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- Herausgeber: IVP Academic
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
"Can anything orthodox come from Pentecostalism?" This recasting of Nathaniel's familiar question from the Gospel is a fair summary of many modern Christians' assessment of the Pentecostal tradition. Yet in recent years, a growing number of Pentecostals have been turning afresh to the ancient, creedal Christian faith. Bishop Emilio Alvarez has himself been at the forefront of this movement. In Pentecostal Orthodoxy he introduces the phenomenon, and extends the project of paleo-orthodox ressourcement (associated with scholars such as Thomas Oden and Robert Webber) to include orthodox expressions within Pentecostalism, particularly his own Afro-Latino Pentecostal movement. This book is a manifesto of sorts, promising not only to open up the possibility of a genuinely orthodox Pentecostalism, but to reframe modern ecumenical dialogue as well.
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PentecostalOrthodoxy
Toward an Ecumenism of the Spirit
Foreword by John Behr
This book is dedicated to my old man,
Mi Viejo Emilio Alvarez Sr.
Dad, Words will never be able to describe what you mean to me. Thank you for loving me without reservation and for walking with me through the most difficult of moments. This book is both an embodiment as well as an extension of your passion and zeal for God and his church, which I have witnessed all my life. I am honored not only to carry your legacy but to do so carrying your name . . . Emilio.Love you, Viejo!
Contents
Foreword
JOHN BEHR
“BEHOLD, I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW,” says the unveiled Christ (Rev 21:5). Renewal is at the heart of Christianity, not only the renewal of those who hear and receive the gospel but also the renewal of gospel preaching and, indeed, the church, the bride of Christ. In a series of visions, Hermas sees the church as an old woman, the first of creation, for whose sake the world was made, gradually becoming younger until she becomes “a virgin, adorned as if coming from a bridal chamber.”1 Probably alluding to this, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons speaks of the preaching of the church, and the church itself, as “renewing its [and her] youth.”2 If the church is the bride of Christ, the wedding feast is nevertheless not until the final end: the bridegroom has been revealed, and the bride is now being prepared by building up the fullness of humanity, the witness of the martyrs for the faith, so that the wedding can be consummated. The preparation of the bride is the work of Christ himself (cf. Eph 5:25-27) and is overseen by that “other counsellor,” the Spirit, reminding us of all that Christ taught (Jn 14:16, 26). And so, as Saint Irenaeus also put it in the same passage: “Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace; and ‘the Spirit is truth.’” The truth of the church, her identity and being, is eschatological.
In this time in between—between the definitive, once-for-all work of Christ and its eschatological consummation—it is not surprising that the history of Christianity is punctuated by renewals. While the language of renewal might seem to be more aligned with forms of Protestant Christianity, especially the various revival movements, it should be borne in mind that both Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism underwent dramatic forms of renewal in the twentieth century. In both cases it involved a return to the Fathers and was also accompanied by significant liturgical and spiritual renewals. In the case of the former, the theology of the previous generations was memorably described by Father Georges Florovsky as having been a “pseudomorphosis” of authentic Orthodox theology, a “Western captivity” in which Eastern Orthodox theology had been alienated but from which it could be liberated (by émigrés in the West) through a return to the Fathers, a return also undertaken in the resourcement movement of theology in Roman Catholicism. The liturgical renewal of both were equally though differently profound: the resumption of the practice of frequent Communion, the reading of the prayers aloud and the adoption of the local languages for the Orthodox communities, together with a rediscovery of more ancient forms of iconography, and the revision of the Roman rite after the Second Vatican Council. And in both cases, though with roots going back several centuries, this involved the renewal of monasticism and different forms of monasticism and the propagation of, for instance, the Jesus Prayer to a wider body of believers. So profound were these developments that one can speak of Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism as having been “born again” in the past century.3
These renewals should be, as I mentioned, borne in mind, for they help us understand the broader context of stirrings elsewhere. The main thesis of this present book is that something similar is underway in certain circles in Pentecostalism. That similar phenomena happened in evangelical circles over the last decades of the twentieth century is well known and surveyed here, along with a considered reflection on criteria: the Chicago Call of 1977, Thomas Oden’s Paleo-Orthodoxy, the Convergence Worship Movement, and the Ancient-Future Movement, among others. What characterized all these was the desire to return to historic roots and continuity, faithfulness to the Scriptures as read and understood by the ancient church, creedal identity, a fuller understanding of salvation, sacramental worship, and ecclesial authority and unity. Although in some cases this desire led to a “return home,” as it was described by converts to Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. This was not uniformly the case; though, the desire for an authentic immersion into ancient Christianity continues to burn.
