paradox or disjunction. He can happily juxtapose these paradoxical realities because of his eschatological understanding of the already and not yet of Christian existence. Fee writes, “Since the Spirit meant the presence of God’s power, that dimension of the future had already arrived in some measure. Thus present suffering is a mark of discipleship, whose paradigm is our crucified Lord. But the same power that raised the crucified
See his ‘Toward A Pauline Theology of Glossolalia’, in W.-S. Ma and R.P. Menzies (eds), Pentecostalism in Context: Essays in Honour of William W. Menzies (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), p. 26. 89 F. Young and D. Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (London: SPCK, 1987), p. 241. 90 Ibid., pp. 242–3. 91 R. Del Colle, ‘Postmodernism and the Pentecostal–Charismatic Experience’, JPT, 17 (2000): 106. 92 Fee (1997), p. 36. See also his God’s Empowering Presence, pp. 575–86. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 117 One from the dead is also already at work in our mortal bodies.”93 The gift of the Spirit indicates that God’s future has indeed broken into the present; we are already drawn, as it were, into “the rich reality of the resurrected Christ.”94 It is the Spirit who frees our ego to participate in “Christ’s trustful yet dynamic relationship to the Father, a relationship that includes the cross as well as the resurrection.”95
Pentecostal History: Its Defining Distinctive
Spirit and Scriptures are central to Pentecostals’ worldview and self-understanding. They regard themselves as “people of the Book”96 precisely because they understand themselves fundamentally as people of the Spirit. They are convinced of the strong connection between God’s activity “then” and “now”. Divine activity is not a historical memory, but an ongoing reality made present by the Spirit. Put simply, “the Spirit creates ‘world.’”97 Accordingly, this influences the way they read Scriptures and reality. Pneumatic epistemology98 is the hermeneutics of Pentecostalism. The Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit in Acts is an eschatological sign of God fulfilling God’s promises in the last days, especially in Joel’s prophecy. The coming of the Spirit signals the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God and constitutes the Early Church as an eschatological community with power for witness and passion for the Kingdom as it actively awaits the parousia. Understandably, early Pentecostals regard the twentieth century outpouring of the Spirit as their recovering and re-entering of that eschatological reality in continuity with the first disciples – the restoration of the apostolic faith, which “was a prelude to the restoration of all things … to live in expectation of the coming of Christ in the time of the Latter Rain.”99 Noting the lively confidence and hope of early Pentecostalism, the Dominican John Orme Mills writes:
The charismatic manifestations emerging among them – tongues, healing, exorcism, prophecy – they interpreted as signs that they were bringing in the ‘last times’. The Scriptures were being fulfilled: here was the ‘latter rain’ spoken of by Joel and James, portending the coming of the Lord in glory at the world’s end. Is it surprising then, that they had such confidence, such hope? Were they not already seeing around them indications that all things were being made new, as told in the book of Revelation?100
93 Fee (1994), p. 825. 94 Thomas, p. 272. 95 Ibid., p. 273. 96 Johns and Johns, p. 117. 97 Grenz, ‘The Spirit And The Word: The World-Creating Function of the Text’, TT, 57:3 (2000): 362. 98 This refers to the teaching activity of the Spirit through which the Father and the Son would be known; see Johns and Johns, p. 114. 99 Land, p. 60. 100 J.O. Mills, ‘New Heaven? New Earth?’, in S. Tugwell et al. (eds.), New Heaven? New Earth? (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1976), pp. 72–3. 118 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century The Latter Rain motif and the apostolic faith of the Book of Acts are architectonic of Pentecostal philosophy of history and of their ministry model. Early Pentecostalism is preoccupied with the presence and parousia of Jesus Christ. The consuming focus of its message is eschatology, in particular the second coming of Christ. “Jesus is coming soon!” is the key message of the formative stage of the entire movement. According to William Faupel, these two phrases – The Everlasting Gospel and This Gospel of the Kingdom – best encapsulate the eschatological hope of Christ’s imminent return in early Pentecostalism. “The twin expressions gave the Pentecostal message its eschatological focus and directed the movement toward a two-fold mission … to preach the Gospel … and to sound the midnight cry: ‘Behold the Bridegroom! Come ye forth to meet Him.’”101 Faupel also notes that despite its concern for lost souls, early Pentecostalism did not understand evangelisation and world mission in terms of converting the world to Christ: “Their real concern was to engage in activity which would hasten the return of Christ … They scoffed at those who would ‘take the world for Christ’, arguing that Christians should pray that Christ would come ‘to take it for Himself’. Instead of concentrating on the conversion of humanity, for which they did not feel responsible, the early Pentecostals proclaimed their mission to be the evangelization of the world.”102 The metaphor of the Church as “Bride of Christ”, a nuptial community, eagerly awaiting the parousia of the “Bridegroom” in early Pentecostalism, is a distinct indication of its eschatological orientation. This bridal metaphor explains both early Pentecostalism’s uninhibited emotionalism and eschatological passion. Orthodox theologian J.-J. von Allmen comments that the nuptial imagery discloses the Church as a community of faith, hope and love, indicating both intimate relationality and eschatological orientation as its nature.103 Radical relationality is a definitive sign of the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom through the Spirit whose ministry is to move creation towards this intended telos. In fact, apocalyptic vision is the distinctive logic that shapes the formative period of Pentecostalism, informing their beliefs and ethic of hope, obedience and holiness, and defining the movement’s identity as well as motivating its missional fervour. Macchia underscores, “The ‘critical function’ of apocalyptism inspired the early Pentecostal refusal to bow to the gods of sexism, racism, and wealth.”104
101 ‘German Thoughts about the Sunderland Convention’, Confidence, 6 (August 1913), p. 156. Cited in D.W. Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), p. 21. 102 Faupel (1996), pp. 21–2. He cites Elizabeth Baker, who notes that the Matthean passage did not say “This Gospel of the Kingdom … will save all nations”; rather, God meant a witness should be given to all the people of the earth, that Jesus Christ has come and is coming, as King of the earth, and He Himself cannot come until this is preached. See E.V. Baker, ‘The Gospel of the Kingdom’, Trust (12 February 1914): 3, and Faupel (1996), p. 21. 103 J.-J. von Allmen, Worship: Its Theology and Practice (London: Lutterworth Press, 1965), p. 47. 104 Macchia (1999), p. 23. He notes that to some extent the expectation of the imminent reign of God upon the entire cosmos “hindered a vision among Pentecostals for long-term social transformation, but it did imply prophetic judgment upon the powers-that-be as temporal, relative, and even contrary to God’s will.” An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 119 Eschatological longing for Christ’s return in addition to desire for the Holy Spirit and for the Kingdom of God are all part of a single passion according to Land; “And for Pentecostals it is a passion that can change everything.”105 This eschatological passion provides a new sense of history, and with it a purposefulness of existence: “History became mission, and the church was constituted a missionary movement. Believers were agents, not victims; they were harbingers of the coming kingdom. The Bride did not simply wait in the church for the Bridegroom; she went out to invite others to the marriage supper for which each worship service was a rehearsal and anticipation.”106 Thus, life in the present is lived in hope, obedience and holiness because the eschaton has already been set in motion by the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit. The penultimate is the time of God’s surprises. Therefore, to locate glossolalia/Spirit-baptism at the theological centre of Pentecostalism is to misunderstand the gestalt of Pentecostalism.107 Eschatology – the presence and parousia of Jesus Christ – is the fundamental theological centre or inner logic of the movement. It is the eschatology that gives Pentecostalism both its sense of urgency and focus. This, I suggest, is distinctive in particular of early Pentecostalism.
Summary
This investigation into Scripture and Pentecostal history provides critical resources for an alternative way of conceiving the Spirit in empirical Pentecostalism. The Spirit poured out at Pentecost is not only the eschatological Spirit of power and life, but also the Spirit of fellowship. The critical dialogue of Scriptures, with Pentecostalism on the one hand, shows that the Pentecostal understanding of reality resonates with John, Luke and Paul. The foundational reality that they all envision is lively, dynamic and ultimately relational because the triune God is “the defining Player”. For both Pentecostalism and these three New Testament writers, pneumatology is the key to understanding and experiencing the dynamic activity, power and intimate presence of the triune God in human history, and in particular, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, the critical dialogue discloses an inadequate theology of the Spirit in empirical Pentecostalism. Its inadequacy is both conceptual and practical. Conceptually, it lacks robustness and tends towards a monochrome view of the power and activity of the Spirit. As a result, the concept of empowerment for ministry eclipses sociality, the radically significant and larger activity of the Spirit. Practically, it tends towards pneumatocentricism. Contra empirical Pentecostalism, the Johannine, Lukan and Pauline pneumatic imagination transcends facile alternatives: Christomonism or “Pneumatomonism”; cynicism/pessimism or optimism; love or power. In their writings, the passion of the cross and the power of Pentecost are not oppositional.
105 Land, p. 66. 106 Ibid., p. 69. 107 See Land, Pentecostal Spirituality; Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel; and D.W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc, 1987). 120 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Dabney insists that it is “in the event of the cross that the Spirit is to be named.”108 Certainly their narratives of the Spirit singly and together are far more robust and trinitarian than what is commonly “traditioned” in contemporary Pentecostalism and what is acknowledged by non-Pentecostals. Though empirical Pentecostalism is right in maintaining that the charismatic power of the Spirit is still a present, not a past, phenomenon, it fails to appreciate the internal and complex dynamic of the Spirit’s workings. In Pentecostal parlance, it is a failure to rightly discern the Spirit. Its penchant for instrumentalising knowledge becomes its Achilles’ heel. We have already seen this in the strategic practices of LoveSingapore. Instrumental logic is reductive and thus incapable of handling paradoxes such as power in weakness. The problem lies in its triumphalistic interpretation of power. Theological triumphalism, a characteristic of Pentecostalism, stems from the temptation to interpret the resurrection naïvely as “a happy victorious ending”. The danger, as Ford rightly notes,
… is to conceive power and success in terms that divorce the resurrection from the content of crucifixion. Resurrection is not simply a reversal of death, leaving death behind it. The resurrection does differentiate God from death – his life, sovereign creativity and power are vindicated decisively and his transcendence and prevenience demonstrated. But the differentiation happens through an event which identifies God, including all those attributes afresh. The directness of the attribution of resurrection is inseparable from the indirectness of the cross.109
In part, this explains why the person and power issues are problematic within Pentecostalism. An overemphasis on theologia gloriae undermines theologia crucis. Theologia crucis is not about powerlessness or a repudiation of power, but rather a commitment to a specific kind of power. It is a power that is kenotic at heart. This is most manifest in God, who renounces unilateral and invulnerable power “in the history he shares with us as the God of Israel and as Christ.”110 Kenotic power is the kind of power that refuses, in Rowan Williams’s words “to functionalize and enslave what it works with”.111 Thus, power that is disconnected from the cross always creates space for idolatry, particularly in a culture that idolises strength, effectiveness, power, control and success. The temptation to appropriate the cultural- socio-political discourses of power and success and integrate them into a gospel of redemptive blessing is seductive. It is apparent that LoveSingapore has fallen into
108 Dabney, p. 521. Dabney critiques that most works on Pneumatology fail to see the breadth of work of the Spirit; thus they speak of the Spirit of God as the “Spirit of the Son” and locate the Spirit’s work solely in the event of proclaiming and believing the Gospel. What is elided almost entirely is the breadth of the work of the Spirit on the “other side” of that relationship: in the incarnation of the Son, in his mission, in his suffering and death and resurrection. In so doing, they largely ignore the profound correspondence between the work of the “Spirit of sonship” (Rom. 8:15), both intrinsically in the “only begotten Son” and consequently in the “many daughters and sons” of God which is central to the Pneumatology of the New Testament; see pp. 515–16. 109 Young and Ford, pp. 246–7. 110 R. Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 288. 111 Ibid. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 121 this temptation in its rhetoric and practices. The seduction lies precisely in the sense of divine “legitimation”. Consequently, this sense of legitimation leads to a view that power is one’s spiritual birthright, whereas weakness and vulnerability are regarded as anomalies that must be excised. Not only is this ideology or value system fundamentally at odds with theologia crucis and the Spirit, but it also has serious implications in the way one’s life is lived and how one relates to the other and the different. In contrast, John, Luke and Paul articulate a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the power of the Spirit. For them, the cross of Christ and the Spirit redefine and critique all notions of power. The coming of the Spirit in power certainly means that “signs and wonders do belong to the period of the Church, but they do not exempt charismatic Christians from the conditions of servanthood and weakness. In this age, ‘our knowledge is imperfect’ (1Cor. 13:9) and we know only ‘in part’ (1 Cor. 13:12).”112 Incompleteness and partiality belong to our creatureliness, even when we are being empowered and energised by the Spirit of the eschaton. Explicit in Paul (but implicit in John and Luke) is that weakness does not invalidate the power and presence of God; rather, it becomes the locus of divine tabernacling as well as for the demonstrations of the charismata. Generated and guided by the Spirit, the Early Church lives in the resurrection power and “in the constant presence of the Living One through word, sacrament, fellowship, prayer and solidarity with the suffering. It celebrates this multiplicity of images even as it celebrates the diversity of its own experience of the risen Jesus.”113 And this power is not for domination, but for transformation. Furthermore, these writers never set love and power in oppositional terms. To them, the ministry of the Spirit transcends the false dichotomy of love or power, not only with reference to the charismata but also to relationality. The eschaton set in motion by the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit makes radical relationality – indwelling the intimacy of God – an existential reality. Spirit uncontrollable freedom is not a freedom from but a freedom for, an embracive orientation towards the other. A radical sociality that is unimaginable and universal in scope; “One of the sevenfold gifts attributed to the Holy Ghost is the power of social integration.”114 The ecumenical vision of reconciling and reintegrating the other into community – unimaginable sociality – is the most characteristic work of the Spirit’s creative generosity and power. The Lukan narratives in the Book of Acts, which inform and sustain Pentecostalism’s beliefs and practices, consistently portray the movement of the Spirit as gracious freedom, crossing boundaries of all sorts – healing, embracing and unifying.115 Pentecostals’ experience of the Spirit not only deepens its understanding of ecclesiology, its pneumatological genesis, but also reorders its life. The Church is more than the gathering of people around a vision or common goal or sets of beliefs. It is the outpouring of the Spirit that birthed the Church. A Spirit-filled church is
112 Hocken, pp. 153–4. 113 L.T. Johnson, ‘Imagining the World Scripture Imagines’, in L.G. Jones and J.J. Buckley (eds), Theology and Scriptural Imagination (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), p. 11. 114 Martin, ‘The Political Oeconomy of the Holy Ghost’, in Martin and Mullen (1984), p. 56. 115 See Chapter 3. 122 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century primarily a Eucharistic community created by the Spirit.116 According to the Lukan narratives in Acts, hospitality, generosity and embrace marked the early Eucharistic– Charismatic community. To exist as the Eucharistic community of the Spirit has deep implications for pluralistic realities. The Eucharistic community embodying an all-embracive inclusivism transcends all social, cultural and historical boundaries, and thus its existence and activities must be characterised chiefly by its work of reconciliation and healing.117 Healing is a powerful sign of the Kingdom of God – a demonstration of divine reconciliation and embrace. This is eloquently demonstrated by the healings of Jesus recorded in the New Testament. Nigel Wright comments insightfully, “The objects of Jesus’ compassion were normally the rejected, the helpless, the despised and the excluded. The effect of healing them was to allow them to re-enter the worshipping community of Israel.”118 Ironically, the fervour of contemporary Pentecostalism for the world’s salvation locates salvation almost entirely in terms of the removal of guilt. This elides the central creative work of the Spirit – koinonia – doxological participation in the life of God, which entails vertical and horizontal dimensions. Doxological participation is the glorious telos of humanity. However, Land notes that this current emphasis is not the view of early Pentecostalism. Its soteriological correlation of Christ and Spirit emphasises salvation as participation in the divine life more than the removal of guilt.119 Similarly, Reinhard Hutter declares, “The specific salvific–economic mission of the Spirit is to draw humanity and creation into this communion, a communion originally opened to the ‘many’ through the cross and resurrection of Christ.”120 Early Pentecostal orientation towards the Spirit and eschatology is its strength and the source of its fecund capacity to respond to contextual challenges and renewal. Eschatological passion is critical to Pentecostal identity and mission. The Spirit, by bringing the eschaton into history, gives imaginal insight to early Pentecostals: “everyday life and events became invested with cosmic significance because God was at work in all things.”121 This imaginal insight motivates the early Pentecostals’ proactivism and transfigures their view of history. Eschatological hope liberates early Pentecostals to risk, defy and resist all construals of reality that exclude God’s intentions for His Kingdom. The exhilarating vision that life this side of the eschaton can be a foretaste of Heaven makes the movement liberation-transformationist. The liberation-transformationist ethos finds its logic in the reign of God. The eschatological Spirit not only inspires with vision but also speech, glossolalia. Glossolalia at Pentecost draws attention to the fact that unity and understanding and
116 Though in general Pentecostals do speak of the Church in terms of a Eucharistic community because of its non-sacramental theology, more and more Pentecostal theologians, such as Macchia and Simon Chan, are now retrieving this sacramental understanding. 117 S. Chan, ‘Mother Church: Towards a Pentecostal Ecclesiology’, Pneuma, 22:2 (Fall 2000):188. 118 N. Wright, ‘The Theology and Methodology of “Signs and Wonders”’, in Smail, Walker and Wright (1993), pp. 76–7. 119 Land, p. 23. 120 Reinhard Hutter, Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church Practice (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 117. 121 Land, p. 65. An Alternative Way: Re-conceiving the Spirit in Pentecostalism 123 a “relating too deep for words” are not solely dependent on cultural homogeneity or linguistic commonality, but on the power of the communicative God. Glossolalia also has an iconoclastic function, which should not be missed. Macchia and Yong both aver that “the iconoclastic function of tongues is as important theologically since it underlines the Spirit as one who replaces that which is rote and tedious with creative novelty and advance … Glossolalia is par excellence the vehicle of protest and transformation.”122 In fact, the very possibility of its articulation suggests that there is more than meets the eye. Jean-Daniel Pluss sums it up well: “There is a surplus of meaning, there is a power for ministry, there is hope within our human limitations.”123 It is this glossolalia and passion – passion for the Kingdom – that offer the possibility of true koinonia that transcends divides and transforms human society in Jesus’ name. Its emphasis on healing, exorcism and the miraculous are understood as signs of the presence of the Kingdom of God (Lk. 11:20). From this it follows that present physical reality can be reversed or nullified because of the “already” dimension of the eschaton. It is the overflow of the effective power of the Spirit into human historical existence. But the goal of the Spirit’s effective power is not merely manifestations of the miraculous, but the establishment of righteousness, peace and justice (Isa. 32:15–17). The whole point of Christian existence for Pentecostals is to participate in the life and activity of the triune God through the Spirit. Ford comments, “The Spirit is supremely the guarantee of that future face to face knowing … not just a spectating but a full participation in the glory of God.”124 In reclaiming eschatology, Pentecostalism is returning to the biblical roots and its early history. In sum, negotiating boundaries is specifically a redemptive reconciling activity of the Spirit of the eschaton. Pentecost is an eschatological orientation towards the Other/other. This has far reaching implications for the Pentecostal ethic in the eschatological present – human flourishing cannot remain a non-issue, but must be a deeply Christian responsibility. The need to recover the eschatological orientation and hope is crucial. I suggest the way forwards is pneumatological eschatology. Chapter 6 comprises an explication of pneumatological eschatology for renegotiating new boundaries and contexts as Pentecostalism rises to its prophetic mantle as the peaceful harbinger of plurality.
122 Yong (2000), p. 168. Cited by Tan-Chow May Ling, ‘Religious Pluralism and Pentecostalism: The Singapore Context’, unpublished paper presented to Boon-Dang Central House 4th Annual Meeting, Paris, 24 to 28 June 2003. See also Macchia’s ‘Sighs Too Deep for Words’, and ‘Tongues as a Sign: Towards a Sacramental Understanding of Pentecostal Experience’, Pneuma, 15:1 (1993): 61–76. 123 J.-D. Pluss, ‘Azusa and Other Myths: The Long and Winding Road from Experience to Stated Belief and Back Again’, Pneuma, 15:2 (Fall 1993): 200. Cited by Tan-Chow May Ling, ‘Religious Pluralism And Pentecostalism’. 124 Young and Ford, p. 238. This page intentionally left blank Chapter 6 A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology
Introduction
The task of this final chapter is constructive, i.e., to articulate a sustainable theology of negotiation from a Pentecostal perspective. I am proposing pneumatological eschatology as a viable and robust Pentecostal contribution. Pneumatological eschatology offers a radical possibility because it is non-constrictive: it takes seriously both the freedom and the mystery of the Spirit (the freedom of the Spirit “blowing where He wills”) within a Trinitarian framework. The Spirit is key to rightly discerning both God and God’s ongoing activity in history. This chapter is not so much a “new” theological contribution as it is a recalling and reworking in new circumstances of the Christian tradition, specifically the tradition of Pentecostalism. “Because of tradition, something accumulates out of the past that assists a people in the ordering of life, the interpretation of situations, and even in creative responses to the new.”1 Fundamentally, pneumatological eschatology is a posture of living in and from the presence of God that enhances Christian existence living in and for the world. The explication of pneumatological eschatology is developed in two movements: remembering and embodying.2 Worship is the unitive thread connecting the two movements and pivoting on the eschatological Spirit. Worship is indispensable to resisting “the dynamics of idolatry”. To live without idols is to live in worship.3 Remembering culminates in worship and embodying overflows from worship.