What, then, of Pentecostalism? Bishop Emilio Alvarez describes, often in very personal terms, the way in which some, in particular among the Afro-Latino communities, have been led to seek greater theological depths and liturgical and spiritual riches in the early church, combining their attention to ortho-pathy with orthodoxy—theological and liturgical—leading to the formation of communities such as the Union of Charismatic Orthodox Churches. Bishop Alvarez describes other attempts to recover the Great Tradition, or at least elements of it, by African American and Afro-Latino Christians in North America (in particular, The Church of God in Christ, The African Orthodox Church, and the Joint College of African American Pentecostal Bishops). He also speaks with candor and sensitivity about the way in which such attempts sometimes became a form of “mimicry” (in the sense used by Homi Bhabhi). Yet there is here, nevertheless, a serious desire and attempt to learn from the early church in matters theological, liturgical, and spiritual and also from their modern exponents, especially Eastern Orthodox (the name and influence of Father Alexander Schmemann is referred to frequently in this book).
Echoing Nathanael’s question (Jn 1:46), Bishop Emilio provocatively titles his second chapter “Can Anything Orthodox Come from Pentecostalism?” This question is indeed a fascinating one, and perhaps more so with respect to the Afro-Latino Charismatic experience specifically. Is there a difference between, on the one hand, the way in which Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholics, who have always claimed continuity or identity with the ancient church (despite periods subsequently designated a pseudomorphosis), experience a renewal by returning to the sources and the way in which those who have responded to the gospel proclamation in different contexts return to the same sources? Is it a return or a turn? For it is, after all, a new encounter with previously or largely unfamiliar material. Can those whose experience of Christianity has been as an oppressive White man’s religion (re)turn to those ancient sources—including Egyptian, Ethiopic, Syrian, and others—and find in them more or different aspects of the proclamation of the gospel than the White man has been familiar with, something that is orthodox even if not a habitual part of (Eastern) Orthodoxy? And how is one to navigate these questions? Are we being called from the “institutional” ecumenism of the past century to an “ecumenism of the Spirit” as argued here, and might this indeed be a particularly Pentecostal gift? These are indeed difficult questions, yet also necessary ones. If Pentecostalism is indeed, as has been widely reported, the largest and fastest growing Christian body today, Pentecostal orthodoxy will surely be a major force within world Christianity, and so its evolution and future developments or pathways are ones to be noted. And as the first attempt to characterize and so shape an emerging Afro-Latino Pentecostal Orthodoxy, this is a welcome book.
Acknowledgments
THIS WORK HAS BEEN MADE POSSIBLE first and foremost because of God’s grace and mercy and afterwards because of men and women who have believed and invested in me. To Bishop Troy Anthony Bronner (Dad), thank you for challenging me to believe in my abilities and for forming me to be the minister I am today. To Dr. Eldin Villafane, thank you for teaching me that education is as much a part of my calling as preaching and teaching. Because of you I am convinced that I was called to be educated. To Archbishop Wayne Boosahda, thank you for classically training me in the recovery of the Great Tradition. This book is the fruit of the vision God gave you concerning me many years ago. To Bishop David Michael Copeland, thank you for causing my heart to burn with the phrase, “Many people know Jesus, but they don’t know the church.” The phrase changed my perspective and set me on my course of discovery. To Dr. Dale Irvin, thank you for taking a chance on me when no one else would. Time and time again you have sacrificed your name and reputation in order to ensure that my voice is heard among important theological and ecclesiological conversations that you are having. I will forever be grateful.
To Dr. Dara Delgado, thank you for all the hours of conversation regarding this work, and thank you for challenging me. I can’t wait for your work to be published. To Dr. Claudette Copeland (Mother), thank you for loving me how only a mother can. I am uplifted by your prayers. To Fr. John Behr, thank you for fanning the flames of my passion for the patristics. I look forward to this next season of life under your tutelage.