Anamnesis: Remembering
The pendulums of both pneumatological and eschatological discourses have swung from pre-eminence to decline to pre-eminence again. Reverberations of pneumatological and eschatological renaissance are felt both at the theological and popular levels evidenced by their publications.4 Theological trends and contemporary
1 E. Farley, Deep Symbols: Their Postmodern Effacement and Reclamation (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), p. 29. 2 Not surprisingly, fads become the surrogate of tradition and are assumed as signs of the newness that the Spirit brings. 3 See D. Ford, Self and Salvation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 213. 4 Examples of some scholarly publications: A.H. Anderson, Moya: The Holy Spirit in an African Context (Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 1991) and An Introduction 126 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century realities notwithstanding, the Christian faith from its inception has been thoroughly eschatological. Clearly, the eschatological emphasis and expectation gave Christian faith “its cutting edge in outreach and paraenesis.”5 Bornkamn regards the bestowal of the Spirit upon Jesus as effecting the decisive “shift in the aeons”.6 With this shift of the aeons, Jesus’ proclamation of the eschatological blessing of God becomes operative through the Spirit. Jesus embodied eschatological power in his ministry. The primacy of the Spirit is amply attested in the Scripture – from the creation of the cosmos to the conception, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, to the outpouring at Pentecost and the constitution of the Church and new creation. Despite the ample scriptural attestation and the pneumatological renaissance, there is also strangely a “pneumatological deficit”, as Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen calls it. The deficit has to do with subordinating and assigning a secondary role to the Spirit which thrusts aside and domesticates the Spirit.7 Thus, the Spirit remains the misunderstood member of the Trinity. Remembering the Spirit rightly is key to developing a discerning wisdom, power and alert responsiveness to contextual challenges. More than ever, such discernment in the new milieu is critical. The first segment of the remembering is historical. It is remembering the significance of the complex of eschatology and pneumatology in both the Early Church and Pentecostalism. In the second segment, the remembering has to do with the “new” thing that the eschatological Spirit is doing, i.e., orientating the Church to radical to Pentecostalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Anderson and W.J. Hollenweger (eds), Pentecostals after a Century: Global Perspectives on a Movement in Transition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999); G.F. Hawthorne, The Presence and the Power: The Significance of the Holy Spirit in the Life and Ministry of Jesus (Dallas: Word, 1991); P.C. Hodgson, Winds of the Spirit: A Constructive Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994); Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc, 1997); H.D. Hunter and P.D. Hocken (eds), All Together in One Place: Theological Papers from the Brighton Conference on World Evangelization (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993); Jon A.B. Jongeneel et al. (eds), Pentecost, Mission and Ecumenism: Essays on Intercultural Theology (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992); K. McDonnell, The Other Hand of God (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003); J. McIntyre, The Shape of Pneumatology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997); J. Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992) and The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology (New York: Harper & Row, 1977); G. Muller-Fahrenholz, God’s Spirit: Transforming a World in Crisis (New York: Continuum, 1995); M. Turner, Power from on High: The Spirit in Israel’s Restoration and Witness in Luke-Acts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000). See also: V.-M. Kärkäinen, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002); C.H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1996); D.G. Bloesch, The Holy Spirit: Works & Gifts (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2000); G.D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.,1994); and M. Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994). 5 J. Dunn, The Christ & the Spirit, vol. 2: Pneumatology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), p. 67. 6 Cited in Dunn (1998), p. 44. 7 Kärkkäinen (2002), p. 17. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 127 otherness and openness, vis-à-vis God and His Kingdom. Remembering culminates in worship. Worship is the foundational locus for nurturing the twin orientation of the Spirit that informs and forms us. Remembering this complex is key to retrieving a way of being and seeing that is deeply rooted in Scripture and in Pentecostalism.
Remembering the Significance of Eschatology in the Early Church
Easter and Pentecost both signalled the dawning of the eschaton, and profoundly shaped the life, orientation and mission of the Early Church. These realities are deeply etched in the “canonical memory of the Church”. Easter – the “God-sized event”, to borrow David Ford’s phrase – inaugurates the twin reality of reconciliation and new creation. The resurrection of Christ is an objective demonstration that God has “in Christ reconciled the world to Himself”. This God-sized event sets in motion the new creation; pointing to humanity’s “new” telos as transformation and participation in God, not corruption or annihilation. The glossolalic groanings in the Spirit are anticipations of the hope of eschatological transformation (Rom. 8:22–25). Christian eschatological hope for the full realisation of the Kingdom of God is not a wishful pining or naïve optimism for the future, but Christ, in Barth’s words, “the Subject of expectation, the One expected, unequivocally and uninterruptedly God.”8 The Easter event is a proleptic fulfilment in history of God’s plan. What happened definitively in the resurrection of Christ continues to be worked out in history in multiple mighty deeds of God. Pentecost makes this explicit. In an earlier chapter, I noted the significance of Pentecost. It is important to reiterate its significance here. The early disciples did not grasp the universal significance and cosmic impact of the Christ-event until Pentecost. Pentecost and its accompanying glossolalia is an eschatological sign of divine presence. Stated simply, it is a radical theophany. In fact, it is a theophany that changes the course of history, comparable to the theophany at Sinai.9 Pentecost reconfigures the Early Church’s understanding of God’s people – from particularity to universality, from exclusivity to embracive hospitality.10 It is a fulfilment of Jesus’ saying “In my Father’s house are many mansions”, intimating the making of room for the presence and inclusion of the other. Significantly, John’s vision in the Book of Revelation pictures the climax of history with the open heaven or open house – the glorious ingathering of every tongue, every tribe and every nation in worship to God.
8 Barth, CD, 4.3.2, p. 908. 9 J. Ashton, SJ, ‘The Spirit and the Church’, in R. Butterworth, SJ (ed.), The Spirit in Action (Langley, Bucks: St. Paul Publications, 1968), p. 26. Ashton writes, “the old covenant was exclusive in both directions … At Pentecost, the moment of the confirmation of the Church, the relation of the new people of God to ‘the nations’ is open, not shut. The little nucleus of twelve is given, not a new revelation, but the mission to spread what they had already received.” 10 See Chapter 3 of the book. 128 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century The outpouring of the eschatological Spirit in Acts 2 “demonstrates an era of new signification”11 and of superabundance. Pentecost is a decisive revelation of the radical hospitality of God – the Father’s open house and also the opening up of human persons for filial perichoretic existence with the triune God. Open heaven is an apt picture of divine superabundance. This superabundance or open heaven was already prefigured in the first of the miraculous signs performed by Jesus – turning water into 120 gallons of wine (John 2:1–11). Wine is a symbol of messianic superabundance and overflow. Significantly, a wedding feast at Cana was the locus of the revelation of messianic superabundance and overflow. Wedding is an occasion for joy, togetherness, wine, sharing and celebrating with numerous guests. Possibly, the Cana wedding is an allusion to the joy-filled eschatological reality, i.e., ultimate intimacy and union – the marriage feast of the Lamb. It is the time where all lack, chaos, distortions and death are swallowed up by divine superabundance, overflow and everlasting life. Brodie suggests that the wine which was given “on the third day” (2:1) evokes the resurrection. He adds that there is already a hint that the wine is somehow connected especially to the death of Jesus.12 The Easter event becomes definitive of divine superabundance and overflow, which the prophets of the Hebrew Scripture envisioned and hoped for (Isa. 11:6–9, Mic. 4:3–4, Jer. 31:31–34, Eze. 34:11–16, Isa. 65:21–22). The apostle Paul frames the Church’s penultimate existence within the framework of divine superabundance. He expresses this superabundance in terms of gifts and blessings – the Church is richly gifted, filled with every spiritual blessing in Christ, and empowered by the Spirit (1 Cor. 1:5–7, Eph. 1:3).
Remembering Eschatology and Pentecostalism
Eschatology, as noted in Chapter 5, is the defining distinctive, rallying point and raison d’être of Pentecostalism. Pentecostal eschatology is energised by its pneumatology. The future and beyond orientation of its existence imbued early Pentecostalism with the characteristic deep “passion for Kingdom” that relativised all other passions. It is utterly focal for Pentecostalism. Moreover, this passion for the Kingdom is translated into the pursuit of holiness13 and power, the twin pillars of Pentecostal spirituality. “Eschatological intensification”, to borrow Land’s phrase, informed all their worship and witness practices. This same eschatological intensification results
11 R. Del Colle, ‘Postmodernism and the Pentecostal–Charismatic Experience’, JPT, 17 (2000): 106. 12 T.L. Brodie, The Gospel According to John (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 172–3. 13 The form of holiness adopted was primarily external, e.g., dress codes, conversation, forbidding of alcohol, smoking, worldly amusements, etc. Holiness and worldliness are mutually exclusive. The externality of holiness has to do with a combination of their inherent tendency towards polarities and a strong sense of the otherness of God and His coming Kingdom, which impelled them to seek ways in ordinary living to bear witness to that otherness and construct their social identity. Holiness is understood as conforming to God and thus fit them for the Kingdom. However, it is not regarded as work-righteousness. See S.J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 102–4. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 129 in a paradoxical juxtaposition of optimism and pessimism, of joy and sorrow, in their worship–witness praxis. The source of the paradoxical affections is the Spirit (the groaning, sighing and rejoicing in the Spirit that the apostle Paul mentioned). The intensification of joy is simultaneously the intensification of sorrow and longing for the “Not Yet”. Land describes this as “a sober joy, tearful rejoicing and a realistic hope.”14 More specifically, their personal and corporate experience of the eschatological Spirit and glossolalia (as a sign of the Kingdom) has apostolic, prophetic, ecumenical, social and missional import for them. In a way, it radicalises Pentecostal ethos. The resilience and appeal of Pentecostalism lies in its focus on the future – the imminent coming of Jesus. This imminent coming means the realisation of a different order of reality – God’s Kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy. This vision is prefigured in Isaiah 11. However, with upward social mobility, contemporary Pentecostalism has muted the vital role of apocalyptic vision of its forebears. Instead, consumer ideology together with the ideology of success in the here and now has infected its ethos. The drift in focus is apparent in its preaching, which centres on the concerns of the immediate present. Inadvertently, this shift anaesthetises the former passion and anticipation of the imminent coming again of Jesus, which was pivotal. Memory is not only identity forming, but is also critical to the vitality of the Christian faith. Remembering is a biblical way of defining identity – who we are and who we will become (Dt. 4:9–20).
Remembering the “New” Things of the Spirit
I have established in Chapter 5 the important interpretive role of the eschatological Spirit. Remembering is attending to or “reading” the Spirit. The Spirit’s dynamic inbreaking is not only confined to the scriptural testimony, but also discernible in ongoing history – the Spirit has actually done new things in the midst of history. This Spirit is poured out as abiding presence and empowerment, actively engaged in the midst of history, interpreting and negotiating, imparting to the Church “pneumatological imagination”. In Hans Urs von Balthasar’s articulation, the Spirit acts as “midwife of the realities of revelation and salvation” and indwells us “as an eye that sees”.15 The Spirit who searches the deep things of God illumines the Church’s understanding of things divine and imparts penetrating and creative wisdom. The goal of the Spirit’s reconciling activity is not just conversion, but also transformation of persons and the world. This raises the meaning of salvation. The concept of salvation is often given narrow associations in terms of soul conversion,
14 Ibid., p. 99. 15 H.U. von Balthasar, Spiritus Creator (Einsiedeln: Benziger Verlag, 1967), pp. 100– 107. Cited by Aidan Nichols, OP, in Say it is Pentecost (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001), p. 130. According to Balthasar, the Holy Spirit’s interpretive responsibility is to expound the full eschatological import of the Christ event, the end of the ages (Jn. 16:13). Specifically it is to induct the disciples into the “single truth of the exposition of God through the Son in the inexhaustible fullness of his concrete universality” through the testimony of the Spirit in the disciples (Jn. 15:26), i.e., ‘through the Spirit’s very being, by way of intimate participation” (p. 136). 130 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century having one’s sins forgiven and gaining a place in Heaven. These are true, but they do not exhaust its meaning. In Pauline theology, “salvation in Christ” is life empowered by the Spirit, which is full and wide-ranging.16 Narrowing the concept both truncates the Gospel and vitiates its power to speak into contextual realities. Salvation is a multilayered concept. One of the layered meanings involves personal and cosmic transformations. Frances Young argues, “the New Testament at its deepest level is about transformation. That transformation means the forming of Christ, the image and glory of God, in each believer as part of the transformation and renewal of the whole of God’s creation.”17 Perhaps the Orthodox understanding of salvation as theosis18 helps to clarify further this multilayered concept. Theosis is a summoning of humanity into transforming friendship with God, and participation in the dynamics of the triune life of God is the work of the eschatological Spirit. Salvation is not individualistic, but communal. Shults and Sandage write, “Salvation is believing, loving, and hoping in the Face of God, as we call one another into fellowship of the gracious and peaceful facing, searching together for wholeness of thanksgiving joy that comes from the blessing and keeping of the divine countenance.”19 In brief, it is a summons to a new order of reality – ultimate relationality and ultimate intimacy. That ultimate union as the final reality is captured by John’s imageries of a wedding (Rev. 19:9), bride (Rev. 21:2), and wife of the Lamb (Rev. 21:9). With the coming of the Spirit, the universality of the Easter victory, reconciled reality is being actualised in history. This transforming intrusion of the Spirit nurtures unimaginable possibilities and newness, thrusts us beyond the present to God’s future, and stimulates prophetic participation in the “transformative performance” of the Spirit. The “new” thing that the Spirit is doing is orientating the Church to radical otherness and openness. The issue of otherness and openness is central to Christian faith and identity.
Spirit and the Orientation to Otherness
I have established in the earlier studies of the Spirit in the Johannine, Lukan and Pauline texts that relationality or sociality is the ministry of the eschatological Spirit – the Spirit of fellowship. The Spirit of Pentecost is the Spirit of koinonia, or in John Taylor’s phrase the “Go-Between God”. Sociality is intrinsically the nature of the triune God, who exists eternally as a community of trinitarian persons. That the triune God exists eternally as love, gives Godself as love and receives love is founded on the basis of difference. In short, “Difference makes possible trinitarian
16 See Fee (1994), pp. 864–9. 17 F. Young, ‘Salvation and the New Testament’, in Donald English (ed.), Windows on Salvation (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1994), p. 29. 18 Theosis used here is not associated with the Alexandrian school, which conceives it as a substantive union with God, but with the Antiochene school, which interprets it in terms of participation. 19 F.L. Shults and S.J. Sandage, The Faces of Forgiveness: Searching for Wholeness and Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), p. 254. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 131 processio and kenosis.”20 As the presence and power of koinonia, the Spirit awakens our awareness or remembrance of this primary Other, God, and orientates us to the eschatological face to face with God, which is humanity’s telos. It is not only an orientation into communion with God, but also a renewed communion with others. Orientation to God and thus to communion is possible because humans are theological beings by virtue of the imago dei – created by God for fellowship. This is not only a possibility, but also an actuality because of Pentecost. It is the Holy Spirit who “through incarnation and Pentecost relates God and the world, and who establishes in relationship the manyness of the world, each to and with the other.”21 “Facing” God is not primarily a conceptual orientation, but essentially doxological, relational and ethical. The Spirit in drawing us to otherness draws us into the very dynamic of the trinitarian life of reciprocity and mutuality. In this orientation, the self is not absorbed by the alterity of God, but enriched, liberated, rightly individuated and transformed into the image of Christ. The formation and transformation of the self into the image of Christ takes place in self-surrender and ministry to the Other in worship. To put it in Pauline terms: justification, sanctification and glorification.
The Spirit and the Orientation to Openness
Orientation to otherness and orientation to openness are correlates. The activities of the Spirit are not only confined to the ecclesia, but also cosmic in breadth – the whole world (2 Cor. 5:19). In effect, orientation to openness is an orientation to a God- sized reality. It is openness to the inexhaustible generosity and hospitality of God and His Kingdom. Isaiah gives us a prophetic glimpse of this lavish hospitality of God (25:6–8) by using imageries of a feast of rich food and a banquet of aged wine that God will prepare for all people. The inclusive openness of the Father’s house foretold by Isaiah is accomplished definitively in the Christ event. The Christ event signals that nothing is able to finally close the doors on the compassionate activity of God’s radical openness and hospitality. With reference to divine radical openness and hospitality, two caveats must be noted. First, divine openness is not indeterminate. God’s unimaginable openness is combined with closure. In Fiddes’s words, it is “a closure with openness at its heart.”22 Second, God’s hospitality is not a sickly sentimentality or a kind of easy tolerance based on anthropological principles. At the heart of divine hospitality and welcome is the cross – judgement. However, given the eschatological thrust towards God’s radical openness and the hospitality of Heaven, closure and judgement are always for the sake of divine hospitality. Closure is precisely what distinguishes biblical eschatology from the various secular and postmodern eschatologies with their “indeterminate” openness and infinite postponement. Both openness and closure
20 G. Ward, ‘Theology in a Culture of Seduction’, in Robert Hannaford and J’annine Jobling (eds), Theology And The Body: Gender, Text and Ideology (Herefordshire: Gracewing, 1999), p. 57. 21 A. Yong, Spirit–Word–Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2002), p. 28. 22 P.S. Fiddes, The Promised End (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 219. 132 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century are critical if the future is to offer a creative and just transformation of history and a genuine fulfilment of hope. In a sense, orientation to openness is also a summons to trust deeply in God who is “the unfettered One”. Trusting God deeply is a posture of receptivity that welcomes surprises, newness and even risks. It is an enlivened openness and discernment of the hand and activity of God in history. In short, it is prophetic acuity. It is the Spirit who capacitates us to dream and to see visions (Acts 2:17–18), i.e., to be open to new horizons and possibilities – a way of seeing that combines fidelity with creativity. Implicit in this is a creative and critical prophetic function. In other words, it is a refusal to accept things as they are, because of the resurrection of Christ, i.e., not allowing the empirical reality to be the final word. Luke underscores in Acts the connection between openness and Spirit-directed living and praxis, which is unscripted. Taylor describes this as opening oneself “to the most unguessable options”.23 Thus, orientation to openness inspires and nurtures joy-filled hope. Joy-filled hope in a sense liberates one from the tyranny of technical certitude, or absolute certitude, the opposite of faith. It generates creative boldness and wisdom to respond prophetically, patiently and faithfully to the contemporary contextual complexities of apparently irreconcilable differences and combating otherness. Joy- filled hope is not a kind of optimism. The critical difference between optimism and joy-filled hope is that the latter is a distinct religious concept rooted in the Christ event. Joy-filled hope generated by the eschatological Spirit refuses resignation or hopelessness because it is shaped by the “grammar of grace and the nature and activity of God.”24 Neither is it utopian nor a form of wish-fulfilment; rather, as Kim suggests, it is both kairotic and dynamic, “a praxis which involves responsibility and concrete vision for the life and destiny of the people.”25 This joy-filled hope liberates one to live in the eschatological tension of waiting and acting – not passive, but insistent, vibrant, alive, interested, concerned and engaged.26
Excursus: Remembering Memphis Miracle ’94
Perhaps at this juncture, it would be instructive to revisit Memphis ’94 and evaluate its rhetorical vision for racial unity. The following sequence of events leading to Memphis ’94 is an account given in B.E. Underwood’s article.27 There were prophetic voices within the PFNA against the deplorable racism. Though there were attempts to bring the African American Pentecostals into fellowship, none succeeded because the rift was too deeply entrenched. It was on 6 March 1992 that the Board of Administration of the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America voted
23 J.V. Taylor, The Go Between God (London: SCM, 1976), p. 109. 24 A.C. Thiselton, ‘Signs of the Times: Towards a Theology for the Year 2000 as a Grammar of Grace, Truth and Eschatology in Contexts of So-called Postmodernity’, in D. Fergusson and M. Sarot (eds), The Future as God’s Gift: Explorations in Christian Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000), p. 38. 25 Y.-B. Kim, ‘Practice of Hope’, in Fergusson and Sarot (2000), p. 121. 26 Farley, p. 100. 27 B.E. Underwood, ‘The Memphis Miracle’, at www.pctii.org/arc/underwoo.html A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 133 unanimously to pursue the possibility of reconciliation with the African American brethren. The road to the Memphis Miracle came about through a series of three initial meetings. The first was held on 31 July 1992, at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Hyatt Hotel, with 10 attendees, but there was only one African American present. The second meeting took place in Phoenix, Arizona from 4 to 5 January 1993. There were 33 denominational leaders and pastors, but again only one African American representative present. They spent two days in prayer and dialogue concerning this reconciliation. The third event was the PFNA Convention in Atlanta, Georgia from 25 to 27 October 1993. It was during that meeting that both Bishop Ithiel Clemmons and Bishop B.E. Underwood were asked to serve as Co-Chairman of the Reconciliation Dialogue to take place in Memphis, Tennessee from 10 to 11 January 1994. Twenty representatives from each of the two movements met to make final plans for the climax of the Reconciliation Dialogue in Memphis later in the year. The PCCNA was organised in Memphis, during October 1994, when African Americans and whites joined in repenting of racism.28 In that opening evening service on 17 October 1994, Underwood declared:
We are gathered here in Memphis, Tennessee, to return to our roots and to recapture the initiative of the Spirit. This will be a time of repentance for the sins of the past. This will be a time of forgiveness as we rely upon the wonderful grace of our loving Heavenly Father and mirror that grace in our relationships with one another. The time has come for reconciliation! The time has come to recapture our heritage! We gather here as the children of God and heirs of the twentieth century pentecostal/charismatic renewal of the church. Our Father has called us to unity.
The goal is to bring healing to this part of the Body of Christ … We grieve over the 88 years of rebellion against the reconciliation work of the Holy Spirit. We return with all our hearts to the unity of the Spirit manifested during the blazing revival at Azusa Street.29
The choice of Memphis for the event was intentional. That is the place where Martin Luther King, Jr, was shot. Without the confession of guilt of complicity in the sin of racism by silence, blindness and denial, reconciliation would not have been possible.30 Hollenweger writes that the event made explicit reference to the founder of Pentecostalism, William Joseph Seymour, who saw in the integration of black and white people in his church an essential characteristic of the work of the Holy Spirit.”31 With that reconciliation, the race war between African American and white Pentecostals was ended.32 A white AG pastor spontaneously washed the feet of African American bishop Ithiel Clemmons as a symbolic act of repentance and humility, and an end to “racial-warring”. Hollenweger comments, “The significance
28 Its formal unification took place in 1998, also in Memphis. See http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Pentecostalism 29 Underwood, ‘The Memphis Miracle’. 30 This is expressed in the ‘Racial Reconciliation Manifesto’ (point 4), cited in Hollenweger (1997), p. 40. See also PCTII Newsletter, 9 (Winter 1996). 31 Hollenweger (1997), p. 40. 32 ‘Lay aside our warring’, in ‘Racial Reconciliation Manifesto’ (point 4), cited in Hollenweger (1997), p. 40. 134 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century of this gesture cannot be underestimated. This act would have been impossible a few years ago.”33 The Memphis event instantiated, in part, the twin orientations of the Spirit discussed above. Memphis ’94 was a significant milestone in the history of Pentecostalism; “Whether this reconciliation is as ‘epochal’ as some observers think will only be seen when the religious reconciliation is transformed into political reality.”34 At least in its vision, it represented the transforming fellowship and hospitable space of the triune life for the other. However, what flawed its rhetoric of reconciliation was, as it were, riding the bandwagon of cultural relativism that subsequently mitigated its own purpose and vision of racial reconciliation.35 Perhaps what vitiates its purpose and vision can also be traced back to its inception. Though the genesis of the inclusive PCCNA spelt the dissolution of the all-white PFNA, its Statement of Faith did not seem to indicate any evidence of its rejection of its racist past. There was not a single article about racial justice and integration in the Statement, despite the repeated emphasis of the essential connection between these goals and the Gospel by the participants at the Memphis meetings.36 Strangely, there is also a jarring lack of a distinctively Pentecostal Statement – the Spirit, empowerment, etc. (with the exception of Article 5, which concerns the doctrine of evidential tongues) – in the entire Statement. In its entirety, the Statement reflects more the National Association of Evangelicals’ (NAE) priorities rather than the Pentecostals and Charismatics’ concerns. Inevitably, the net effect of the Statement tends to reflect an exclusivist position rather than its allegedly new inclusivist identity. On the other hand, though the Manifesto37 (all of the 11 Articles) explicitly repudiates racism in all its forms, Macchia critiques the language of the Manifesto for not reflecting adequately the rich biblical faith and theological insights that inspired it. The inadequacy of its language weakens the force of its conviction. Notwithstanding, he affirms its explicit, courageous and insightful repudiation of racism in all its forms and agrees that the event is worth celebrating. However, he rightly cautions against a naïve optimism and triumphalism. He laments that the Manifesto has not yet gained much exposure in the Pentecostal media. The Memphis meetings of 1994 raised more than just the question of racial justice in terms of the colour line, i.e., African American and white. A host of questions ensuing from the meetings also need serious reconsideration and interrogation. Ultimately, these questions are really issues of otherness and openness. Of particular significance for Pentecostalism is the issue of gender justice as underscored by Barbara M. Amos, the lone
33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 R.W. West, ‘A Critical Exploration of the PCCNA’s Rhetorical Vision for Racial Unity: Fighting Pentecostal Racism with Saul’s Armour or David’s Sling?’, at http://www.pccna. org/Conference/Papers/1999_West.cfm, accessed on 27 September 1999. He comments that the epistemology of cultural relativism based on altruistic humanism is basically flawed and inadequate. 36 See F.D. Macchia’s critique, ‘From Azusa to Memphis: Evaluating the Racial Reconciliation Dialogue among Pentecostals’, Pneuma, 17:2 (Fall 1995): 203–18. 37 This was the most important product of the Memphis meetings, written by Robeck, Lovett, Clemmons and H. Hunter. It was embraced by the PCCNA. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 135 female participant at the Memphis event. Another issue is the lack of representation from the ethnic and cultural minorities. They seemed strangely marginalised in an event which was purportedly about reconciliation. Consequently, the credibility of the PCCNA’s avowed intention to practise inter-racial, inter-cultural and inter- gender cooperation is put into question. With the passing of time, the prophetic challenge of racism has receded. West is critical that unity celebrations continue, but with little restitutionary work done, and even less societal engagement. Nonetheless, West reminds us that within the Pentecostal heritage there is a proven wisdom that is available for recall to address this issue. West lists what he considers to be the five proven wisdom principles of the Pentecostal heritage. First, there is the memory of the inter-racial birth. Second, the formation of the PCCNA is a kind of memorial stone – persuasive and symbolically powerful. Third, its immanental, oral, communal–relational spirituality. Fourth, its dialogical method in engaging the issue of reconciliation – scholarly presentations, formal respondents, mass participation by pastors and observers, followed by prayers, exhortations, tongues and prophetic utterances, all of which was original to the Pentecostals. Fifth, implied in the Pentecostals’ self-identity as a prophetic community, is the notion of being a corporate message, rather than having a corporate message. West sums up his affirmation with two caveats. First, he warns against the temptation to put relevance above authenticity. The second caveat cautions against mixing its proven wisdom with the tools of cultural relativism. Memphis ’94 stands as a memorial stone for contemporary Pentecostalism in the sense of self-critique as it tries to move towards fulfilling its prophetic potential as the peaceful harbinger of plurality. Self-interrogation is necessary to unmask its own blinders to the disparity between its “principles and practice, promise and performance, rhetoric and reality.”38 I concur with West, that there are rich resources within Pentecostalism to recover, and to reappropriate and reconceive for prophetic engagement with new contextual challenges.
Pentecostalism and Orientation to Otherness
The fellowship of the Spirit is communicative–embracive, not isolationist and entrenched; therefore, being in fellowship with the Spirit necessarily opens up communication with others rather than shutting them out. In its origin, Pentecostalism has cultivated that idea of a “community in the Spirit”. Stated differently, the core of Pentecostal spirituality is relationality. However, the extensity of divine sociality is not fully grasped within Pentecostalism. Even though the experience of the Spirit makes inclusive sociality an actuality in Pentecostalism, it has understood this mono-dimensionally. In other words, it has not given sufficient weight to the
38 C. West, Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1993). Cited by I.C. Clemmons, ‘What Price Reconciliation: Reflections on the “Memphis Dialogue”’, Pneuma, 18:1 (1996): 121. 136 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century social dimension of encountering God as other.39 Suurmond describes this mono- dimensional understanding as living for others, but not through others.40 Pentecostals do well in relation to living for others, but are uncomfortable with the concept of living through others. This is because “in Pentecostal thought the experience of God is usually detached from the neighbour.”41 Experiencing “the presence of God in the reality of the other”42 is an undeveloped idea in Pentecostalism. Consequently, the concreteness of the neighbour as a gift is often missed in Pentecostal spirituality, despite all its emphasis. On the one hand, this has to do with the tendency to abstract worship from the lived social world. On the other hand, it is a tendency to reductionism and objectification, i.e., reducing the unique other that one encounters, whether God or neighbour, to particular aspects. As a result, people are being objectified into projects, problems, etc. In turn, such objectification undermines genuine relationality and the uniqueness of the other. This is precisely the weakness inherent in LoveSingapore’s instrumentalisation of unity and community action of good works. a. The gender other Pentecostals seldom foray into or engage formally with gender issues. Perhaps, in part, this may be attributed to their dynamic experience of the Spirit. The egalitarian and inclusive ethos of Pentecostalism in its origin was liberating for women.43 Experiencing the outpouring of the Spirit sunders restrictive protocols and dehumanising prejudices. “Your sons and daughters will prophesy” was tangibly endorsed in Pentecostalism. Pentecostals’ concept of women and ministry is rooted in the experience of Pentecost – restoration and new creation. Women’s sexual differentiation did not bar them from full participation in ministry. They were affirmed, acknowledged and participated in ministry alongside male leadership. The experience of the Spirit deconstructed barriers. The theological basis for this was that through the power of the Spirit “all of us (male and female) are being transformed into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). “All of us” is clearly an inclusive phrase, indicating that one’s gender does not preclude one’s transformation into the image of Christ. “The image of
39 The otherness of God is translated predominantly in moral rather than social terms within Pentecostalism. Inadvertently, God’s otherness sets boundaries that exclude rather than include. 40 Jean-Jacques Suurmond, Word and Spirit at Play: Towards a Charismatic Theology (London: SCM, 1994), p. 171. 41 Ibid., p. 181. Suurmond points out that Buber’s understanding of the social dimension of the encounter with God becomes helpful. God in Christ is encountered in the neighbour (see p. 172). 42 D. Bonhoeffer, Life Together (London: SCM, 1954), p. 113. 43 The Spirit as a source of liberation, whether social, political, economic or gender- based, is well documented in the study of global Pentecostalism. See D. Petersen’s Not by Might Nor by Power: A Pentecostal Theology of Social Concern in Latin America (Oxford: Regnum, 1996); David Martin’s Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), and Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002); R. Shaull and W. Cesar’s Pentecostalism and the Future of the Christian Churches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), to list a few. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 137 Christ does not lie in sexual similarity to the human man Jesus, but in coherence with the narrative shape of his compassionate, liberating life in the world, through the power of the Spirit.”44 Belief in the empowerment of the Spirit and the attending charismata provides what Petersen calls “a theological justification for diffusion of leadership, a division of labour”.45 Both the experiences of the eschatological Spirit and of worship reconfigure gender relationships. With the passing of time and the gradual alignment with evangelicalism, there came a perceptible eroding and silencing of women’s voices within Pentecostalism. Faupel in his presidential address to the Society for Pentecostal Studies (7 November 1992) voiced his double apprehension of Pentecostalism becoming a sub-group of evangelicalism and the silencing of women: “I am concerned that one-half of the Movement will be silenced because those in control will recognize God speaking through only one gender. I am concerned that the true Church universal will become equated with Evangelicalism.”46 In aligning themselves with evangelicalism, Pentecostals have also adopted unwittingly evangelicalism’s understanding47 of the divine pattern for Church and ministry (especially the Pauline texts 1 Cor. 11:3ff. and 1 Tim. 2:9ff). These texts are interpreted literally and with universal legislative force, and in so doing exclude any female leadership. Refusal to allow women’s full participation rests on the assumption that women are permanently flawed because of Eve’s frailty. Though women are redeemed, the inherent flaw persists; therefore, women must work out their salvation through a certain role. This particular interpretation seriously limits the substitutionary atonement of Christ.48 By placing emphasis on the Fall rather than the restoration effected by the Christ event and Pentecost, it has done great injustice to women and prevented their full participation in ministry and leadership. Clearly, Faupel’s expressed concern is not unfounded. The alignment has muted Pentecostalism’s own voice and song. Two different examples at this point serve to illustrate the validity of Faupel’s dual concern: (a) Barbara Amos’s experience at the Memphis meetings of 1994; (b) Deborah M. Gill’s study of women ministers in the Assemblies of God (AG) is also revealing.
(i)Memphis ’94: reconciliation and marginalisation Amos recalled that some men refused to remain in prayer and dialogue groups when she was present. What is ironic and shocking is the fact that the exclusionary behaviour took place in purportedly a reconciliation meeting. To be fair, there were also men in the groups who were
44 Elizabeth E. Johnson, ‘The Maleness of Christ’, in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (ed.), The Power of Naming (London: SCM, 1996), p. 313. 45 Petersen, p. 130. 46 D.W. Faupel, ‘Whither Pentecostalism?’, Pneuma, 15:1 (Spring 1993): 27. 47 This does not mean that all within evangelicalism endorse this interpretation. For example, noted Evangelical scholar F.F. Bruce comments on Gal. 3:28, “Paul states the basic principles here; if restrictions on it [women’s ministry in the Church] are found elsewhere in the Pauline corpus … they are to be understood in relation to Gal. 3:28, and not vice versa.” Cited in N.-O. Nilsson, ‘The Debate on Women’s Ministry in the Swedish Pentecostal Movement: Summary and Analysis’, Pneuma, 22:1 (Spring 2000): 79. 48 G. Gaebelain Hull, ‘Response’, in Alvera Mickelson (ed.), Women, Authority and the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1986), p. 25. Cited in Nilsson, p. 79. 138 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century embarrassed and appalled by the discriminatory behaviour and apologised to her. Even though this case seemed isolated in the Memphis meetings, nonetheless it was indexical of a serious malady in the Body of Christ. Amos rightly insists that reconciliation cannot be limited to concerns of racial prejudice and discrimination. It is a travesty to affirm racial equality, and simultaneously condone gender disparity either by participation in discriminatory practices and/or silence on the matter.49 It is counter to the way of the cross, of the ministry of reconciliation and the praxis of the Spirit. Authentic praxis of the Spirit means not repressing gender difference, but recognising, grappling with, learning and celebrating difference.
(ii)Assemblies of God (AG): whither egalitarian inclusivity? Women called by God have played a large and vital part in the history of AG missions. However, Gill in her study highlights a perceptible change in attitude towards women in ministry within the AG. She observes some disturbing trends. First, though the number of women in ministerial ranks is seemingly growing as a whole, women have been losing ground in leadership at an increasing rate. Second, women are virtually absent from District and General Council leadership. Third, oddly enough, a movement which in its beginning both affirmed and acknowledged women’s participation in ministry is now discouraging them.50 One AG editor commented, “It embarrassed some of our people to see women in leadership roles. After all, they were excluded from such roles by churches older and wiser than we.”51 It seems that as the movement grows and matures, there is an attending subtle marginalisation of women’s ministry and leadership. Women are marginalised in three main ways: “they are emotionalized, maternalized and sexualized.”52 These three ways represent what are often defined as feminine “qualities”. Implicit in this marginalisation is the privileging of the masculine “qualities”, which are deemed more acceptable, thus ministry and leadership are regarded as belonging to the male domain. It is quite obvious that oppositional logic is at work in the marginalisation of women in these three ways. The ongoing gender war is indicative that a malady exists. The issue of gender is not simply a matter of politics, whether secular or ecclesial; nor is it solely an ethical question. Rather, it is essentially theological. This debilitating malady stems from a
49 B.M. Amos, ‘Race, Gender, and Justice’, Pneuma, 18:1 (1996): 134. 50 Cited by Deborah M. Gill, ‘The Contemporary State of Women in Ministry in the Assemblies of God’, Pneuma, 17:1 (1995): 33. She notes that the AG has since its 1914 constitutional statement (which included an article entitled ‘Rights and Offices of Women’) affirmed the ministry of women. It states, “… we recognize their God-given rights to be ordained, not as elders, but as Evangelists and Missionaries, after being duly approved according to Scriptures.” In 1935, this prohibition of female elders enacted in 1914 was reversed, thus paving the way for authorisation of women’s ordination as elders or pastors. Since then, the number of women ministers has increased annually. Yet, in Gill’s study of 1995, only 6.9% of the Assemblies of God credentialed women are senior pastors. 51 R.G. Champion, ‘Tripped Up’, Pentecostal Evangel (18 February 1990): 3. Cited by Barbara Cavaness, ‘God Calling: Women in Assemblies of God Missions’, Pneuma, 16:1 (Spring 1994): 61. 52 Janet M. Everts, ‘Brokenness as the Center of a Woman’s Ministry’, Pneuma, 17:2 (Fall 1995): 238. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 139 truncated understanding of sameness and difference, gender, and the nature of God. In short, it is also a hermeneutical problem. Humanity is irreducibly differentiated – male and female. Sexual identity is bodily inscribed. Though sexual distinctions remain, they are no longer barriers to equality before God. Whereas sexual identity is biologically inscribed, and thus stable, gender identity is biologically and culturally grounded, and so fluid. Mary Stewart van Leeuwen calls this fluidity a “constant invention and reinvention of gender roles and identities.”53 Underlying the malady is a failure to see that the human creation as male and female requires a recognition of the mutuality of sameness (humanity in the image of God), and difference (male and female) within plurality.54 Employing “oppositional logic” to define gender is unfruitful. Such an attempt ends with neutering humanity by either erasing difference or synthesising difference. Rather than “oppositional logic”, Volf suggests that the Pauline injunction “not without the other” in 1 Cor. 11:11–12 is a more fruitful way of rethinking gender issues. Implied in the Pauline injunction is the presence of the other in the self and the self in the other.55 Gender equality does not erase gender difference. Rather, the difference is the basis of male–female interdependence. Volf adds that the self- giving love of the triune God and the way of the cross keep the dynamics of the negotiation and renegotiation of identities both male and female. The construction of identity looks different if “we assume that they are to be ‘created’ out of a ‘rib’ of the Triune God and the ‘wounded side’ of the Crucified.”56 The message of a crucified Messiah is culturally subversive at its core. Thus the Pauline approach to the issue of otherness is neither a dismantling nor a sanctioning of existing social structures. Rather, he radicalises social structures by submitting them under the paradigm of the cross. In Christ, a new creation through the eschatological Spirit has begun. b. The religious others Pentecostals have in the past avoided serious theologising on the religious others and participating in inter-faith dialogue. Though in rhetoric they generally echo the conservative evangelical’s positional exclusivism, their actual relationships with the religious others are more amicable than their rhetoric might imply.57 Perhaps a reason for Pentecostals’ avoidance has to do with the practical orientation of the Pentecostal faith. Its practical orientation is to God’s Kingdom and mission. What Pentecostals fail to see is that the issue of otherness has practical implications for Christian faith, identity and mission. The need to engage seriously
53 Mary S. van Leeuwen, Gender and Grace: Love, Work and Parenting in a Changing World (Downers Grove: IVP, 1991), p. 69. Cited by M. Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), p. 175. 54 Sexual differentiation has been traditionally interpreted in terms of the superiority of the male and the inferiority of the female. 55 Volf (1996), pp. 186–7. 56 Ibid., p. 190. 57 An example given by Yong is a guide written by the Church of God, Cleveland, which attempts genuinely to present the non-Christian faiths on their own terms. See Yong, Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal–Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 187–9. 140 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century the issue and challenges of the religious other is forcefully driven home by global and local events in our contemporary world. The tendency to judge, measure and define the other in terms of the self often leads to “violence”.58 The traditional evangelical stance on the religious other has been one of exclusivism. Religious exclusivism is not a monopoly of evangelicalism. It seems endemic to the nature of religions, especially “Evangelistic” or proselytising religions. Exclusivism often justifies its stance by a perceived sacral or divine legitimation. Gopin rightly observes, “It is easy to go from mildly aggressive efforts to missionize those who are not part of the saved realm, to the step of demonization of the outgroup that refuses to repent or convert. The outgroup becomes the other half of the dualistic world, and its elimination becomes a necessity in order for good to triumph over evil.”59 Anthropologist Mary Douglas argues in her work on taboos that exclusion is based on purity law.60 There seems to be the same exclusionary mechanism in the purity law implied in the Deuteronomic texts (7:16, 13:15–16). The normal human mechanism for creating peace through such means as “sacralised victimisation” is inherently violent to the other. Marc Thomsen in his article on the two biblical models of relating to ethnic and religious others surmises that a particular reading of the Deuteronomy text gives rise to religious violence. Fear of pollution nourishes violence. Thomsen describes this as a sword-and- flames model of relating to the ethnic and religious other.61 Certainly this is not the final word of divine intention for the ethnic and religious other. The narratives in the Book of Jonah and Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection point to this fact. Hence, there is a need to confront and rework the violent texts in one’s religious tradition with regard to the religious other “by hermeneutic means, which maintain the religious commitment but see the sacred as operating at a deeper level than the overt violence or hatred that may appear on the surface of a particular text.”62 Commenting on the Book of Jonah, Thomsen underscores the juxtaposition of God’s fury and His compassion. He writes, “God’s fury was a reality within God’s passionate concern for all people including the 120,000 Ninevites who did not know
58 We see a peculiar violence demonstrated by Jonah – choosing death as his only option when he realised that he could not dissuade God from being gracious and merciful to his enemies, the Ninevites. See Amy P. Pauw, ‘Attending to the Gaps between Beliefs and Practices’, in Volf and Dorothy C. Bass (eds), Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), pp. 37–40. 59 M. Gopin, Between Eden and Armageddon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 145. 60 See Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Ark Paperbacks, 1984). 61 M. Thomsen, ‘Two Biblical Models for Relating to the Ethnic and Religious Other’, CTM, 29:1 (2002): 29. This approach to the other in the name of excising pollution to protect identity was rife in Jesus’ time. Thomsen notes that this is reported in one of the documents from the Dead Sea Scroll named “The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness”. It was recorded there that the Essenes, while waiting for the final War of God, prepared banners to be used in the conflict, declaring “The War of God, The Vengeance of God, The Recompense of God, The Annihilation of God of all Vain Nations” (p. 29). 62 Gopin, p. 68. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 141 their left hand from their right.”63 In truth, the narrative of Jonah is a testimony of God’s deconstruction of pollution-violence through enemy-love. The Christ event is the most eloquent demonstration of this truth. What the life, death and resurrection of Christ effected is an unimaginable reality capable of offering hospitality even to his principal enemies and executioners. Negotiating the terrain of religious otherness is not straightforward or simple, but excruciatingly complex and ambiguous. The “paradigm approach” of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism, which precludes, elides and relativises difference, is inadequate to the task of facing and engaging the religious other. Its inadequacy lies precisely in its tendency towards false dichotomy and the incapacity to deal with ambiguity and complexity. Moreover, this approach, as Barnes critiques, does not involve risk, lacks a sense of mystery, and is without a sign of a God who continues to speak “in the demanding but richly rewarding ‘middle ground’ of human interaction.”64 (An ethic of negotiating otherness will be discussed in my conclusion.)