A special thank you to the best church anyone could pastor, The Cathedral at the Gathering Place in Rochester, New York. Thank you all for your patience, devotion, and belief in the vision that God has given to us. As we like to remind each other, I’ve seen him do it and I know he’s working it out for me!
To the clergy and people of the Union of Charismatic Orthodox Churches, thank you for supporting me as your leader. As we work together to recover the Great Tradition in order that we might help to renew the contemporary church, I look forward to your growth and vitality.
To bishops Johnny Ray Youngblood and Ronnie Eggleston along with Mount Pisgah Baptist Church and Ephraim Judah Cathedral, words cannot describe the immense love and respect I have for you all. Thank you for loving me unconditionally. I love you all.
Lastly, to my kids, Eli, Siomara, and Lucas, my babies. Thank you for being so patient with Daddy. After God, you guys are the sole purpose for my continuing existence. Daddy loves you!
Introduction
ONE EARLY SATURDAY MORNING in 2007, I was sitting in my prayer room, sobbing like a child. I had intended to pray the daily office, using my newly found appreciation for the Book of Common Prayer. But instead my mental fatigue had triggered my bipolarism, causing an avalanche of thoughts to come crashing down on my mind. The night before I had stayed up late reading Yves Congar’s The Meaning of Tradition, along with Alexander Schmemann’s The Eucharist, both a part of my formational training for the diaconate.1 Just a year ago I had been a young, fiery Pentecostal minister who never expected to be thinking about matters of ecclesiology or tradition—or, for that matter, the Eucharist. The Eucharist? How and when did Communion become the Eucharist?
Those nostalgic thoughts of the distance between my younger years as a fiery, classical Pentecostal preacher on the traveling circuit and the man now sitting in a room with incense smoking, candles lit, prayer book in hand, and looked on with suspicion by some of the very people I had preached for caused me to begin to sob uncontrollably. I was not sad about the distance between my past and newly found way of liturgical prayer. In fact, after discovering so much historical, biblical, and ecclesiological truth, how could I ever go back? However, my rediscovery of the truth of the early church’s worship and theology came with a weighty price. Accusations stemming from a misplaced Catholo-phobia had distanced friends, colleagues, even family members, and on that particular morning, it had finally taken its toll on my mental and emotional health.
Back then, in 2007, I had already read Robert Webber’s Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, in tandem with Thomas Howard’s Evangelical Is Not Enough.2 Those books were first recommended to me by the late Rick Hatfield, a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church who had taken the time to help me discern my new passion and interest for all things liturgical and sacramental. After months of conversation, it was Hatfield who was the first to tell me, “I think the Lord is calling you into convergence” (i.e., the convergence worship movement). A few months after making that statement, Hatfield suddenly became ill and passed on to be with the Lord.
Based on my reading of these books, I knew that if God was calling me to rediscover the historic Great Tradition (the worship, theology and mission of the church catholic found within scriptural exegesis, the church’s creeds and councils and the writings of the Fathers within the first thousand years of Christainity), I would have to make the journey Webber describes from “Borrowed Faith, to Searching Faith, ultimately ending up at Owned Faith.”3 What I had not expected was the mental, emotional, and spiritual stress of it all. So there I sat, on the floor, mind racing, prayer book in hand, tears running down my cheeks as the realization of fleeting relationships and ministerial marginalization finally sunk in.
God has always had a peculiar way of revealing his love for me. As a child, I can remember vivid images of fiery plants and strange bright lights along with odd but divine encounters with beings, which I would later discern to be angelic. Rarely, however, did I have the experience of hearing a voice similar to how the book of Acts describes Paul’s conversion encounter on the Damascus road. So you can understand how the following came as a shock to me. The room had no windows, yet as I sat, struggling my way through prayer, I suddenly felt as if the sun’s warmth had surrounded me. The light coming from the lit candles seemed to dim in the presence of a new and brighter light that had invaded the room, and the incense’s smell increased dramatically. Then, without warning, I felt it: the strange sensation of a warmth covering my whole body, and in an instant I knew the manifested presence of the Holy Spirit was there. I later came to recognize that my experience that day was similar to Saint Symeon the New Theologian’s ecstatic experience with the Holy Spirit as light in the tenth century.