Summary
Despite this, Pentecostals are not totally incapable of receiving the neighbour as an other. It is the Spirit who enables the facing of the self and the other. The eschatological Spirit “not only provides the conditions for the self-facing in consciousness or self- consciousness, but also creates and upholds the conditions for the facing of other persons in community. The Christian church recognizes that its existence depends on the koinonia-creating reality of the Spirit as Christ’s presence in the world.”65 Furthermore, for Pentecostals, the “non-idolatrous” facing or orientation to God is conceived fundamentally as a mystical and ascetical journey (traversing further, deeper and higher) with God and in God as well as into God. It is a journeying towards the Father with Jesus in the Spirit.66 This journeying or facing is intensely relational and thoroughly transformative–liberative. Suurmond describes this transformative liberation as an ecstatic movement “in which people go outside themselves to God in the other.”67 In other words, it is the Spirit who enables one to encounter God in the reality of the other, to receive and welcome the otherness of the neighbour as an enrichment.68 For the Christian faith, openness to the other and the different is an intrinsic aspect of being human – the imago Dei, which also has to do ultimately with our eschatological redemption.
63 Thomsen, p. 30. 64 M. Barnes, SJ, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 17. 65 Shults and Sandage, p. 122. 66 Land, p. 76. 67 Suurmond (1994), p. 181. 68 Ibid., p. 222. 142 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Remembering Culminates in Worship
This twin orientation of the Spirit to God (otherness) and openness culminates in the centrality of worship. Worship69 is most distinctive and rich in Pentecostalism. It is what Pentecostals do best. Worship is both redemptive and creative. Worship is not peripheral to salvation, but its goal. This goal of redemption is traceable in both the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures. Israel was delivered from the Egyptian bondage to serve or worship YHWH, i.e., to engage with God. In fact, the particularity of Israel’s worship has a creative and redemptive universal import. There are allusions to this in the prophetic books. For example, Isaiah prophesied (in 19:19–25; 56:1–8) that it is in and through Israel’s renewed worship that YHWH will bring the nations to the knowledge of God. It is also significant to note that the worship motif is especially prominent in the Book of Revelation (Chapters 4–5, 7, 11, 15, 19, etc.), John employing the imagery of messianic marriage banquet to envisage worship, the unbroken union with God as the eschatological destiny and joy of the redeemed people of God. To worship God is not only humanity’s telos, but also its basic mode of creative existence. In short, to live is to worship God. Implicit in the worship motif in Revelation is that life in its entirety is oriented to the New Jerusalem and the victory of the slain Lamb. In other words, worship shapes and reshapes the Church in its relationship with God and the world. Worship is the foundational locus for nurturing and repetitively enacting this twin orientation to otherness and openness first lived out by Jesus. Worship of God must be done in Spirit and truth, as Jesus puts it (John 4:24). Implicit in this saying of Jesus is that right worship is essentially a turning from self to a “non- idolatrous” facing of God exemplified by Jesus,70 which is specifically the work of the eschatological Spirit. The key to worship is the Spirit. Worship is the defining spirituality of Pentecostalism.
Worship: Pentecostal Spirituality
Within the Pentecostal context, life in the Spirit is essentially a life of worship. Worship is a code term for the manifest presence of God and is the foundational Pentecostal ministry. The exhortation “Let us enter into the presence of God” is not heard as mere rhetoric, but as reality.71 For Pentecostals believe and expect that God will meet with God’s people. It is the Spirit who makes this experience of divine presence an existential reality. Life and worship in the Spirit is dynamically experienced and eschatologically oriented. What is distinctive about Pentecostal spirituality is that it
69 Albrecht notes that Pentecostals understand worship as having three main connotations: (1) As a way of Christian life, particularly outside the church services and activities. All of life is seen as worship, as an expression, a gift offered to God. (2) As the entire liturgy, the whole of Pentecostal service. (3) As a specific portion, aspect, or rite within the overall liturgy. However, I suspect that (3) is the most common understanding in contemporary Pentecostalism; see D.E. Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit: A Ritual Approach to Pentecostal/ Charismatic Spirituality (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), p. 225. 70 Ford (1999), pp. 213–14. 71 Albrecht, p. 247. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 143 is “christologically and pneumatologically fused”. Land avers, it is “Christocentric precisely because it is pneumatic; its ‘five-fold gospel’ is focused on Christ because of its starting point in the Holy Spirit.”72 Contrary to popular misconception, Christ is the content of Pentecostal worship and spirituality. However, for Pentecostals, its Christocentric focus is expressed through pneumatology. It is the eschatological Spirit who informs, forms and transforms the believer to a “dual-likeness” – Christ’s and Spirit’s; or more precisely, “to be like the Spirit in order to be like Christ.”73 At the heart of Pentecostals’ encounter with the Spirit is the intense experience of Christ – “no existential relation to Christ without awareness of the Spirit and no awareness of the Spirit without an existentially known relation to Christ!”74 Worship is the heart of its spirituality, a doxological participation in God, and fundamental to its self-understanding and mission. Concerning Pentecostal spirituality, Land explicates, “To live in the presence of the God of redemption is to live as a participant in the divine drama; to be created in God’s image is to be made for love and fellowship with God and each other.”75 This robust concept of participation in the divine life is profoundly communal and ultimately transformative, what Paul Fiddes calls “unification”, the eschatological climax of the participation. Understandably, worship occupies the place of primacy in Pentecostalism, not preaching or the celebration of the Eucharist. Yet in practice, Pentecostal worship is a combination of both the sacramental and word traditions. It is sacramental even though Pentecostals in general do not refer to their worship as such. The sacramental nature of worship becomes apparent in its understanding of worship and its charismatic ministry. Both presuppose the dynamic presence of God. Pentecostals believe and expect that God will meet with his people and act on their behalf. Worship is a graced encounter. Its charismatic ministry of healing and signs and wonders is obviously sacramental. For Pentecostals, orientation to God in worship is not only celebrative, but also participative. It means orientation to God’s Kingdom power, which is more than a cognitive category – it is an experiential reality. Liveliness and a celebrative mood are distinctive of Pentecostal worship. It is a foretaste of union with God, a profoundly transforming experience. It is not an experience of an “experience”, but an experience that draws the worshipping community into the otherness and hospitality of God. In fact, three elements make Pentecostal worship a fertile locus for nurturing orientation to otherness. They are: (1) its emphasis on the dynamic presence of the Spirit who is the Spirit of fellowship; (2) its emphasis on glossolalia; and (3) its experiential orientation. Divine otherness and hospitality is a tapestry deeply woven into Scripture. Worship is the foundational locus for enacting and nurturing God’s otherness and hospitality. This means worship is a celebration and a calling to mind of the mighty and gracious deeds of God. Hence, worship is simultaneously the culmination of remembering and an exercise in remembering.
72 Land, p. 23. 73 Ibid., p. 119. 74 Del Colle, ‘Spirit-Christology: Dogmatic Foundations For Pentecostal–Charismatic Spirituality’, JPT, 3 (1993): 93. 75 Land, p. 197. 144 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Testimonies as Remembering
Remembering may be described as a Spirit–Word aspect of worship. For Pentecostals, this aspect of worship is more than biblical preaching; it includes testimonies and prophetic speeches; “In the Christian tradition, testimony is a way of knowing.”76 Engagement with the core memory of the Christian faith in Pentecostalism is most vivid in testimonies, narratives of transformations and transfigurations. Testimonies function as a re-presentation of the reality of their salvation history, not discursive but celebrative and transformative. The re-presentations are engaged, involved, bursting with worship, prayer, song and praise that provoke commitment. Their very orality – every retelling of a miracle, a healing, an impossibility, an answered prayer, events great and small – enhances the vitality of faith because it keeps memory alive and truth real, especially the reality of God’s nearness as well as otherness, radical hospitality, generosity and responsive faithfulness. In the orality, there is a fusion of biblical reality with contemporary reality for Pentecostals. Remembering situates the present in God’s unfailing faithfulness, invoking irrepressible praise and worship, which functions as evangelical proclamation itself. This is vividly expressed in Psalm 126:1–3:
When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.
In this way, testimonies shape Pentecostal identity, theology and practices. Very often, testimonies are prefaced or concluded with such puzzlement: “I don’t know why God is so good to me…”. This indicates a sense of awe, joy, wonder, and of undeserving, of gratitude, at God’s lavish hospitality. Every answered prayer reinforces divine providence and power as well as one’s acceptance and love by God. In a similar vein, but worded differently, Reinhard Hutter writes concerning worship, “we continuously receive the very hospitality of God’s truth … Worship thus relates in a fundamental yet complex way to the practice of hospitality”.77 The experience of divine hospitality transforms one’s understanding of holiness and power. Holiness78 and power are the twin pillars of Pentecostal spirituality. However, holiness is not a monochrome word and cannot be defined narrowly. At one level, holiness is behavioural. However, at a profound level it has to do with character, i.e., reflecting the character of God, which is hospitality. Therefore
76 K.J. Vanhoozer, First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics (Leicester: Apollos, 2002), p. 351. 77 Raymond Hutter, ‘Hospitality and Truth: The Disclosure of Practices in Worship and Doctrine’, in Volf and Bass (2002), p. 207. 78 See footnote 13. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 145 the commandment “Be holy as I am holy” means more than pursuing mere morality or ethical exactitude; rather, it has to do with divine hospitality. Implied in this is an invitation to a creative imitation of God. It means to incarnate divine hospitality that reconfigures boundaries and dismantles exclusionary mechanisms that construct people in terms “of insiders/outsiders, safe and threatening” divides. Divine hospitality is most vividly expressed in the parables and meals of Jesus. Ford comments, “His parables reimagine how God relates to people. His teaching is only acceptable if God really is like that … His meals are celebrations of God’s welcome to the despised, rejected and victimised.”79 Nevertheless, divine generosity and hospitality are not mere sentimentality or, as it were, “cheap grace”. At the heart of God’s extravagant hospitality is the death and resurrection of Christ. The historical reality of the Christ event forbids both naïve sentimentality and premature rigidity concerning the largeness of God’s extravagant hospitality.
Embodying
Remembering enriches embodying, i.e., a new way of enacting prophetic wisdom. Identity and difference have become the scourge of contemporary consciousness, and they often explode into violence. There is not only a need for the Church to reflect theologically on this social reality, but also to recover a dynamic wisdom capable of negotiating peacefully this volatile terrain and to counteract totalising ideology. In order for Pentecostalism in Singapore to be a peaceful harbinger of plurality in its lived context, it must concentrate on developing persons rather than discovering the best methods. I am not dismissing the validity of methodology. Most solutions seeking to resolve this issue concentrate primarily on social arrangements. Social arrangements have certain advantages. They are efficient and effective. Singapore’s racial and religious harmony is a prime example of social arrangement or social engineering. It is observably effective and efficient. However, as I have pointed out in Chapter 1, though efficacious, it is inadequate. The issue here is not one of validity, but of adequacy. Developing social agents capable of living with the other justly, creatively, truthfully, hospitably, peacefully and without domination is more fundamental and urgent.80 In short, embodying has to do with the formation of the social agent as, to use Ford’s phrase “a worshipping self”. To develop this, I shall draw from the well of Pentecostal spirituality, and expand it through Scripture and other Christian traditions.
79 Ford (1999), p. 179. 80 I am suggesting that it is more fundamental, not that it is the only way of handling this issue. Social arrangements are good, but efficiency cannot be a substitute for character. In an efficiency-driven and methodology-fixated culture, developing social agents becomes neglected, as time is of the essence. 146 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Embodying: Living in the Spirit
Living in the Spirit is the classically Pauline and Pentecostal description of one’s new eschatological life of worship and service. In short, it means being immersed in the Spirit. Being immersed in the eschatological Spirit is to be grasped by the extent of the power and authority of the resurrected Christ who is Saviour, Lord and cosmic ruler over the totality of the created order.81 Put differently, it enlarges one’s vision and knowledge of God’s empowering presence. Albrecht rightly points out, “Empowerment is more than self-edification … Pentecostals experience the empowerment of the Spirit often in their corporate ritual, they move out with a sense of the Spirit’s power to serve the needs of the society, the world.”82 The empowering of the Spirit reverberates into the whole realm of existence. This Pentecostal liturgy of living in and from God’s eschatological presence sensitises Pentecostals’ expectation of and lively intuition to the new thing that God is doing through the Spirit, as well as informing the Christian social world and relationships. Pentecostal discernment is rooted in this lively intuition to the Spirit. In short, apocalyptic vision and power engendered by the Spirit alter the way in which Christ, the Church, Christian life, the world, and change are seen. Albrecht surmises, “Pentecostals experience God as creative and thus, as one who encourages creativity marked by inventive and improvisational actions and an adaptable, entrepreneurial spirit.”83 Living in the Spirit leads to openness and freedom. Thus worship, an immersing in the Spirit, is deeply transformative of the self of the worshipper. Ford writes, “Worship inspired through being loved and delighted in by God also refigures the self-esteem of the worshipper. There is a radical affirmation of self-worth. Deeper than obedience to duty there is at the heart of worship what Ricoeur conceptualises as ‘recognition’, and active recognition is rooted in the passivity of being recognised.”84 Receiving self-worth and being recognised by God liberates the self for the other. This is especially evident within Pentecostalism. Luther P. Gerlach recognises the transforming effect of this radical affirmation of self-worth among Pentecostals. He notes that the sense of worth and empowerment, and imbibing a radical worldview, energised Pentecostals with extraordinary purpose in facing the future. His conclusion about Pentecostalism is, “Such ideology encourages individual and group persistence, taking risk, sacrifice for the cause, identifies an unjust opposition, strong enough to challenge but eventually overcome, and bridge-building acts that set the participant apart from established order and often from past associations.”85
81 See R. Mouw, ‘Life in the Spirit in an Unjust World’, Pneuma, 9:2 (Fall 1987): 124–5. 82 Albrecht, p. 248. 83 Ibid., p. 251. 84 Ford (1999), p. 100. 85 L.P. Gerlach, ‘Pentecostalism: Revolution or Counter-Revolution?’, in Iwing I. Zaretsky and Mark P. Leone (eds), Religious Movements in Contemporary America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 682. Cited in Petersen, p. 39. Contrary to negative conventional interpretations of Pentecostalism’s ability to attract the masses, specifically as a “haven for the masses” with some kind of pre-existing defects, Gerlach displays an astute sensitivity and is more positive of Pentecostalism. He suggests that the movement in fact turns “normal” persons into “abnormal” ones and “ordinary” persons into “extraordinary” ones. In A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 147 Indeed, Pentecostals’ “inventive and improvisational actions, adaptability and entrepreneurial spirit” result from worship, divine recognition and the experience of Spirit’s empowerment. Being transformed into the image of Christ means inhabiting his life of constant self-giving. In Alison’s words, it is Christ who allows us “to share in the gratuity of his self-giving.”86 It thus relocates and transforms the worshipper. Paul sums up this new locus as being “in Christ”. Being in Christ has implications for relating to the other. Ford comments, “The message of salvation is that there is a new humanity which is already a reality in Christ and that even in relation to the deepest hostility (religious, racial, cultural, etc.) one starts from a situation in which the dividing wall has been removed, giving free access to God together.”87 Worship is deeply redemptive and creative. It is redemptive because worship is a turning from the self to a “non-idolatrous” facing of God and an embracive facing of each other, which is humanity’s telos. It is creative because in principle worship as celebrative play has the power to change the world. It is in worship that one “participate[s] from the center to the periphery of God’s oscillating personal/political action.”88 Suurmond describes Pentecostal worship as a freedom of play between Word (structure) and Spirit (freedom). It is here that his understanding of worship as Sabbath play becomes instructive.89 Within the context of celebrative play the giving of the self to God and to one another takes place and life is embraced seriously as a true gift of God – totally gratuitous. It is the dynamics of regular celebrative play in worship that “maintains the awareness that God’s kingdom is ‘other’, living … A celebration which is insufficiently ‘different’ cannot well proclaim the otherness of God’s kingdom and thus the otherness of God himself. In that case God becomes a useful idol, or is regarded as superfluous.”90 This playfulness in worship is the direct experience of the liberating Spirit who inspires, renews and surprises. It is a specific pointer to the truth, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty and power.”
Living in the Praxis of the Spirit
“Living in the praxis of the eschatological Spirit”, to borrow Land’s phrase, is the distinctive Pentecostal ethos. The Spirit is the source of zeal for service. It is the praxis of the Spirit that norms the practices of the Church. Living in the praxis of his words, Pentecostalism is, “… a movement for change, not a collection of sects, an opiate, or an anchor for tradition” (Petersen, p. 40). 86 J. Alison, Raising Abel: The Recovery of the Eschatological Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1996), p. 108. 87 Ford (1999), p.115. 88 E. Peterson, Earth and Altar (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1985), p. 49. Cited by S. Chan, Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1998), p. 130. 89 This concept of play is undeveloped in Pentecostalism. Suurmond’s and Chan’s works represent a development in this area by building upon J. Huizinga’s work, Homo Ludens. See Suurmond (1994), pp. 84–97), S. Chan, Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 116–19, and also Albrecht, pp. 180–82. 90 Suurmond (1994), pp. 95–6. 148 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century the Spirit suggests that the Church is being capacitated and directed by the Spirit to embody the eschatological reality and blessings in its lived context. Embodying eschatological reality has to do with divine superabundance. Here I find Hardy and Ford’s understanding of blessing insightful to my development of embodiment. Blessing, according to Hardy and Ford, is “a comprehensive biblical term for the powerful yet respectful interaction between God and the world, in which the world is enhanced at all levels.”91 Implicit in this is the idea of overflow, freedom and mutuality in the God–world relationship. In fact, blessing speaks eloquently of “non- necessity, a gratuitous bestowal of something new.”92 God in forming a new community did not intend that it be simply a historical, religious community, but also an eschatological community through the Spirit and “a sacrament of salvation” embodying divine superabundance or the blessing of the coming Kingdom in its lived context. However, this does not mean that the Church has a comprehensive solution to the world’s ills. Rather, embodying this eschatological reality means a new way of acting in the power and wisdom of the Spirit that is fundamentally reconciling in our daily living contexts of multiple otherness. In the light of this, humanising the present becomes important because it intimates glimpses of the facticity of reconciled reality and blessing achieved in the Christ event. This finds theological support in the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” (Mt. 6:9–13). Thus, embodying the eschatological reality is not optional for the Church. Only then will the Church become, as it were, an open heaven, a tangible and recognisable sign of God’s Kingdom. Living in the praxis of the Spirit (embodying eschatological reality) and worship are closely related. Worship as the repetitive enactment and nurture in God’s hospitality interrogates the Church’s embodiment and activism in the world. It serves to alert the Church to the possibility of its own corruption of the good, liberates it from the tyranny of social conditioning and arrangements, which are often assumed to be inviolate, and helps to sharpen its prophetic edge. It also makes the Church aware that the success of its mission is dependent not on its competency or superior programmes, but on the creative power of the Spirit. This awareness liberates the Church from anxiety and an inordinate sense of responsibility for the destiny or condition of the world at large; it frees the Church to trust and move in tandem with the magnanimous hospitality of God instantiated in history by the Spirit. In this way, worship gives freedom and inspires improvisation in embodying eschatological reality. Worship as feasting captures the triune life as an open, joy-filled, inviting fellowship in which creation finds room, i.e., divine embracive hospitality. Hence, true worship as the new facing of God generates multiple facing of the others. Feasting was a significant part of Jesus’ life and teaching. Ford rightly suggests that the “feast-centred ethic” of sharing and celebrating is “perhaps, the most radical of all the implications of the teaching and practice of Jesus.”93 Implicit in Jesus’ table
91 D.W. Hardy and Ford, Jubilate: Theology in Praise (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984), p. 81. 92 Ibid. 93 Ford (1999), p. 268. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 149 fellowship with the socially and religiously excluded is that the great eschatological banquet had already begun (Mk. 2:19). Hence, worship as a form of feasting points forwards to the all-embracive sociality, hospitality and superabundance of God’s eternal Kingdom. In this sense too worship is other-oriented.
The Radical Possibility of Pneumatological Eschatology
The efficacy of pneumatological eschatology lies precisely in the third person of the Trinity, not in a system or formula. Zizioulas writes, “The Spirit is the beyond of history, and when he acts in history he does so in order to bring into history the last days, the eschaton. Hence the first fundamental particularity of Pneumatology is its eschatological character.”94 Because pneumatological eschatology has to do fundamentally with the Spirit, His activity and the powers of the coming age, it offers a framework capable of addressing contemporary concerns and issues together with the eternal purposes of God. In short, it is both dynamic and history-oriented. Furthermore, pneumatological eschatology reminds us that the eschaton and joy are God’s gifts, not human achievements. This frees us from either pathological optimism or pessimism. It is the Spirit, not humankind, who is in the forefront of transformative activity both within the human and non-human creation. This means that the Church is to look “for signs of God’s reign in its own practices and encounters … Success can only be defined in reference to Christ’s passion and resurrection.”95 Recognising this liberates the Church from false preoccupations and empowers it to act creatively in hope in the midst of a broken and divided world. Banality is not a quality of this hope “generated” by the resurrection of Jesus, which empowers us to “risk suffering to bring light to the world.”96 Eschatological hope is inextricably linked to the work of the Spirit. The same Spirit of Life who raised Christ from the dead is the Spirit who gives life, bringing into being new creation and thus real hope. The Spirit gives clarity and power to this hope because it is rooted in God, in Christ. Stated differently, this hope is anchored not in evolutionary progress, but in divine faithfulness that is both salvific and transformative which “provides a horizon against which present reality can be relocated.”97 This eschatological hope inspired by the Spirit is not an individualistic private hope of soul salvation, but hope for the whole world. The eschatological hope that pneumatological eschatology offers lies in the biblical vision of the new heavens and new earth – a definite future and the sharing of God’s glory (Rom. 5:2). Christ’s resurrection secures this eschatological future. Implicit in this is that biblical eschatological hope is not simply about a wishful future, but about the advent of divine surprises and possibilities. Only a dynamic hope that is located not in vacillating circumstances, rigid orthodoxy or pragmatism but in the larger reality of the utterly alive and creative triune God, the
94 J.D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993), p. 130. 95 S. Wells, Transforming Fate into Destiny: The Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas (Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster, 1998), p. 161. 96 Alison, p. 166. 97 Fergusson, ‘Introduction’, in Fergusson and Sarot, p. 3. 150 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Ego Eimi, is equal to the task. This Ego Eimi is, in Brueggemann’s depiction, “The unfettered ‘thou’ who works newness, either out of compassionate fidelity or out of uncompromised self-regard … is never held at the nullpunkt.”98 Furthermore, pneumatological eschatology liberates one from the constrictive bipolar logic that plagues some discourses on otherness. The issue of “the other” has occupied much philosophical, political, sociological, religious and theological discourse. This thorny question of otherness is also unavoidably a matter of power politics. Otherness is often seen as a threat to personal identity in the contemporary context of suspicion. The attempt to colonise otherness into sameness is reminiscent of the Tower of Babel. This same totalising attempt to domesticate the other and eradicate the different is most diabolically and violently manifested in the horror of ethnic and religious cleansing in contemporary history. Conventional wisdom is ineffectual in arbitrating conflictual identities and loyalties. Partly, it lacks the transcendent dimension and so easily leads to a sense of premature closure. Another reason has to do with the fact that conventional wisdom is often founded on some forms of “exclusionary mechanisms” to maintain a certain kind of political, social and religious harmony. These exclusionary mechanisms are often “masked violence”. Without transcendence, resilience and openness, intransigence, rigid boundaries and exclusion readily become entrenched, making deep dialogue and genuine engagement with the other impossible. Babel and Pentecost are two divergent ways to community and unity. Underlying their divergence is also a fundamental difference in their understanding of God. If Babel advances the myth that only homogeneity and uniformity produces intelligibility, community and thus unity, Pentecost dismantles Babel’s myth in the miracle of understanding and intelligibility. The former achieves its aim by exclusion; the latter by embracive inclusion. Unity and relationality emerged from the event of Pentecost not by eradicating difference and otherness, but by preserving and transcending them.99 The promise of pneumatological eschatology is that the freedom and “poiesis of the Holy Spirit”100 transcends false antithesis and false synthesis by keeping polarities in balance and resisting all forms of totalisation that domesticate difference and diversity. Put theologically, “It is the Trinity which first announces difference: the first difference between Father and Son and the second difference between Father–Son and Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit which both maintains and negotiates trinitarian difference.”101 Pneumatological eschatology offers phronesis, a way of creative wisdom. This creative wisdom is the way of the Crucified and Resurrected Christ. Vanhoozer writes, “Wisdom provides an effective means for integrating seeing and doing, judging and acting … a way of integrating universals and particulars.”102 He adds,
98 W. Brueggemann, ‘Faith at the Nullpunkt’, in J. Polkinghorne and M. Welker (eds), The End of the World and the Ends of God (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), p. 149. 99 The unity and relationality that emerged was not automatic but wrought through constant struggles and multiple conversions – see Chapter 3. 100 Hutter (2002), p. 172, uses this phrase. 101 Ward, p. 56. 102 Vanhoozer, p. 349. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 151 “The wise person relates to God, the world and others in a way that is fitting, and hence in a manner that leads to human flourishing (and to the glory of God).”103 In short, phronesis has to do with life’s multiple negotiations. What pneumatological eschatology offers is a habitable construct for coexisting with plural reality because of its twin orientations, otherness and openness, that energise creative improvisations. On the one hand, it is an eschatological orientation to otherness, to the immense complexity and the powerfully creative telos of the divine dream for humanity – fellowship with the triune God and new creation. Put succinctly, this orientation to otherness is humanity’s eschatological redemption. This redemptive freedom towards the other dismantles the rigidity of dehumanising boundaries that separate and exclude. On the other hand, the orientation to radical openness and hospitality is deeply rooted in the power of God’s imaginative fertility, purposes and a promised end – new heaven and new earth; “the future is ‘ontically’ and existentially creative.”104 This radical openness guards against the twin tendencies of objectification and subjectification105 of faith, thus subverting all pretensions to mastery, liberating one from the tyranny of technical certitude, and freeing one from the wrong sort of mission and boundaries; it liberates one to true joy in faith, hope and love. In sum, a distinctiveness of pneumatological eschatology is the orientation to joy.
Doxological Joy:106 The Heart of Remembering and Embodying
Faith, hope and love culminate in joy. Doxological joy is the transformation of existence in God.107 Joy is the ultimate reality in God’s economy. Hardy and Ford insist, “Above all, the joy of God needs to be celebrated as the central and embracing reality of the universe, and everything else seen in the light of this.”108 Joyful obedience is grounded in the very nature of who God is. However, this age of escalating violence seems to reinforce pessimism and a deficit of ecstatic joy. Admittedly, “indulging” in joy in the midst of terrible realities of violence and sufferings may seem irresponsible. Suspicion easily leads to an assumption that ecstatic joy can only be achieved via amnesia.109 There is also a practical negation of the reality of God
103 Ibid., p. 350. 104 J.C. McDowell, Hope in Barth’s Eschatology (Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2000), p. 165. 105 Farley defines objectification as the identification of the real with what can be objectified, focused on, formalized, defined, etc. Subjectification has to do with the self’s anxious self-interests to tame and control the real; in other words, the self’s self-mirroring. Both objectification and subjectification in essence reject genuine otherness. See Farley, pp. 67–72. 106 I owe my deliberation on doxological joy to Ford, Self and Salvation, and Hardy and Ford, Jubilate. 107 See Hardy and Ford. 108 Ibid., p. 13. 109 Edith Wyschogrod, Saints and Postmodernism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 252. Cited by Ford (1999), p. 220. Ecstatic joy or ecstasy is not necessarily negative or a form of irresponsibility or irrationality. For example, glossolalia is a form of ecstatic joy in Pentecostalism. Paul Tillich insists ecstasy is a way of knowing that transcends everyday awareness, one in which “deep speaks to deep”. Cited in Cox, p. 86. 152 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century as joy and the experience of joy in contemporary Christianity. The idea of a God of joy and the experience of joy are an embarrassment within most Christian traditions. Their sombre liturgy is an indication of this. Yet doxological rejoicing is a recurring theme of both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. In fact, joy or rejoicing is not only a theme in the Christian Scripture, but is also an imperative grounded in the Christ event. In other words, doxological joy has to do with a deep confessing faith and hope in Christ who “has promised to fully manifest the world’s reconciliation in his redemptive presence.”110 Put briefly, to take God seriously is to exult in joy. Joy is not merely an idea, but a “different perspective on the world and its needs – the truth and righteousness of the kingdom of God.”111
Joy and Scripture
Singing is a distinctive response of worship and joy in Israel, celebrating YHWH’s unfailing solidarity (Ex. 15:1–2 and 21; Judges 5:3 and 7–8; Ps. 148). In fact, Brueggemann argues that for Israel, singing is “never ‘mere’ religion. Praise is always an act of political reality, daring a new way in the world.”112 It is significant to observe that the note of joy is distinctive in the prophetic books in the Hebrew Scripture, contrary to a common and erroneous perception that they are primarily prophecies of doom. In truth, they are not only pronouncements of divine judgement in the face of human sin and evil, particularly Israel’s infidelity, but also proclamations of divine joy, delight, compassion and covenantal love over Israel. Thus, the prophetic books are imbued with a rich tenor of anticipatory joy bursting forth. This rumble of anticipative joy amid human failures, exile, judgement and apparent divine abandonment rests firmly on the fact of the faithfulness of YHWH’s elective love (Zeph. 3:17f.; Isa. 12, 42:10–13, 52:7–10, 60:1–5 and 15–20, 61:10–11, 62:1–5). Joy in God is a possibility for human creatures because it flows from God’s joy over his human creation. Luke’s Gospel begins with the angelic proclamation of joy (2:10) and concludes with the worshipping disciples returning to Jerusalem with great joy (24:52). The Apostle Paul in the NT insists that joy is a fundamental characteristic of the Kingdom of God (Rom. 14:17). For Paul, praise and joy are the very life of the Church, not an optional extra, and they are developed in the soil of both suffering and blessings (Phil. 1:29f.).113 Abiding joy is most evident in the life and ministry of Jesus. This joy is also intimately related to the cross and resurrection of Christ. Heb. 12:2 records that Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. What is significant is that Jesus conceives his death in terms of joy; as it were, joy assaulting death. Jesus draws near to his death with joy: “it did produce a trembling and a sweat of blood, but it was conceived in joy by someone whose creative mind was fixed on an inexhaustible
110 McDowell, p. 213. 111 B.T. Morrill, Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), p.115. 112 Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), p. 69. 113 Hardy and Ford, p. 26. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 153 creative joy.”114 Jesus Christ “in his person embodies doxology beyond paradox.”115 The vision of joy is transformative. This same joy – the full measure of his joy – is something Jesus wanted his disciples to have (Jn. 17:13). It is an abiding joy that no one can take away (Jn. 16:22) because “it flows from fixing of the mind on the utter vivaciousness of the living, effervescent God who knows not death, a fixing of the mind which will be possible for them after Jesus has opened the possibility for mortal humans (shot through with death) to participate in that creative love and life by going to his death.”116
Joy and Pentecostalism
That joy is experientially rich and transformative is especially marked in Pentecostalism. Two realities combined to make joy a definitive feature of Pentecostalism – the foundational experience of the eschatological Spirit and the anticipated parousia. Ecstatic joy flows from the experience of the eschatological Spirit and prophetic glimpses of the eschaton. Clark Pinnock writes, “Spirit is the ecstasy that makes the triune life an open circle and a source of pure abundance. Spirit embodies and triggers the overflow of God’s pure benevolence, fosters its ecstatic character and opens it up to history.”117 Pentecostals associate joy and its derivatives – gladness, singing and dance – with the ministry of the eschatological Spirit (Acts 13:52; Eph. 5:18–19; Gal. 5:22; 1 Thess. 1:6). In other words, the eschatological Spirit is the joy-giver – the one who inspires celebrative joy. Understandably, Pentecostal spirituality is characteristically earthy, informal and joyful. Joy is not only expressed through the medium of songs, dance, laughter, tears and intelligible praises, but also frequently in unintelligible tongues. When Pentecostals are caught up in visions of the eschatolological reality that elude description, they explode in glossolalia. The Spirit transforms “verbal paralysis” into ecstatic, spontaneous praise speech. What Susan Sontag calls the “excruciating pain” of linguistic atrophy, desiccation, and banality is transfigured into free-flowing praise.118 It is the Spirit who moulds humans into one great chorus of praise to the Father through the Son, which in turn will mark the Father’s eternal glorification of new humanity in the Son.119 This chorus or cathedral of praise is most evident in Pentecostal worship. For Pentecostals, worship is a profoundly eschatological act of celebration. Worship is essentially a joyous feasting in the Lord that is a mutual experiencing in Pentecostal parlance: drinking deeply of the love of Jesus and falling in love over and over again with Him.120 “Feasting” is not simply a metaphor describing Pentecostal worship, but is an experienced reality for Pentecostals. Its exuberant celebrative worship
114 Alison, p. 74. 115 Hardy and Ford, p. 126. 116 Alison, pp. 74–5. 117 Pinnock (1996), p. 38. 118 Susan Sontag, cited in Cox, p. 96. 119 S.J. Grenz, The Social God and the Relational Self (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), p. 303. 120 This “feasting” is seen in many of the praise-worship songs in Pentecostal worship. 154 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century testifies to this. Displays of ecstatic exuberance and relational intimacy often appear cacophonic and chaotic to non-Pentecostals. But to Pentecostals they are “a concert of prayer, a stereophonic praise temple and a proleptic dance of the kingdom.”121 It is a prelude to and a rehearsal of the feast of Heaven – the marriage supper of the Lamb, the messianic feast. Doxological joy is the ultimate unceasing joy in God and with God, i.e., a full participation in the dynamics of the Trinitarian life. Rejoicing is humanity’s final destiny. Ultimately, the eschaton is concerned with communion, union and joy. The Johannine Apocalypse gives us a glorious glimpse of the thunderous crescendo of rejoicing in Rev. 19:1–8. It is the hope of this future pure and untainted joy that sustains and impels our engagement in the eschatological present. The gift of doxological joy enables the Church to sing, to dance, to serve, to suffer, to heal and to forgive while awaiting the full coming of the eschaton. Pentecostal celebrative joyful worship, far from being escapist and world-renouncing, is, rather, profoundly prophetic and proactive. Cox argues that jazz and Pentecostalism are alike in that both are expressions of resistance to oppression through exuberant worship.122 The experience of joy in the Spirit enables Pentecostals to envision the world differently and generates power to struggle for it.123 Doxological joy is inherently prophetic. To rejoice in God is a double-edged prophetic act, as Hardy and Ford rightly claim, “which at once stings the habitual worldly wisdom fed on suspicion, bad news and equivocal or cynical judgements. It also stings the practical atheism of many ‘believers’.”124
Beyond Pessimism, Optimism and Triumphalism
Meal is a prophetic symbol of reconciliation. In Jesus’ theological economy, meal/ feast becomes a “hopeful celebration of God’s reconciliation with his chosen people.”125 It signals that the time of lament for divine absence is passed, for God Himself has returned to God’s people by initiating “the reconciliation of an alienated
121 Land, p. 112. 122 Cox, p. 145. 123 One sociologist in Brazil, P. Freston, observes that Pentecostalism is able to make effective changes because it creates communities of discontinuity and transformation; confronts machismo more effectively than feminism; deals convincingly with matters of money, sickness, moral crises and family problems; and is able to offer the principal alternative to the drug culture by giving people a new identity and values. Cited in Shaull and Cesar, p. 228. Shaull and Cesar also add, “By calling upon the poor to give rather than receive, Pentecostals contribute significantly to breaking the attitude of dependency so deeply rooted among marginal peoples” (p. 228). As Cecilia Mariz puts it, “By not giving to the poor, Pentecostals make it possible for the poor to no longer be subjectively poor”, ‘Pentecostalism and Confrontation with Poverty in Brazil’, in B.F. Gutierrez and Dennis A. Smith (eds), In the Power of the Spirit. Pentecostals Latin America: A Challenge to Historic Churches (Mexico City: AIPRAL, 1996), p. 47. Cited in Shaull and Cesar, p. 229. 124 Hardy and Ford, p. 138. 125 J. McGuckin, ‘Signs of the Kingdom – a Reflection on Motivation’, in R.S. Barbour (ed.), The Kingdom of God and Human Society (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993), p. 200. A Pentecostal Theological Contribution: Pneumatological Eschatology 155 people and brought about that reconciliation with an unexpectedly magnificent generosity.”126 To joy in God is to assume the prophetic role of reconciliation. In line with this, McGuckin is correct to suggest:
The Church needs to gain confidence in its role of a prophet of reconciliation … It will need to pursue reconciliation joyfully even against the opposition of those of lesser vision who regard such a path as laxity or spinelessness, in order to allow the force of reconciliation to speak for itself, and to hold fast itself to the gospel of the primacy of mercy.127
The need to reframe mission becomes apparent. It is precisely this possibility of joy, Barth suggests, which is the mystery of creation; not the existence of evil.128 Regarding mission from the standpoint of doxological joy is more fruitful because doxological joy makes God’s love and generosity the central reality, rather than human sin and misery. Mission, then, is an invitation to participate in God’s joy. It is significant to note that the apostle Paul’s anguished perplexity over the obstinacy and unbelief of Israel finds resolution in doxology (Rom. 11:33–36). Such focusing on the primacy of God liberates mission from being either manipulative or naïvely optimistic. In enthroning “the primacy and reality of the love of God, and in its desire to share delight in this it becomes evangelical and missionary.”129 Joy is not a technique, but the overflow of God’s superabundance. Technique and manipulation, to quote Brueggemann, only “silence all serious conversation”.130 Moreover, becoming habituated in God’s generosity through doxological joy frees the Church from the rigidity of rules, to hope, to discern and to improvise. Thus it enlarges the Church’s capacity to act creatively in mission beyond what is conventionally and empirically defined as possible, to perceive new possibilities and attempt the impossible. Doxological joy is liberative and communitarian – it frees us from ourselves and thrusts us towards God, others and the world. This is so because doxological joy is the overflow of divine superabundance – goodness, generosity and hospitality. The eschatological horizon of joy is the culmination of all meanings where God shall be all and in all. Therefore, doxological joy is beyond pessimism, optimism and triumphalism because it is “the unqualified yes from God”. What gives buoyancy to the whole ecology of Christian existence, engagement and participation in God’s activity from the penultimate to the ultimate is this doxological joy.
126 McGuckin, p. 201. 127 Ibid., p. 206. 128 J.M. Capper, ‘Karl Barth’s Theology of Joy’, PhD dissertation (University of Cambridge, 1998), p. 143. 129 Hardy and Ford, p. 150. 130 Brueggemann (1989), p. 73. This page intentionally left blank Conclusion Towards an Ethic of Negotiation
Life and faith are a series of negotiations and renegotiations. “If life is to be faithful and faith is to be alive”,1 as Kenneth Cragg suggests, then negotiation is utterly indispensable. Why “negotiate”? According to Cragg, “negotiate” is an appropriate word, “if it is retrieved from the mandarins of diplomacy and the business of the counting house. It has to do with more than cheques and treatises. From its Latin source in neg otium it means laying aside sloth, saying No! to ease, in order to hold intercourse by way of transacting business.”2 This implies that genuine negotiation is not easy tolerance; it is a risk-filled responsibility. Negotiation has to be learned and requires critical discernment and generosity. It is spiritual discernment in its broadest sense; what Yong calls “a hermeneutic of life”.3 Discernment is attuned attention to the Spirit who is teacher, guide, interpreter and negotiator of reality. The pedagogy of the Spirit is critical not only in negotiating the excruciating complexity and ambiguity of the religious other, but also in creating spaces for transformation. Since “life and faith negotiate”, to borrow Cragg’s phrase, this ethic of negotiation must be centred in the narrative of God and God’s particular vision for human life and all of created reality. In short, it must be centred on who God is and who we are. Put in Barth’s terms, it is an “invocation of God”.4 A full development of this ethic of negotiation is beyond the scope of this study. My modest goal is an embryonic description. I shall describe this ethic of negotiation in terms of vision and communication and then offer some guidelines and maxims for an ethic of negotiation. The common approach to the engagement with the religious other often operates within the logic of “exclusion”, either Heaven or Hell.5 Inadvertently, this
1 K. Cragg, Faith and Life Negotiate: A Christian Story-Study (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1994), p. 1. 2 Ibid. 3 A. Yong, Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2003), p. 129. Yong describes this hermeneutic of life as both a divine gift and a human activity aimed at reading correctly the inner processes of all things – persons, institutions, events, experiences, etc. For a fuller discussion of this, see pp. 129–61. 4 Cited in J. Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology: Human Action in Barth’s Thought (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), p. 168. 5 I am not jettisoning the reality of hell. My point is one of hope based on the Christ event. As Alison, quoting Balthasar, observed, “hell exists, as the Church has always maintained; nevertheless it is perfectly possible that there be nobody at all there. More than that: it is perfectly legitimate for us to hope, in the strictest theological sense, and pray that there be nobody there. However, our attitude must be to hope, and not to take for granted, that hell is empty.” See J. Alison, Raising Abel: The Recovery of the Eschatological Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1996), p. 177. 158 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century operative logic makes cosmic separation the centre of ultimate reality. This can easily perpetuate “aggression” or “sacralised violence”, imposition, complicated by domination and control, in its engagement with the religious other. However, the Gospel proclaims a different logic, that of divine embrace. The cosmic fulfilment envisioned is reconciled reality and the eschatological feast, intimating that the eschaton is not exclusion, but is an unimaginable inclusion and festivity. The Gospel logic refigures the other. The other is not an enemy to be overcome, but a friend to be embraced. Engagement or negotiation is not a matter of winning an argument or assimilating the other, but orientating the other to the eschatological feast of God. What one envisions as foundational determines one’s engagement with the other. It can perpetuate a culture of aggression and discrimination, or a culture of humility, respect and discernment, which ultimately causes God’s name to be glorified. This requires an ethic or practice of negotiation that is rooted not in an anthropological principle of tolerance or in a political agenda, but in something immensely richer and fuller. Such an ethic of negotiation demands an eschatological framework, an expansive audacious vision, which the Gospel provides.