I continued in prayer, still experiencing these sensations, until suddenly out of nowhere a picture of a friend popped up in my mind’s eye, as if I were being shown a mug shot. I wondered for a moment whether God wanted for me to pray for that individual, and so, in spite of the emotional and ecstatic moment that I was having, I attempted to momentarily put aside my own awe and emotional malfunction. I began to prepare myself to pray for that friend. Suddenly, I heard a voice in my heart that asked, “Do you know him?”
Still with the picture in mind, I responded to the voice. “Yes, Lord, he’s my friend. I know him.”
There was silence for a minute or two, and then the voice spoke again. “What’s his wife’s name?”
I was stumped. I tried to recall the times and places where this individual and I had seen or spoken to each other, at conferences or other social or religious events, and after several minutes, having thought hard, I replied, “God, I don’t think I know his wife.”
Again, silence, until the voice asked, “How can you say you know him if you don’t know the very thing he loves?” As I sat there puzzled, wondering what any of this had to do with my feelings of loss regarding my recovery of early Christian spirituality, I heard the voice once again asking, “Son, do you know me?”
By this time my suspicion has been elevated to code-red status. I figured that any answer to the question would probably be wrong, and yet I responded, “God, I try to know you every day as best as I can. I know that no one can completely know you, but I try.”
Then the voice asked, “Do you know my bride, the church? How can you say you love me if you don’t know what I love?”
Thirteen years removed from that experience, I can truly say that I have learned how to love both the Groom and the bride. What’s more, the retelling of my story today does not seem as unique as it once did, amid the dozens of testimonials I’ve received from other Pentecostal clergy who have had similar experiences. As an Afro-Latino Pentecostal clergyman and religious educational scholar whose spirituality includes the recovery of the Great Tradition, it no longer shocks me to be seated on a plane or in a car next to a charismatic or Pentecostal person who expresses their desire for the recovery of some type of early Christian spirituality, inclusive of the Eucharist. These experiences seem to be the norm for Pentecostals who are transitioning from a pure fundamentalist evangelical Christianity into the recovery and practice of classical consensual Christianity. As I reflect back on that season of my life, I have come to believe that part of my difficulty at the time was that I knew no one else with my skin color who spoke my cultural language or worshiped charismatically, as I did, who was going through a similar transition. It was only years later that I met others who had similar stories.
Even more troubling was that while studying I began to notice that not only were the majority of my assigned readings written by older white men, but most of the personal stories concerning a dramatic conversion experience toward the recovery of the Great Tradition were being told from a primarily evangelical perspective. My remarks here concerning the overwhelming Anglo contribution toward the subject should in no way be taken as disparaging the incredible work done by my fellow Anglo brothers and sisters. In truth, this work itself is owed to individuals such as Webber and Thomas Oden, who set the pace for both the theological and pastoral recovery of classical consensual Christianity. Yet now more than ever I understand that the lack of cultural diversity pertaining to the subject continues to perpetuate a great social-religious chasm between Afro-Latino Pentecostals and historic Christianity.
Given the growing number of Pentecostals currently going through the process of recovering the faith and spiritual practice of the Great Tradition, a book addressing this topic is needed now more than ever before. The discussion itself, however, is complex and evolving. Therefore, prudence demands that, before I continue, I clarify what this book is and is not. It is not a catalog of global Pentecostalism and its various identities or denominations in relation to orthodoxy. It is also not my theological summa, although it is in some ways theological. Nor does the book focus on the sociopolitical or socioreligious distinctiveness of Blackness or brownness as identities or symbols, even though this topic will be discussed in chapter five.
This book is first of all an attempt to bring attention to a largely unknown and underconsidered but growing segment of North American Pentecostalism that is slowly moving away from a fundamentalist evangelical way of being in the world and shifting toward the faith and practice of a more liturgical, sacramental, and creedal Christianity. This shift is the sole work of the Holy Spirit, aided by a theological recovery of early Christian resources in tandem with an appreciation for liturgical experientialism as religiously educational.
Second, this work looks to problematize the sometimes-popular notion that orthodoxy and Pentecostalism are antithetical. In doing so, it will highlight both the various theological/academic resources within Pentecostalism that have been moving toward the recovery of the Great Tradition and the ecclesiological movements within the same that practically embody said recovery. It looks to join and colorfully contribute to the growing chorus of ancient-future literary voices that have both identified and mapped the growing number of nonliturgical Christian believers who are recovering the treasures found in the ancient wells of the Great Christian tradition.