Spirit-Oriented Vision: God-Centred Ethic
To live in the praxis of the Spirit is to be oriented redemptively to this mystery of God and drawn into God’s vision of the future. “Mystery” in the Pauline tradition refers to the “hidden wisdom” which expresses God’s resolve to unite all things in Christ (1Cor. 2:7; Rom. 16:25; Col. 1:26).6 This mystery is made known in and through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:9–10; Col. 1: 26–27). It is God in Christ “reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19), and bringing about one new humanity, a joy- filled relationality. The cross is God’s way of effecting peace and reconciliation in a world divided by a wall of hostility (Eph. 2:14). In demolishing divisive hostility, a new humanity is created, which is reconciled to God and to each other; “The gospel creates new human community, and that new human community is itself part of the gospel to be proclaimed.”7 The vision of eschatological feasting with God and other(s) refigures boundaries and transforms the way one negotiates the boundaries. This vision is a significant motivation that inspires creative ethical improvisations, which are, in Volf’s words, “human resonances, under a variety of circumstances, of the divine engagement with the world through which human beings are sustained and redeemed.”8 Luke has a particular emphasis on Jesus’ non-discriminatory openness to the other: “The Jesus that Luke introduces to his readers is somebody who brings the outsider, the stranger, and the enemy home and gives him and her, to the chagrin
6 M. Barnes, SJ, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 187. 7 V. Ramachandra, The Recovery of Mission: Beyond the Pluralist Paradigm (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), p. 266. 8 M. Volf, ‘Theology for a Way of Life’, in Volf and Dorothy C. Bass (eds), Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 255. Towards an Ethic of Negotiation 159 of the ‘righteous’, a place of honor at the banquet in the reign of God.”9 Peter’s heavenly vision in Acts is also significant for our deliberation. The vision was radically disruptive of Peter’s inherited orthodoxy and orthopraxy. That vision and the coming of the Spirit on Cornelius brought about “seismic” conversion in Peter and transformed his negotiation with the other. This vision intimates an embracive openness rather than restrictive closure at the heart of divine engagement with humanity. No boundaries can preclude God’s love and activity through the Spirit. It is significant that in Acts 10:28 Peter does not say, “God has revealed to me that there’s no such thing as that which is impure or profane”, but rather, “not to call any person impure or unclean”. This phrase, “not to call any person impure or unclean”, stands as a profound revelation in the context of exclusion based on purity laws. What is revealed is that the resurrection of Christ demolished the entrenched exclusionary mechanism, which creates hostile divisions of people into pure and impure, clean and unclean. Alison suggests, “It is not only a revelation of the murderous mendacity of any form of social separation, but an impetus to construct something different. Not calling anyone profane or impure is actually a positive command about building something (as Peter then showed by baptising Cornelius), not merely an instruction to abstain from a certain form of behaviour.”10 The Spirit, through the vision, is opening Peter’s world of exclusion to the transcendent world of God’s inclusive hospitality and the construction of a new human community. The freedom to extend and accept table fellowship between Peter and Cornelius (Acts 10:23 and 48; 11:3) instantiates the daring breaking of rigid boundaries and a construction of a radically new relationality. This is possible because in the Christ event “something more fundamental, more radical than any division has happened, the creation of a new place of love which is infinitely capacious.”11 A contemporary example, comparable to that of Peter’s, is Khong’s suggestion that Singapore Christians send funds for the rebuilding of mosques in Indonesia that Christians had burned in retaliation.12 One may interpret this attempt as defending the rights of the religious others to have their own worship places even at one’s own expense and “conscience”; that is, for Christians to be willing even to lay aside their own “rights” in order to do so as “building something new” in line with Peter’s heavenly mandate. Might this be an appropriate “human resonance” of divine redemptive generosity, or, to echo Ford, an anticipation of the feasting of the Kingdom of God? Inevitably, such iconoclastic generosity and border-crossing is risky. Its radicalism will shock, rankle, and come into confrontation with the chauvinisms of many “religious” people, even those within their own ranks. The falling-out of some significant members of the LoveSingapore movement is evidence of this. Khong
9 D.L. Bosch, Transforming Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000), p. 108. 10 Alison, p. 105. 11 D. Ford, Self and Salvation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 119. 12 This was in retaliation for the burning of the churches by fundamentalist Muslims. Khong’s radical suggestion shocked the “religious spirit” of the leaders of some participating churches. In fact, some of those found the notion too offensive (because it is viewed as endorsing the worship of other gods specifically forbidden in Scripture) and broke company with the movement. Interview with LaiKheng Pousson, 18 September 2002. 160 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century envisaged the act as an expression of repentance for complicity in violence. Indeed, “Asking for forgiveness from others is as much an outflow of the gospel as is the offer of divine forgiveness to others.”13 Perhaps the reluctance and failure of the LoveSingapore movement to support this risky plunge is indexical of its lack of “vision” and a modus operandi that is still wedded to the division between the pure and the unclean. Jesus, in his farewell discourse in John’s Gospel, issued the commandment to love. To love Jesus and to obey his commandment means to learn to imitate him flexibly and creatively. The commandment of love has often been misunderstood as a kind of stoicism with regard to the other, leading to grotesque distortion. This commandment requires a conversion to God’s “immeasurable more”, or superabundance. It is a challenge to love in ever larger ways, empowered by the vision of “open heaven” and the eschatological feast. Bringing to memory the Christ event is how the Spirit is creatively bringing forth a transforming consciousness and a conciliatory way of acting, which is “non-accusatory, non-exclusive” of others. It is a commitment to break rigid boundaries, a movement towards eschatological reality. Vision is critical because it is “the antidote to the obsession with the past.”14
Communication
An ethic of negotiation that is rooted in and flows from the mystery of the God who is infinitely loving, generous, merciful and embracive is inherently vulnerable and destabilising. It is vulnerable because one cannot control what is fundamentally mystery or calculate infinite generosity and mercy. God is inherently mysterious, even in the manifestation of Jesus Christ. It is destabilising because it constantly disrupts one’s cherished orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Nevertheless, an ethic of negotiation that is centred on this God is immensely rich and generates new possibilities, imaginative constructions and fresh communications through the Spirit. A maxim follows from this: “Let God be God.”
Mission/Witness
Mission is first and foremost missio Dei, prodigious grace. This has implications for Christian witness and communication. Negatively, it is a prohibition against thinking of the Gospel as our possession and of “evangelism as a matter of demonstrating the superiority of our ‘religion’ over all others.”15 Positively, it is confidence in proclamation of God’s prodigal grace. Luke and Paul frequently employ parrhesia and parrhesiazomai, “boldness” and “to speak boldly” (Acts. 4:13, 29 and 31; 9: 27; 13:46; 14:3; 18:26; 19:8; 2 Cor. 3:9–12; Eph. 6:19–20) about witness and
13 Ramachandra, p. 273. 14 M. Gopin, Between Eden and Armageddon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 192. 15 Ramachandra, p. 273. Towards an Ethic of Negotiation 161 ministry.16 Because the content of the communication is God’s manifold wisdom, the apostolic witness and ministry is characterised by parrhesia. However, this bold freedom is not to be confused with the arrogance of one who knows or thinks he/she is right. Rather, it is as Alison insists, “a new and unheard audacity, absolutely and intrinsically linked to the good news: a freedom in speaking and in revealing what is hidden and covered over.”17 Bold freedom in speaking must be accompanied by an agnosticism regarding who is saved, and a renunciation of the human satisfaction of success in preaching that produces quantifiable numbers of converts. Salvation has to do with God summing up all things in heaven and on earth under one head, even Christ (Eph. 1:10). Until its “face-to-face” fulfilment, we only see dimly and know in part (1 Cor. 13:12). Williams reminds us, “It is not without each other that we move towards the Kingdom; so that Christian history ought to be the story of continuing and demanding engagement with strangers, abandoning the right to decide who they are. We shall none of us know who we are without each other – which may mean we shan’t know who we are until Judgement Day.”18 This requires a deep confidence in the Gospel, which reveals God to be both just and gracious in his dealings with humankind. In short, it is the mystery of God’s mercy for all. It is this hope that sustained Paul. Patience is the inner structure of hope. Patience “has its root in the same word as ‘passion,’ that is, suffering, undergoing … is the empowerment to risk suffering to bring light to the world.”19 Paul’s anguish over Israel’s obstinacy regarding the Gospel is juxtaposed with confidence that there will be mercy for all and with an irrepressible doxology (cf. Rom. 9–11, esp. 11:28–36). Because Paul’s confidence is in the constancy of God, he was prepared to wait “patiently upon the fulfilment of God’s promise; his hope in what remains God’s work is expressed in praise for what he knows God has already done.” 20 Implicit in the mystery of God and God’s wisdom is that salvation and the final destiny of the other is ultimately God’s responsibility; the Church cannot arrogate this responsibility to itself. Acknowledging this fundamental fact does not vitiate proclamation zeal, but puts this matter into right perspective. Concern for the salvation of others does not grant license for an intrusive or manipulative way of evangelising. Passion for the Kingdom and parrhesia in communication must acquire an ethical character because human beings are created in the imago Dei and are the objects of God’s seeking love. This means that respect must be accorded to the other. Respect entails attention: “Mere rebuttal is not attention; only attention can refine it into witness.”21 Active witness must be non-intrusive and it must avoid manipulation. It must be accompanied by a “passivity” which creates space for the freedom of multiple
16 Bosch, p. 114; F. Young and Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (London: SPCK, 1987), p. 251; and Ford (1999), p. 110. 17 Alison, p. 178. 18 R. Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 286. 19 Alison, p. 166. 20 Barnes, p. 187. 21 Cragg, p. 235. 162 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century responses, whether of acceptance or rejection. Ramachandra calls this true tolerance: “To believe that my neighbour is wrong in her beliefs and that as long as she clings to her beliefs she will suffer eternal ruin, and yet at the same time to defend and protect her freedom to hold those beliefs … this, surely, is the real meaning of tolerance.”22 To do less is to disrespect. Barnes’s idea of “waiting” and Ramachandra’s “tolerance” or respect is, at core, an ethic of self-giving hospitality. Embodying self-giving hospitality changes both the witness and the hearer of the Gospel. Since this confidence, or boldness, is Spirit-empowered witness in freedom of speech, “new improvisation of parrhesia”, to borrow Ford’s phrase, in new contexts is possible.
Inter-faith Dialogue and the Issue of Truth
Inter-faith dialogue involves many levels of conversations and exchanges. Dialogue is one expression of inter-faith engagement. Constructive engagement and dialogue with the religious other is a constitutive part of mission, not an optional extra. Communication or dialogue is intrinsic to the nature of the triune God. Dialogue finds its justification in the incarnation and the movement of the Spirit. Alistair McFadyen writes, “Christianity has always been (and always will be) in a situation of mission. That is to say, it is always in a situation where its truth is to be communicated and found.”23 Implicit in this is not only a claim to truth, but also a claim that truth can be discovered and understood. It is precisely the question of truth that is most disputed in religion. Blind fanaticism and rigid dogmatism have been responsible for murderous violence in human history. A dominant reaction to the empirical divisive evil in the name of religion and truth is suspicion of any claim to absolute truth. This lends a thrust towards tolerance as a dogmatic principle which de-emphasises truth. Yet truth is critical to freedom and human flourishing. Truth is liberative: “Know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Peace without truth not only does not last, but also essentially undermines genuine respect for the other. An ethic of respect demands the right to posit truth, as one knows it. Hence, truth must not be trivialised, relativised or sacrificed for the sake of a political version of peace,24 easy tolerance, universalism or nihilistic relativism. McFadyen argues that the incarnation requires the Church to take particularity seriously. This implies that Christian engagement in inter-faith dialogue is not about overcoming particularity or plurality, but rather about overcoming distortions of communication that turn distinctions into forms of separation.25 Overcoming distortions requires resolute self-criticism. All human understanding, including Christian, is finite, fallen and perspectival. Hans Küng makes this astute observation: “The boundary between truth and untruth is not a priori identical with the boundary between one’s own
22 Ramachandra, p. 271. 23 A. McFadyen, ‘Truth as Mission: The Christian Claim to Universal Truth in a Pluralist Public World’, SJT, 46 (1993): 445. 24 I am making this comment out of the context of the understanding of the “political” in Singapore. 25 McFadyen, p. 455. Towards an Ethic of Negotiation 163 religion and any others … the boundaries between truth and untruth often runs through one’s own religion. How often we are right and wrong at the same time!”26 Dialogue is not only verbal, but a living encounter in life and thought that entails focused listening, generosity of heart and mind, mutuality and friendship. In short, it is “indwelling” the narratives of the other.27 To be able to listen to the testimonies of the religious other requires friendship, which allows the other to be revealed in his/her particularity and uniqueness. The purpose of dialogue is to achieve mutual understanding (which may or may not lead to consensus). Mutual understanding means a willingness to learn from, listen to, and assess the other religious traditions on their terms, and in the process also be transformed by what one learns from the other. This requires a stance of epistemological openness, which, as Yong maintains, is “intrinsic to a genuine pneumatological orientation.”28 May this not be interpreted as “reading” the Spirit’s activity or discerning the Spirit? Dialogue is not simply a cognitive exchange; it is an extension of friendship to the other. Hence, mutuality is a worthy aim. It is a gift of friendship; a sign of the Kingdom. McFadyen avers, “mutuality itself is an anticipation of the unconstrained conditions of dialogue in the Kingdom. Wherever dialogue is achieved, there is an anticipation of the kingdom.”29 Negotiating truth with the religious other requires a conversion of the mind and speech. It is first of all “allowing the Spirit of truth to lead us deeper into the truth of the gospel and the transforming power of truth.”30 Truth has an elusive quality. This is because Christian truth has to do fundamentally with the mystery of God in Christ. McFadyen rightly notes, “Truth is and remains elusive, ambiguous and promissory. This means that as Christian theologians we live between absolute failure and a very odd kind of achievement in relation to the truth. It means that we live and think by hope and faith, sustained by the truth.”31 This challenges us to avoid arrogance. Both imposition and repression of truth are arrogant. Since Christian truth has to do fundamentally with God Incarnate, Christian communication appropriate to this truth is critically important in inter-faith dialogue. This implies that an incarnational way of negotiation is an ethic of speaking in truth. It requires the Church to be a truthful community, speaking truth with love and gentleness (Eph. 4: 25 to 5:2). To speak truthfully requires honesty. There is no immunity from doubts or the “unknown”. Thus, confession of sin is critical to being a truthful community32 before God and the believing community as well as the non-Christian community. What the Church is responsible for is speaking boldly of what it knows to be true; speaking
26 H. Küng, Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (New York: Continuum, 2001), p. 81. 27 Tan-Chow MayLing, ‘Religious Pluralism and Pentecostalism: The Singapore Context’, unpublished paper presented at the Boon-Dang Central House 4th Annual Meeting, Paris, 24 to 28 June 2003, p. 12. 28 Yong, Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal–Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 312. 29 McFadyen, pp. 453–4. 30 Ramachandra, p. 268. 31 McFadyen, p. 438. 32 S. Hauerwas, Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), p. 72. 164 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century truthfully and humbly in acknowledgement that it does not know the total reality of things, “what always remains other and utterly mysterious.”33 Hence, boldness in communication is not dogmatism, but truthfulness in humility, love and respect. It is significant to note that love and gentleness are listed among the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23). In short, a “capacity for dialogue” and a “capacity for truth” are Spirit-generated. They involve the readiness to listen, to understand, to wait, to learn from, and to be surprised and challenged by the religious other, which is sustainable only by, as Barnes puts it, a “theology of thanksgiving”.
Collaboration
Collaboration is another side of dialogue. In the shared social space, it is critical for religions to work together for the common good and help make flourishing possible. The magnitude of human needs globally necessitates a wider base of cooperative efforts. Collaboration with other faiths in projects that serve the common good and human flourishing requires an ethic of blessing expressed in servanthood, welcome and joy. The Church is to bless and contribute to human flourishing as tangible signs of eschatological reality, and therefore must “welcome and rejoice in every sign of God’s grace at work in the lives of people who do not know Jesus as Lord … we can (and must) cooperate with those of other worldviews in order to achieve specific goals which conform to our vision of God’s kingdom … Obviously we shall differ on our respective visions of the ultimate meaning and goal of history, as well as in motivations for the struggle.”34 Difference in visions of ultimate meaning, motivation and goals should not become obstacles to cooperation. Rather, they can be opportunities for the embodied manifestations of God’s Kingdom.
Guidelines for an Ethic of Negotiation
Guidelines are critical for negotiating the boundaries and relationships in the complexities of Singapore’s multicultural and multi-faith context while maintaining faithfulness to Christian witness. The following guidelines flow from the argument of this book. First, there is a need to confront honestly current and local history. Honest confrontation of national history is critical to the ethic of negotiation because identities, both secular and religious, are at stake. This facing-up to the history of Singapore needs to be appreciative and critical. Singapore’s considerable success in managing harmony in a heterogeneous society through top–down interventionist imposition is now conceded to be inadequate by the government. The government’s concern for reconciliation and peaceful coexistence must be affirmed as good, but it should not be dictated within one dominant worldview, generating only secular imperatives. Peace and human flourishing are, as I argue, ultimately theological. Yet in a secular and religious society, such as that of Singapore, there has to be
33 Barnes, p. 249. 34 Ramachandra, p. 270. Gopin’s discussion on the rabbinic understanding of collabration is especially instructive; see pp. 79f. Towards an Ethic of Negotiation 165 continual negotiation not only among the religions, but also between the religions and secular worldviews and approaches. Moreover, reconciliation is not achieved mechanically by efficient methodology or technique or mere tolerance. There needs to be a nurturing of social agents capable of peaceful coexistence even in a situation of threat and crisis of identity. The Singapore Church must face up to its own failure to respond theologically and positively to contextual challenges. That the religious space is a volatile terrain necessitates the Church’s as well as the religious others’ self-confrontation. An adversarial posture towards the religious other is combustible. What is at stake here is human flourishing. This demands deep engagement with the other in mutual conversation and theological reflection, and these are not a luxury but an urgent requirement for the Church in Singapore. A maxim following from this is: “Learn from the history that has led to the present and negotiate between competing narratives.” Second, merely facing current and national history is insufficient; one must face up to the history of Scripture and formative events in Church history. The redemptive and embracive work of Christ in reconciling the world to God defines Christian identity. This confrontation with wider history in my present research has exposed “the glory and the shame” of the Church. The glory is the refiguring of boundaries and relationships achieved in the Christ event made effectual by the Spirit instantiated in the Pentecost of the Acts of the Apostles, in the Azusa Street Revival, and in the LoveSingapore movement. Forgetfulness of and attempts to domesticate the Spirit resulted in the shame and violence of rigid exclusion, segregation, entrenched boundaries and relationships. In effect, it is a re-erecting of dividing walls of hostility. Hope, not shame, is the last word. Memory, conscientised by the Spirit, paved the way for two events of hope: the Memphis Miracle ’94 and LoveSingapore. A maxim flowing from this is: “Learn from Scripture and Church history, and let boundaries with others be relativised by the Spirit, for Christ has already dismantled the dividing walls of hostility.” Third, self-critique in the light of Scripture is absolutely essential. The purpose of self-critique is repentance and renewal. Passion, zeal and activism must be subjected to the searchlight of the Word and Spirit. Without self-critique, it is very easy to slide into the temptation of cultural and theological idolatry. Power, domination and manipulations can easily masquerade as good intentions and kindness. Repentance is the condition for negotiation because the narrative of violence is all too real in one’s own tradition. One cannot go into negotiation with a false image of the self. A maxim that follows from this is: “Let honest self-description lead to repentance.” Fourth, because negotiating boundaries is specifically a redemptive reconciling activity of the eschatological Spirit, it is absolutely crucial to have a deep, rich and robust conception of the Spirit. Negotiation is done in and through the Spirit. It is the Spirit who inspires and empowers the orientation to the Other/others and to the eschatological koinonia and festivity. A maxim that flows from this is: “Develop and inhabit a full pneumatological eschatology.” Fifth, the remembering is crucial to a lived ethic of negotiation. Without rich remembering, Christian living is impoverished. Deep remembering is a focal thrust in this study. Memory forms and informs Christian identity and agency. Remembrance both situates the Church and provides wisdom for it to act creatively 166 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century and prophetically towards others. Worship is at the heart of remembering and the ethics that flows from it. Embodiment in the community is a further essential. The primary contribution of the Church to Singapore is the living Christian community. How one lives with others in the Church and with the others beyond the community is indivisible. A maxim that follows from this is: “Let actions embody signs of the eschaton.” Sixth, negotiation is an act of love and celebration, a “longing for others to share in something whose delight increases by being shared.”35 Negotiating with religious others requires an ethic that deeply trusts in God’s merciful will towards them. This means maintaining a posture of openness that rejects rigid closure of judgement. Openness is nurtured and summed up in worship that overflows to the other. Openness requires mutuality; therefore, listening must be a priority. For witness to be without manipulation, it requires a cross-centred ethic. The Greek term for witness gives the English word “martyr”, capturing “both the aspect of ‘giving witness’ and ‘giving one’s life’ for truth.”36 Implicit in this is a renunciation of success judged by numbers. Two maxims flow from this: “Let communication and initiative be genuinely mutual” and “Leave judgement and success to God, and hope in God’s love for all.” In conclusion, I wish to reiterate that the ethic of negotiation proposed in this book is embryonic. Hopefully, this embryonic attempt may invite others to participate in further creative development of it. If God is in Christ reconciling the world, then neg otium, i.e., laying aside sloth, is imperative in the Christian engagement with the other. Though the process of negotiation is complex and difficult, and at times painfully dismal, it is not without joy. Negotiation and doxology belong together, as exemplified in the lives of Jesus and Paul.
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! … To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Rom. 11:33a and 36b)
35 D.W. Hardy and Ford, Jubilate: Theology in Praise (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984), p. 150. 36 K.J. Vanhoozer, First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics (Leicester: Apollos, 2002), p. 351. Select Bibliography
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Websites/Internet and other Resources
PrayerLink, Special Edition, 228/02/95. PrayerLink, This Land is Mine,103/05/98. PrayerLink, Start to Finish, 344/07/1999. PrayerLink, Window of Time, 242/07/2000. Select Bibliography 181 PrayerLink, Beyond 2001, 242/07/2000. PrayerLink, A Different Spirit, 242/07/2000. West, R.W. (1999), ‘A Critical Exploration of the PCCNA’s Rhetorical Vision for Racial Unity: Fighting Pentecostal Racism with Saul’s Armour or David’s Sling?’, 27 September, at http://www.pccna.org/Conference/Papers/1999_West.cfm Yong, A. (2001), ‘Pentecostalism and Ecumenism: Past, Present and Future’, in Pneuma Review (online), 4(3), Summer: Part 3 of 5, at http://www. pneumafoundation.com/article.jsp?article=article_ecum3.xml This page intentionally left blank Index of Subjects
abundance 34, 104, 108, 153, mission 43, 45, 46, 47, 48 acts of kindness 64, 77–78, 93–94 revival 46 acuity 85, 132 Street 46, 49, 85, 68, 133, 165 AD 2000 54 Babel and beyond movement 53 confusion of 32 prayer track 54 event 32 African Americans, African American roots, of tongues 43 African American origins xvii, biblical 42–50, 68, 85, 133–134 accountability 89 ‘Africanisms’ 49 challenge xvii, 70, 73 agency 74 critique 89, 97 divine 40 bifurcation 21, 24, 27, 103 human 74, 81, 103, 165 binary thinking 22, 27 Al-Qaeda 12 border-crossing all-embracing inclusiveness 47 ability to be 53 ambiguity, ambiguous xv, 13, 33, 36, 41,93, boundary, boundaries i, xii, xiii, xv, xvii, 94, 141, 157,163 xix, 7, 13, 21, 23–25, 29, 30–33, inherent 94 36–37, 40–41, 45, 47–49, 51, 68, 86, ambivalence 67, 115 121–123, 136, 145, 150–151,158– anamnesis xix, 82, 125 159, 160, 162, 164 remembering 125 class 16, 33, 44, 49 animistic peoples 58 cultural 3–6, 8–9, 11–13, 17, 24–25, 32, Antioch 34, 41–42, 49–50, 52–53,67–68, 73, for Asia 54–55 83, 93–94, 97, 99, 115, 122–123, of Asia xvii, 15, 57, 61, 66–67, 73, 78, 134–135, 139, 147, 165 96 denominational xvii, 29, 42, 54, 61, 63, responsibility 65 75, 79, 81, 85–86, 133 anti-Semitism 30, 40 economic xv–xvi, 29 apathy 21, 22 ethnic 7, 40 evangelicals’ 21 gender 33–34, 44–45, 47–48, 131, apocalyptism 43, 118 134–139, 146 ascension 31, 104 historical 68, 122 of Jesus 104, 108, 110 language 3–5, 8, 16–17, 32–33, 44, 56, asceticism 61, 74–75, 88, 99,104, 108, 111, of attentiveness 102 133–134 assimilation 8, 63, 97 ministry 16, 18–19, 25, 30, 34, 46–48, astrology 50, 54, 57, 86, 92, 103, 106–107, New Age 58 110, 112, 115, 118–119, 121, 123, autonomous 19, 22, 95, 103 126, 130–131, 136–138, 140, Azusa 142–143, 152–153, 160–161 event 46 nationality 33 miracle 46 184 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century race(s) 8, 12, 13, 27, 33, 44, 46, 56, 85, community, communities 133 covenantal 57 racial 48–50, 80, 85–86, 97, 132, Eucharistic 50, 68, 122 134–135, 138, 145, 147 gateway into the 64, 78, 93–94 reconfiguration of xvii, 41 pastoring the 78 relationality 25, 30, 48, 49, 104,110, 118, political 84 121, 130, 135–136, 150, 158–159 of faith 40, 82, 118 ritual 37 territorial ownership of the 78 sacredly inscribed 30 compassion 41, 46, 55–56, 62, 69, 74, 77, 90, social 33 93, 107, 122, 131, 137, 140, 150, 152 Bridge of Blessing xvii, 55, 62–63, 66–67, complexity, complexities 3, 22, 84, 91, 97, 69, 75, 77, 93 132, 141, 151, 157, 164 Buddhism 8, 13, 15, 24 conflicts xv, 9, 31, 34 confrontation, confrontations 29, 58–60, 70, 79, 87, 159, 164–165 catalytic 53 aggressive 5, 13, 15, 22, 26, 58, 74, 140 Catholicism 10 between gods 58 charismata 17, 92, 116, 121, 137 occult-level 58 charismatic, Charismatics power xviii, 23–25, 87, 89–92, 102, 108, activity 20 116, 120–121 church 15, 20, 40, 48 with demonic forces 58 neo 17 Confucian renewal 54, 133 Concept 6–8 worship 20 discourse 6 Christian, Christians ethic 6 fundamentalist 27, 43, 52, 159 logic 6 Gentile xvii, 31, 33–39, 41, 47, 51, 68, political theory 6 93, 112, 114 way of harmony 6 Jewish 9, 30–31, 33–41, 96 conscience 10, 45, 51, 159 non-Jewish 40 conservative xvi, presence 26, 58, 60, 69–70 Christians 16, 27, 52 Singapore 15, 159 Evangelicals xvii, 12, 21, 59, 73, 139 Christianity evangelicalism xvi, xvii, 16, 21 Gentile, identity, existence 36, 38–39, political 6 41, 68, 82–83, 98, 116, 123, 125, conspiracy 155, 165 Marxist 9 Church of love 74 Charismatics see charismatic consumerism geo-network 74, 76, 79, 84, 89 culture of 93 Jerusalem 34, 36–37, 39–40 endemic spirit of 94 Mainline 20, 45, context, contexts, contextual, National 19, 53 contextualised Singapore Church’s role and pluralistic xvi, xvii, 23 responsibility 55 social-political 14, 48 Singapore 57, 61–66, 69, 73, 76–79, 165 contextual, tradition xiii, xvi–xviii, 11, 14, classificatory system 6, 8, 20 21, 23–24, 27, 44, 100, 122, 126, collaboration 26, 164 130, 132, 135, 165 coexistence 3, 11, 13, 21, 89, 97, 164–165 evangelical, conservative communism 16 Index of Subjects 185 evangelicalism xvi–xvii, 12, 16, 21–22, demonic 59, 73, 139 geographical activity 58, control powers 86 central 6, 11 strongholds 58, 61, 63, 67, 75 ideology of 6, 87 demonise 39 manipulative 94 denominational xvii, 29, 42, 54, 61, 63, 75, mechanisms xvi, xvii, 30, 145, 150 79, 81, 85–86, 133 policy of xvi, 11, denomination, denominations controversy controversies British based 15 bitter 49 differences 54, 63, 79, 81 theological 49 leaders 54, 76, 85, 133 conversation, conversational ‘lily white’ 49 partners with the Father 83 Depoliticising 7 conversion, conversions of religion 7, 69, 140 to the others 35 diagnosis xvii, 90, 97, 99 cosmology 59 dialects 16 covenant 33, 35, 62, 127 dialogical engagement 21 Creator spiritus see Spirit dialogue, dialogues creedal affirmation 100 critical 102, 103, 119 crisis xv, 6, 13, 40, 77–78, 165 Diaspora Jews 31–32 criticism Dichotomy self 27, 29, 68, 162 common 107 critique intimacy–power 102 biblical 89, 97 overcoming Christ–Spirit 102 objective cultural 97 difference cruciformity 106 cultural 3, 12, 34 culture intra-religious 68 accommodation to linguistic 3–4, 32 disengagement with 22 national 32 heterogeneous 3, 11 discipleship highly controlled 3, 6, 96 costly xix, 97 materialistic, materialism 6, 63, 91, discourse 93–94 Johannine Farewell 103–104 of consumerism 93–94 religious 44 of the covenantal community 57 disjunction xv, 68, 100, 116 cultural diversity assimilation 8, 63, 97 linguistic 33 captivity 91, 94, 101 divine forms 53 absence 22, 154 identities 5 acceptance 35 identity markers 8, 36 action 90 idolatry 94, 120 choice 35 integration 5, 8 healing 42 intoxication 99, initiative 35–36, 86–87 norms 49 retribution 40 seduction 93 speech 105–106 void 104 welcome 35 deception, deceptions 63, 97 doctrinal 186 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century boundaries 51 social and political 8 temptations 48–50 envision 52, 57, 96, 119, 128, 154, 158 dogmatism 27, 162–163 equality domestication human 46 of the other 94 racial 42, 47, 139 doxological equity 34 acted doxology 81 eschatology joy xix, 151–152, 154–155 event – the gathering 93 dualism Kingdom xix, 46, 87, 117, 119, 122, cosmic and moral 89 127–129, 149 dynamic 98, 115 ,117, 119–120, 129, insight 101, 122 131–132, 136, 143, 145, 149 living 25 orientation 21, 118, 123, 151 Parousia 21–22, 24, 108, 117–119, 153 Ecclesiology see Church poverty 22 economic xv–xvi, 29 reality xix, 117, 128, 148, 160, 164 growth 5–6, 8 salvation 31 political stability see Politics, Singapore sign 43, 117, 127 success 5, 7–8 Spirit i, xvii–xix, 30–32, 104, 107, ecumenical 109, 112, 119, 122, 125–126, experience 51 128–130,132, 137, 139, 142–143, heritage 29 146–147, 153, 165 movement 26 urgency 61 roots 26–27 ethic of negotiation xix, 157–158, 160, 163–165 spirit 68 ethnic vision 25–26, 44–45, 111, 121 boundaries 7, 40 ecumenicity 31, 54 complex 166 ecumenism conflict xv paradox of 29 dominant groups 3, 8, 15 spirituality of 26 identity, identities xvii, 7, 40 vibrant, dynamic 15, 49 minority 44 efficacy relations 8 captivity to 101 tension 35 efficiency-minded society 81 ethnicity egocentric 94 institutionalizing of 7 embodying, embodiment xviii, xix, 63, 122, ethno-linguistic groups 16 125, 145–146, 148, 151, 162, 165 ethos 61, 21, 23, 27, 43, 55, 91, 122, 129, embodied way of life 83 136–137 embrace Evangelical, conservative evangelicalism of difference and otherness 63 see contextual redemptive i, 35–36, 68 evangelism empathy 83 cell 57 empower, empowering church 57 reciprocal 95 citywide engagement community 55, 57 face-to-face 84, 161 lifestyle of 56 Spirit-directed 31, 35, 132 optimistic triumphalism in 90 engineering see social engineering personal 56 environment power 53, 63, 92 Index of Subjects 187 servant 64 forgiveness world 58 memory 82–84 event, events memory possible 83 global xvi, 9, 26 Last Supper 82 of Azusa Street xvii, 44, 46 40-Day Fast 60, 62, 75–76 of 9/11 xvi, 11–12 fragility 6, 11, 13, 27, 102–103 of Pentecost xvi, xvii, 29, 30, 32–33, 40, freedom 43, 45, 47, 101, 103, 109, 122, 150 Spirit is uncontrollable 51 evil friendship energy of 88 authentic 34 of racism 85 building bridges of 64, 78 excludes, exclusion development of 78 logic of 51, 157 mutual 35 exclusionary productive 35 logic xix sums up the goal of human mechanisms xvi–xvii, 13, 29, 49, 69, 40, existence 83 145, 150, 159 fundamental. fundamentalists practices 27 reality of God 82 tendency 38, 41 exclusivism 22–23, 29, 139–141 gender 33–34, 44–45, 47–48, 131, 134–139, 146 exorcism, exorcising geographical origins demons 17, 58, 107, 117, 123 polycentric 17 expansionist revivalism 13, 24 monocentric 17 experience generosity convergence of 60 acts of 69 ecclesial 29 culture of 69, 78 ecstatic oral 47 deceptive 34 immediacy of 20 disinterested 93–94 revelatory 26 meaning of 69 self-consumptive spiritual 44 patronising 69 traditioning of 24 true 94–95 exploitation voluntary 34 market 93 Gentile extensity 41, 135 Christians 36–37, 39 exterministic see violence Christianity 38–39, 41, 68 Church 37–39, 41 facing gift, gifts of God xix, 131, 142, 147–148 expensive 94 false, falsehood meaning of 94 gods 86–87 global Consultation on World fellowship Evangelisation (GCOWE) 53 table 36, , 38, 159 glossolalia, glossolalic filioque 100 outburst 33 flourishing speech 31, 47, 122, 153 human xv, xvi–xviii, 123, 151, 162, Spirit-inspired 31–32 164–165 god, Godself phenomenon 10 active 60, 74 forgetting xviii, 39, 82–83, 90 activity, activities of 33 188 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century agendas of 55 friendship 33–34, 64 befriended by 83 togetherness 34 character 144 unity 33, 64 consciousness 57 historical 68, 122 generosity 33–34, 36–37, 41, 69, 131, history, historical see also nation-building 155 attention to 52 generous love 130 background 53 hospitality 144 closed system 74 intervention in contemporary 60 cosmic 93 development 4–8, Lord of 74 history of racism 51, 85 kingdom of God 74, 109 of Singapore 164 living research 89, 165 loving revisiting 52 mission statement 62 universal 93 nature of Holocaust 40, 68 personal 74 homogeneity presence of 52, 119 racial 46, 51 salvific purposes in history 105 hope self-revelation 105 genesis of 21 triune 88, 119, 152 glimmers of 85 initiatives, 123 richness of 41, 97 harbinger hospitality peaceful i, xvi–xvii, 53, 68, 73, 99, 135, of God 128, 131, 143–144, 148 145 of plurality i, 68, 73, 99, 123, 135, 145 of the Last Days 47 identification harmony acts 84 racial 3–4, 8, 13, 80, 97, 145 costly 84, 88–89 religious xvi, 8, 11–13, 68, 80, 97, 145, prayers 59, 63, 85 150 repentance 58–59, 63, 67–68, 75–76, 84 harmonious coexistence 3, 11, identity, identities harvest cultural (plurality) 5, 8, 17 field 78 distinct Christian 36 force 57, 78 fundamental marker 8, 17, 36, 49 mentality 57 self 37, 135 prayerwave 61–63, 76 ideology responsibility 57, 61 of control 6, 87 7-wave harvest 56 temptations 49 unprecedented 56, 63 idolatry, idolatries warriors 60 cultural 52, 94, 165 hegemony ecclesial 67 idolatry of 49 national 67 tyranny of 46 of hegemony 49 heretical tendency 80 self 67 hermeneutic technological 89, 91 biblical 97 theological 52, 81, 165 heterogeneous incarnate, incarnational Index of Subjects 189 and paschal mysteries 101 journeying Jesus 105 interior 33 the gospel 53 multiplex 11, 32 inclusive, inclusion, inclusivity 17, 30, 33, joy 35–36, 44, 46, 48–49, 68, 127, 131, doxological xix, 151–152, 154–155 134–136, 138, 150, 158–159, justice 46, 52, 84–86, 88, 94, 101, 107, 123, indwelling 134 divine presence 107 mutual 82 kingdom the intimacy of God 82, 104, 121 key 57, 74, 89, 127 the narratives of xi, 21, 163 professionals 57, 65, 79 injustice koinonia political and economic 96 Spirit–engendered 33 insiders xvi, 36, 49, 100–102, 145 Spirit–inspired 33 institutionalism 29 knowledge instrumentality, instrumentalises, communal pattern of 106 instrumentalising correct 90 of knowledge 80 esoteric 105 instrumental experiential 106 value 10 not some independent 105 logic 81–82, 99, 120 special 89 intensity 34, 41, 60, 66, 81 intercession 60–61, 67, 90–91 language 3–5, 8, 16–17, 32–33, 44, 56, inter-faith dialogues 12, 21 61, 74–75, 88, 99, 104, 108, 111, internal schism 49 133–134 inter-racial 12, 42, 44–45, 50, 135 multilingual 32 inter-religious xv–xvi, 11 lavish inter-religious organisation (IRO) 69 outpouring of the 109 interrogating, interrogation leadership of Pentecostalism 27, 73 pastoral 60 intervention political 6, 67 divine 74 servant 54, 64–65, 69, 78, 95 political-social 69 linguistic interventionist approach 13 confusion 32 top-down 11, 13, 164 diversity 33 intimacy 20, 81–82, 86, 102, 104, 107, logic 109–110–111, 121, 128, 130, 154 instrumental 81 intrinsic danger 94 of control 81, 90 Islam of power 101 South East Asian 12 of outrageous generosity isolationism 64 theological 82 LoveSingapore Jemaah Islamiah 12 Fund 56, 65, 77 Jews, Jewish Missions hub for Asia 66 attitude 35 strategies 55, 57–58, 60–61, 69–70 believers 38 mentalities 35 manipulation 93–94, 155, 161, 165–166 segment 38 marginalized, marginalization 190 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century ethnic minority 44 Lukan 36, 68, 91–92, 103, 109, 121–122 marketplace 55, 57, 94 of embrace and exclusion 40 materialism 63, 93–94 of god at work 67, 99, 114 maxims xix, 157, 166 of triumph and temptation 40 memory of unity and conflict 40 dimensions of 82, 85 nation primary level of 83 air-conditioned 6 Memphis Miracle ’94 xvii, xix, 132, 165 nation building 3–6, 8, 10–11 mentoring national generational impact 57 Grand Harvest 55, 77 meritocracy 20 integration 12 metaphor, metaphors 6, 31, 36, 89, 104, 111, interests 8 118, 153 pledge 13 methodology political agenda and vision 66 captivity to efficacy and 101 pride 5 ultimate 95 stability 5, 8 ministry 16, 18–19, 25, 30, 34, 46–48, 50, nationality 33 54, 57, 86, 92, 103, 106–107, 110, natural 112, 115, 118–119, 121, 123, 126, boundaries between the 86 130–131, 136–138, 140, 142–143, negotiation 152–153, 160–161 ethic of xix, 141, 157–158, 160, mission, missional, missions 163–166 evangelical’s model of 73 noetic expansion 33 fervour 45 Gentile 38–39 obsession integrated understanding of 73, 89 apparent 95 mandate 57 Singapore 95 missiological significance of 81 optimism xv, 29, 74, 87, 90, 119, 127, 129, see Pentecostal 132, 134, 149, 154–155 missionary potential 66 orality participating in God’s lively 99 posture 125 otherness, see also Other(s) Samaritan 31, 35, 39 domestication of the 94 success of 81 engagement with 21, 69, 150, 158, vision of 111, 129 165–166 modern, modernity linguistic 34, technology 87 marginalised 35 monolingual 16 objectification of 95 multi-faith i, 24, 30, 69, 79, 96, 164 orientation xviii–xix, 130–131, 135, multiracial, multi-racialism 142–143, 151, 165 movement 48 openness xviii–xix, 131–132, 142, 151 mutual, mutuality outcast 35 destroys 94 religious others 22, 27, 30, 69, 139–140, submission 54 159, 165–166 mystery the reconciled and embraced 38 of God xix, 91, 158, 161, 163 outsider, outsiders xvi, 36, 49, 100–102, narrating, narrative 145, 158, Acts 30–31, Biblical 89, 101 Index of Subjects 191 Paraclete 105, 107, 110 Weltanschauung 30 paradigm, paradigmatically white 17, 45, 47–51, 85–86, 133 shift from Christ to Spirit 101 witness 19 Parousia people of God imminence of 21–22 universality and ecumenicity of 31 peace Peranakan Chinese 16 coexistence 11, 13, 21, 97, 164–165 Phenomenological, see also phenomenon harbinger i, xvi–xvii, 53, 68, 73, 99, approach 17 123, 135, 15 reading 101 social-political 8, 48, 73 phenomenon Pentecost Azusa 44, 46 personal 43–44, 47, explosive 31 polyphonic nature of the 101 inclusive 44 the first xvii, 18, 31–33, 41, 46, 68, 113 overpowering 31 Pentecostalism, see also Pentecostals, pluralism, see also cultural Pentecostal Pneumatology, see also pneumatological Asian 17 matrix for Trinitarian thought 102 black roots 42, 45 pneumatological empirical xviii, 102, 112–113, 119–120 approach 102 global 24, 53, 136 dynamism 25, 48, 51 ideal type xviii, 100 eschatology xviii–xix, 123, 125, modern 41–42 149–150 modern-day 42 orientation 163 theology of the Spirit in xviii, 98 relationality 104 triumphs of 98 richness 25 Pentecostals polarisation 20 classical 111–112, 117 policy neo 17 capitalist 10 Pentecostal no strings attached 56, 78, 93 all white 48, 50–51, 86 of control xvi, 11 anointing 30 politics churches xviii agenda 66, 158 congregation 44 beneficence 94 empowerment 30, 103, 112, 146–147 culture 20 Europeanise 49 ecology 96 experience 99, 106, 111, 123 ethos 6, 23 fellowships 45, 48, 50, 132 ideology xvi, 6–9 genesis 18 management 7 liturgy and spirituality paternalism 94 message 19, 45, 118 race-based 12 mission 18, 24 stability 4, 7–8 reality, 100 understanding of God 91 renewals 41 vision 66 revival 41–42 positive rhetoric 24, 29 potentials xvii, 24, 69, spirituality 25, 45, 52, 60, 90, 99, 119, receptivity 93 128, 135–136, 142–145, 153 triumphalism 23, 82 tradition of self-criticism 29 power twentieth-century xviii, 43 192 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century as capacity to receive effects vibrant 15, 49, 53, 60, 132 demonstration 95 visionary 59 dimension of faith 17 walks 60–61 encounters 58, 86 warfare 53, 58–61, 63, 69, 75–76, idolatrous understanding of 88 86–90 intoxicated with 59 priesthood 67, 109 language of 61, 108 proclivity 88, 91 of Calvary love 88 prophethood, see also prophetic of the eschaton 108, 114 prophetic positional 53 act 154 relational 95, 115 bestowal 66 signs and wonders 17, 30, 109, 113–115, catalyst 42 121–122, 143, criticism 39–40 technological or a political notion of 88, critique 69 transformative 99 denunciation 39 unilateral 95 hermeneutic 33, 39, 73 worldly idea of 88 insight 33 powerlessness 9, 20, 33, 120 inspiration 66 practical rationality 5 obedience 30 pragmatic 7, 12 responsibility 23, 27, 67, 69, 76 praise 32, 34, 44, 90, 99, 144, 152–154, 161 role 113, 115 prayer voice 132 becomes a means of control 87 prosperity 96 believing 76, Protestantism 10 cell 55–56 drives 60–61 race(s) 8, 12, 13, 27, 33, 44, 46, 56, 85, 133 evangelism 56, 76 racial 48–50, 80, 85–86, 97, 132, 134–135, guides 58, 61 138, 145, 147 initiatives and praxis 52 racial innovative and creative 60 barriers 47 of blessing 64 divide xvii, 12 of weeping 59 episodes of suspicion and exclusion 97 of worship 144 equality 138 of welcome 59 heterogeneity 46, 51 posture 90 homogeneity 46, 51 private 60 inter-racial 12, 42, 44–45, 50, 135 proclamations 63 racially motivated 49 public united 60 segregation 43 redemptive i, xvii, 23, 35–36, 54, 57, racism 59, 62, 66, 68, 78, 92, 109, 120, white/black divide 68 123, 142, 147, 151–152, 159, 165 radical repentance 37, 43, 52, 58–59, 62– 63, discontinuity 22 65, 67–68, 75–77, 79, 84–85 133, otherness xix, 130 160, 165 openness xix, 131, 151 Summit 60, 64, 75, 89 reciprocity 34, 95, 131 thanksgiving 90, 130, 164 reconciliation triumphalism in xviii, 23–24, 27, 39, 41, activity 122 82, 90, 92, 101, 120 counter cultural 67–68 united 54–56, 60, 64, 68, 75, 77, 80, 107 Index of Subjects 193 original culture of 49 resurrection pacesetters in 51 of Christ xvi, 103, 109, 114, 116, 119, practice of strategic 82 121–122, 127, 141, 145, 152, 159 racial 51 power of the 103, 116 simplistic practice of 83 rethinking xviii–xix, 139 theology of 97 revelation, revelatory reconfiguration of xvii, 41 private 89 redemptive Spirit’s 89 appropriation xvii, 66 rhetoric blessing 120 highly motivational 97 call 66 inspiring 97 embrace i, 35–36, 68 present 97 praying 59 warfare 58 purpose 54, 57 ritual 37 reductionism 24, 82, 101–102, 136 Ruach Yahweh see Spirit reintegration 41, 69 relational, see also relation, sociality sacramental xviii, 122, 143 relationship(s) 104, 106 sacralisation (see also) sacred intimacy is “indwelling” 104 of politics 6–7, 9 manipulative 94 sacrifice relationality 25, 30, 48, 49, 104, 110, 118, human acts of 34 121, 130, 135–136, 150, 158–159 salvation religion, see also religious eschatological 31 elitist 16 individual 22 expansionist 13, 70 personal 22 missionary 15 Satan, Satan’s Satanism salvationist 70 control and strongholds 58 religious devices or strategy of 58 conflict xv, 23 realm of 61, 89 dialogue xvi, 26 sabotage rhetoric 61 experience 17 secular harmony xvi, 8, 11–13, 68, 80, 97, 145, imperatives xvi, 14, 164 150 segregation, segregationist hierarchy 31 mentality 42 label 10 racial 43 plurality xv–xvi, 15, 41 self-critique 85–86, 94, 135, 165 power 13 self-deception 94 revivalism 10 servanthood 55–56, 79, 121, 164 space 26, 165 servant-leadership 54, 64–65, 69, 78, 95 tension 35 Shalom tolerance 26 eschatological 96 toleration xv mission as 73 war 27 responsibility for the 66, 69, 73 remembering, remembrance and welfare of the nation 95–96 church’s 83 Singapore conscientised 165 Drivenness 81 reorientation, reorientations time-controlled, efficiency oriented Copernican-like 109 society of 85 responsive receptivity 94 194 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Singapore’s Antioch calling 57 reconciling power of the 41, 68 Singaporeanized 5 retrieve the theology of the social transformative judgment 52 agents 13, 145, 165 universal and ecumenical sweep of the 31 cohesion 4–5, 11–12, 26 spirituality engagement 22 conservative 22 engineering xix, 11, 27, 97, 145 monochrome 91 institutions 13 narcissistic 23 management 11, 13 Pentecostal 25, 45, 52, 60, 90, 99, 119, mechanism 13 128, 135–136, 142–145, 153 networks 58 revolutionary nature 45 sociality spiritual is the sign of a divine reality 106 mapping 58, 61 solidarity 7, 12, 111, 121, 152 panacea 85 Spirit, spirit, spirits, Spirit’s sicknesses 59 activity of 25, 102, 107, 112, 117, 119, transformation 108 123, 163 victory 90 appropriation of the 103 spiritual Warfare Network (SWN) 53–54 as the divine event 47 strangers baptism 20 a world without 96 community of the 68, 122 welcoming of 34 discernment of 89 strategy, strategic eclipse of the 100–101 apostolic 64 effusion 101 goals 55 empowerment of 52, 137, 146 marketing 94 enthusiasm of the 101 partnerships 65 guidance 39 practices xvii–xviii, 73–75, 79–80, 97, Holy 18, 20, 25–26, 30–33, 35, 37–38, 99–100, 120 44–46, 48, 54, 60, 66–67, 75–76, 81, success syndrome 65, 91 85, 92, 98–100, 103, 106, 109–113, supernatural 43, 60–61, 63, 73, 86, 88, 103 119, 125–126, 129, 131, 133, 143, survivalist mentality 65 150 symbols, symbolic xviii, 35, 47, 84, 99, indwelling of the 104, 107 110–111, 125, 128, 133, 154 irruptions of the 30 system 6, 8, 20, 50–51, 58, 63, 74, 87, 94, language of the 44 121, 149 movement of the 25, 27, 30–32, 41, 69, 121, 162 technocratic mentality 27 multiplication of the power of the 60 technique, techniques mystery of xviii, 125 a spirit of the marketplace 94 new thing of the xix, 126, 129–130, 146 of control 94 of fellowship 115, 135 reliance on 95 of God 90, 96–97, 109, 120 tectonic divide 11, 26 of prophecy and revelation 109 telos Pentecostal presence 47 temptation, temptations people of the 102, 117 ideological and doctrinal 49 praxis of xix, 147–148, 138, 158 tragic xvii, 30, 49 presence and power 46, 60, 131 territorial promised eschatological 150 expansion 32–33 prophetic, eschatological 30 Index of Subjects 195 spirits 58–59, 87 Trinitarian responsibility for 64 framework xviii, 125 theocentric 23 vision of God 102 Theologia crucis 100–101, 103, 108, triumphalism, triumphalistic 113–114, 120–121 danger of 92 Theologia gloriae 101, 103, 108, 112–114, inherent 82 120 naïve 27 theological understanding 92 activity 87 triumph, triumphs definition of initial evidence 42 tragedy within 92 differences 34, 54, 63, 81 tyranny dimensions 69 beneficent 95 foundation 24 heresy 87 unbelief 22, 40, 67, 77, 90–92, 155 sophistication 25 unilateral traditions and practices 52 initiative 93 understanding 39, 69 model 95 wisdom 69–70 United Prayer Resource Network 53 theologising unity absence of 99 Christian 58, 63, 75, 79 tacit 100 essential 50 theology greater 60, 63 Christ-centred 100 heterogeneous 33 closure 87 in diversity 63, 83 Lukan 39, 109–110, 112 of the Godhead 49 supercessionist 39–40 major building block of 60 theophanies 30 miracle of 54 Third Wave, third waver 17, 52–54, 59, 87, universality 31, 33, 36, 81, 127, 129–130 97, 99 urgency tolerance inordinate sense of 92–93, 148 concept of 13 easy i, xviii–xix, 131, 157, 162 tongues value, values initial evidence 42, 47, 49, 111 core Kingdom 55 native 31 embody 55 of fire 31, 111, 136 foundational 56 speaking in 24, 42, 47 of blessing the community 94 tradition, traditioning, traditions violent, violence practice 101 opposition 45 traditional cultures xv vision transformation, transformations, ambitious 66 transformed apocalyptic 101, 118, 129, 146 multileveled 30–31, 65 audacious 66–67, 73, 158 nation 58, 64–65, 67, 69, 73 common 56, 64, 75 transformative blessing xix VISION 2001 74 transpersonal forces of evil 59 voluntarism 64 tribal hatreds 96 vulnerability Trinity posture of 95 Persons of the 103, 106 196 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century 117–118, 126, 128–129, 160–162, window 10/40 53–54, 65, 76, 87 164, 166 wisdom xviii, 25, 27, 30, 39, 51–52, 69–70, worldviews 4, 21, 23, 164 81, 93, 126, 129, 132, 135, 145, 148, worship 150, 154, 158, 161, 165, 166 embracive freedom of 47 witchcraft 58 embracive inter-racial 44 witness 19, 23, 38, 58, 69–70, 73, 90–94, false 63 98–99, 103, 105, 107, 110, 112–113, Spirit-capacitated 25 worshipping self xix, 145 Index of Authors
Albrecht, D. E. 17, 58, 60–61, 142, 146–147 Chan, S. 17, 24, 29, 46, 48, 81, 83, 87–88, Alexander, Loveday. 31 101, 111, 122, 147 Alison, J. 147, 153, 157, 159, 161 Chang, C. 22 Allmen, J.-J. von 118 Chia, Sue-Ann 12 Amos, Barbara M. 134, 137–138 Chiew, S. K. 3, 5 Anderson, A. H. 17, 19, 42, 45, 48, 125–126 Cho, Y. 15 Anderson, N. 22 Christenson, L. 29, 42 Anderson, R. M. 17, 44 Chua, B. H. 4–5, 10–11 Arshad, Arlina, 12 Chua, L.-H. 11, 13 Ashton, J. SJ 108, 127 Clammer, J. 3, 6–7, 9, 15–16, 20 Clark, M. S. H. 101 Baker, E. V. 118 Clemmons, I. 46, 133–135 Baker, Elizabeth 118 Corten, A. 25 Baker, Heidi 111 Cowan, M. A. 95–96 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 129, 157 Cox, H. 32, 44, 47, 51, 63, 100, 151, 153–154 Barbour, R. S. 154 Cragg, K. 157 Barnes, M. SJ 13, 69, 141, 158, 161–162, 164 Crockett, L. 34–35 Barton, J. 107 Cunningham, S. 31, 109, 114 Bass, Dorothy C. 140, 144, 158 Beasley-Murray, G. R. 80 D’Costa, G. 105, 108 Bloch-Hoell, N. 43, 47 Dabney, D. L. 100, 120, Blumhoffer, E. L 42, 45 Davies, O. 106 Bonhoeffer, D. 84, 136 Dawn, M. J. 113 Bornkamn, G. 108, 110, 126 Dayton, D. W. 119 Bosch, D. L. 38–39, 112, 159–160 DeBernardi, J. 24, 59 Bridges, Cheryl. 106 Del Colle, R. 98, 116, 128 Brodie, T. L. 81–82, 107, 128 Dempster, M. W. 103, 112 Bromiley, G.W. 34 Douglas, Mary 140 Brown, R. E. 106–107 Dowdy, Naomi 52, 61 Bruce, F. F. 137 Dru, A. 90 Brueggemann, W. 150, 152, 155 Dunn, J. D. G. 105, 126 Brummer, V. 82, 94 Dykstra, C. 106 Buckley, J. J. 121 Dyrness, W. 51 Bush, L. 76 Butterworth, R. SJ 127 Esler, P. F. 36–37 Esposito, J. L. 8–9 Capper, J. M. 155 Evans, Craig A 30, 39 Cartledge, M. J. 104–105, 111 Everts, Janet M. 138 Cavaness, B. 138 Champion, R. G. 138 Fackre, G. l. 38–40 Chan, E. 55, 138 Farley, E. xviii, 99, 125, 151 Farrow, D. 110 198 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Faupel, D. W. 24, 118–119, 137 Irvin, D. T. 44 Fee, D. G. 26, 92, 109, 112, 114–116, 126, 130 Fergusson, D. 132, 149 Johns, Cheryl, B. 106, 117 Fernandez, W. 13 Johns, J. D. 106, 117 Fiddes, P. S. 25, 88, 91–92, 107, 131, 143 Johnson, Elizabeth E. 137 Fiorenza, Elisabeth-Schüssler 137 Johnson, L. T. 32, 37–39, 102, 121 Ford, D. 52, 80–82, 115–116, 120, 123, 125, Johnstone, P. 48, 53 127, 145–148, 151–155, 159–160, Jones, L. G. 83, 121 162 Jongeneel, Jan A.B. 126 Fowl, S. E. 83, 102, 105–106 Franklin, E. 110 Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti 23, 126 Käsemann, E. 34 Gaventa, Beverly R. 112 Khong, L. 20, 52, 54–55, 57–58, 63, 73–75, George, C. 6, 11 79–80, 159 Gerlach, L. P. 146 Kim, Y.-B. 132 Gill, Deborah M. 137–138 Kistemaker, S. J. 32–33 Goff, J. R. Jr. 42 Koenig, J. 34–35, 37 Golder, M. E. 50 Küng, H. 162 Gooch, W. P. 90 Kwok K. W. 4–5, 10–11 Gopin, M. 40, 95–96, 140, 160, 164 Graham, B. 15 Lai A.-E. 11–13, 24, 26 Greenleaf, R. 95 Land, J. S. 25, 52, 89–90, 99, 101, 105, 107, Grenz, S. J. 102, 117, 153 110, 119, 122, 128–129, 143, 147, 154 Gros, J. 100 Latif, A. 12, 14 Gutierrez, B. F. 154 Lederle, H. I. 101 Leow, B.-G. 16 Hagner, D. A. 30, 39 Lindbeck, G. 93 Han, F. K. 8 Lim, D. S. 87, 95 Hannaford, R. 131 Loh, -S. 13 Hardiment, P. A. 26 Lovett, L. 45, 49, 134 Hardy, D. W. 148, 151–155, 166 Lüdemann, G. 34 Hart, J. F. 59 Hauerwas, S. 82–83, 149, 163 Macchia, F. D. 83–86, 103, 111, 118, 122–123, Hawthorne, G. F. 126 134 Haynes, J. 8 MacMurray, J. 94 Hefner, R. W. 4 MacRobert, I. 42–51 Heuser, R. 95 Mahizhnan, A. 4–5 Hicks, D. A. 7 Maloney, Linda M. 114 Hocken, P. D. 30, 41, 82, 101, 121, 126 Manson, W. 114 Hodgson, P. C. 126 Marguerat, D. 35–36 Hollenweger, W. xvii, 24, 26–27, 42, 45, 49, Mariz, Cecilia 154 100, 126, 133–134 Martin, D. xvi, 24, 100, 121 Huizinga, J. 147 McDonnell, K. 126 Hull, G. G. 137 McFadyen, A. 162–163 Hunter, H. D. 126, 134 McGee, G. B. 24, 111 Hur, J. 30 McGuckin, J. 154–155 Hutter, R. 122, 144, 150 McIntosh, M. A. 102, 106–107 Hwa, Y. 23 McIntyre, J. 126 McQueen, L. K. 33 Index of Authors 199 Menzies, R. P. 41, 54, 92, 112, 116 Sandage, S. J. 130, 141 Menzies, W. W. 41, 54, 92, 112, 116 Sanders J. A. 22, 30 Mickelson, Alvera. 137 Sauter, G. 107 Miller, R. J. 109 Shaull, R. 136, 154 Mills, J. O. 117 Shepherd, W. H. 31, 34 Mok, W.-W. 5 Shriver, D. W. Jr. 83, 96 Moltmann, J. 42, 126 Shults, F. L. 130, 141 Morrill, B. T. 152 Smail, T. 74, 88–89, 103, 108, 114, 122 Mouw, R. 146 Smith, D. A. 154 Mullen, P. 100, 121 Smith, S. D. 30 Muller-Fahrenholz, G. 126 Sontag, Susan 153 Spencer, F. S. 35 Nelson, D. 42, 46 Steinfeldt, Irene 30 Netland, H. A. 23 Storkey, E. 104 Newbigin, L. 23, 81, 90, 93 Stronstad, R. 109–110 Nichols, A. OP 129 Suurmond, J.-J. 136, 141, 147 Nilsson, N.-O. 137 Synan, V. 29, 45
Ortis, G. 53 Tamney, J. B. 6–7, 9–10 Tan, D. 16, 18, 20 Panikkar, R. 27 Tan-Chow, MayLing 123, 163 Pauw, Amy P. 140 Tay, M. 19, 52 Peters, T. 115 Taylor, J. V. 115, 130, 132 Petersen, D. 24, 44, 103, 136–137, 146–147 Thiselton, A. C. 115, 132 Peterson, E. 147 Thomas, G. 115 Pettegrew, L. D. 103 Thomsen, M. 140 Pinnock, C. H. 22, 126, 153 Tiede, D. L. 38 Pluss, J.-D. 123 Tuckett, C. M. 31, 34–35 Polkinghorne, J. xv, 150 Tugwell, S. 117 Pousson, E. K. 86–87 Turner, M. 126 Pousson, LaiKeng. 53, 55–57, 55, 59–62, 64, 66, 75, 77–78, 159 Underwood, B.E. 86 Pugh, J. C. 98 Vanhoozer, K. J. 144, 150, 166 Quah, Jon S.-T. 3–4 Van Leeuwen, Mary S. 139 Volf, M. 13, 50–51, 139–140, 144, 158 Radcliffe, T. 82–83, 93 Rakotoharintsifa, A. 34 Wagner, C. P. 53–54, 58–59, 86–87, 92 Ramachandra, V. 23, 37, 158, 160–160, Walker, A. 74, 89, 103, 122 162–164 Ward, G. 131, 150 Rapske, B. 91 Webster, J. 157 Rittner, Carol. 30 Welker, M. 25, 32, 102, 115, 126, 150 Robb, J. 76, 91 Wells, S. 149 Robeck, C. M. Jr. 29, 85–86, 134 West, C. 135 Roth, J. K. 30 West, R. W. 134 Russell, R. J. 115 Wickeri, P. L. 21, 30, 40, 81 Wilfred, F. 40 Sacks, J. xv, 21 Williams, R. 50, 95, 120, 161 Sampson, P 23 Wright, N. 74, 103, 122 200 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Wyschogrod, Edith 151 Young, F. 116, 120, 123, 130, 160
Yao, X.-Z. 6 Zizioulas, J. D. 149 Yeo, Alicia 12, 41 Yong, A. 22, 29, 44, 49, 58–59, 87, 101–102, 104, 106, 110–111, 123, 131, 139, 157, 163 Index of Scriptures
Old Testament 42: 10–13 152 Genesis 49: 6 57 11: 1–9 32 52: 7–10 152 12: 1–3 32 56: 1–8 142 56: 3–7 36 Exodus 60: 1–5 152 15: 1–2 152 61: 10–11 152 15: 21 52 62: 1–5 152 65: 21–22 128 Leviticus 126: 1–3 144 21:20 35 Jeremiah Deuteronomy 82 3: 21 82 4: 9–20 129 5: 21–23 39 7: 16 140 31: 31–34 128 13: 15–16 140 23: 1 Ezekiel 12: 1–3 39 Judges 34: 11–16 128 5: 3 152 7–8 152 Daniel 30 10:13 59, 87 1 Chronicles 20 59, 87 4: 9–10 62 Joel 109 Job 2: 28–32 33 29: 7–17 64 3: 2 33 Psalms Amos 126: 1–3 144 9:11–12 38 133: 3 56 148 152 Zephaniah Isaiah 109 3:17f 152 1–5 152 6: 9–10 39 Micah 11: 6–9 128 4: 3–4 128 12 152 15–20 152 New Testament 19: 19–25 142 Matthew 25: 6–8 131 6: 9–13 148 32: 15–17 123 202 Pentecostal Theology for the Twenty-First Century Mark 4: 8–12 106 2: 19 149 4: 13 112 5: 9–10 87 4: 29 112 4: 31 92 Luke 109 4: 32–37 34 11: 20 123 6: 8 114 2: 10 152 7: 1–53 106 4: 14 112 7: 58 114 4: 29 114 7: 59 114 7: 59 114 7: 60 114 7: 60 114 8: 27 35 11: 21–22 87 9: 13–17 36 12: 8–12 92 9: 27 112 22: 69 114 9: 26–30 36 23: 34 114 10: 38 112 23: 46 114 10: 44–47 33 24: 49 112 11: 1–18 36 24: 52 152 11: 3 36 11: 17 37 John 11: 18 37 2: 1–11 128 11: 27–30 34 2: 2 114 12: 25 34 4: 24 142 13: 52 153 9 13: 46 112 13: 34 104 14: 3 112 13–17 104 15 37 14: 12 109 15: 11 38 14: 16–17 105 15: 14–18 38 14: 17–18 104 15: 28 38 14: 20 104 17–21 109 14: 23 104 18: 26 112 14: 26 105 19: 8 112 15: 1–11 104 15: 9 104 Romans 15: 26 105, 129 1:4 114 16: 13f 105, 129 5:2 149 16: 13–14 105 8: 17–27 115 17: 13 153 8: 22–25 127 17: 20–23 56, 75, 80 8: 26–27 116 19: 30–35 108 11: 33a 166 20: 19–23 108 11: 36b 166 12: 19 115 Acts 14: 17 152 1: 8 112 15: 19 115 2: 14–41 106 2: 2–4 109 1 Corinthians 2: 5–11 112 1: 5–7 128 2: 9–11 31 2: 4 114 2: 33 110 2: 4–5 115 Index of Scriptures 203 4: 7 115 4: 25 163 4:20 114 5: 2 162 5:4 114 5: 18–19 153 11: 11–12 139 6: 12 59 12: 3 48 6: 19–20 160 12: 8–11 115 Philippians 12–14 115, 116 1: 29f 152 13 116 2: 1 115 13: 3 94 3: 9–10 115 13:9 121 13:12 121 Colossians 15: 24–28 23 1: 11 114 1: 20 23 2 Corinthians 1: 26–27 158 3: 18 136 1: 29 114 3: 9–12 160 3: 11 48 4: 7 114 5: 19 131 1 Thessalonians 5: 14–15 115 1:5 114 6: 7 114 1: 6 153 8: 1–2 115 5:19–22 115 12: 13 41, 48 12: 9 114, 115 2 Thessalonians 12: 9–10 92 1:11 114 12: 12 114 13: 4 114 1 Timothy 13: 14 115 2: 9ff 137
Galatians 2 Timothy 3: 2–5 115 1: 7 114 3: 28 48 1: 8 114 3: 5 114 5: 22–23 164 Hebrews 12: 2 152 Ephesians 1: 3 128 1 John 1: 9–10 158 1: 1–4 83 1: 10 23 12: 2 152 1:19 114 1: 21 114 Revelation 2: 14 158 4–5 142 3: 6–7 114 7, 11, 15, 19 142 3 :16–20 115 19: 1–8 154 3: 20 114