Last, this work will consider the theological and historical qualifications for an orthodox Pentecostalism, situating it within the postmodern paleo-orthodox movement. It will consider how Afro-Latino Pentecostals are contributing to the social-religious chasm between Afro-Latino Pentecostals and historic Christian spirituality. The majority of these voices have, until now, been dominated solely by a white evangelical denominational presence. It will also consider the effects that such a movement within a broader global Pentecostalism could have on ecumenism. Further, one of the aims of this work is to introduce Pentecostals to the recovery of orthodoxy without displacing them from their Pentecostal tradition. In doing so, I hope it will become an encouraging and formational resource to both present and future generations of Pentecostal believers who sense a call to the belief and practice of the Christian faith believed “everywhere, always and by all.”4
Whatever your own theological and ecclesiological perspective, my hope is that this book will be discussed, debated, and ultimately improved on.
TERMINOLOGY
This work uses the term Pentecostal to refer to the twentieth-century North American movement rooted not only in Wesleyan and Holiness spirituality but in African American spirituality as well. Following Douglas Jacobsen’s research, what constitutes Pentecostalism is an experiential spirituality that is Spirit-filled and endows Pentecostal believers with the gifts of the Holy Spirit toward the miraculous. Pentecostal spirituality is deeply eschatologically minded and is heavily involved in the belief of spiritual warfare against the demonic in the world. In regard to gender and cultural equality, Pentecostal theology affirms that the Holy Spirit can empower women the same as men, and in practice has been open to peoples of all cultures. Concerning structure, Pentecostalism has no central governing body or authority; instead, it represents a grassroots entrepreneurial ecclesial movement of believers who share the Holy Spirit’s work in the world.5
Jacobsen, as well as Allan Anderson, attests to the reality that ministry leadership within Pentecostalism is viewed more through the lens of a spiritual call and less through intellectual or academic preparation and further that the doctrine of “the Priesthood of all believers constitutes a dynamic which serves as the missional impulse of the movement.”6 In this manner, the massive and diverse bodies of peoples within Pentecostalism are held in relation to one another, given mutual awareness, and cause for collaboration, and to the same extent they have begun participating in ecumenical dialogue with other traditions.
The classical, older Pentecostal doctrine holds that although every believer at conversion is baptized into Christ (justification), they are not necessarily baptized into the Spirit, that speaking in tongues is a sign of such baptism in the Spirit, and that eternal security or the assurance of salvation does not exist.
The term Pentecostal is also used, to quote Amos Yong, as a “catch-all, neo-charismatic” category within Pentecostalism that “comprises 18,810 independent, indigenous, post-denominational groups.”7 This neo-charismatic or neo-Pentecostal movement, as identified by The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, is distinct from the classical Pentecostal movement that was connected to the Azusa Street revival in the early 1900s.
Neo-Pentecostalism is also distinct from the charismatic renewal movement, which began within Protestantism but had a major effect among laypeople in several Christian traditions, including Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism, in the mid-1960s.8 Charismatics not only believe it is possible to be baptized in the Spirit without speaking in tongues but usually espouse a broader ecumenical ecclesial pneumatology that shuns the need for separation among denominations. They do “share a common emphasis on the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, Pentecostal-like experiences along with signs and wonders and power encounters.”9
Stanley Burgess argues that a distinction must be made between the terms Pentecostal and Pentecostalism. The term Pentecostal is limited primarily to classical Pentecostals, who emphasized the importance of the historical practice of speaking in tongues, while Pentecostalism describes a more general movement that recognizes the presence of spiritual gifts within a worship experience as described in the New Testament Scriptures.10 Pentecostalism has always been a significant movement within the church. Moreover, a historical mapping of the movement reveals that, “For the first two centuries of the Christian era, there is abundant evidence of ongoing Pentecostalism.”11 Pentecostalism, then, according to Burgess, has “never lapsed, it has never ceased to be an ecclesial-pneumatological reality. It did not expire at the close of the first century until it was once again recovered in 1906 at the Asuza Street Revival as some Classical Pentecostals have suggested.”12
Amos Yong offers a different perspective on Pentecostal terminology. Yong acknowledges that “Pentecostalism is, has been, and will be a contested idea,” but unlike Burgess, he uses the terms Pentecostal and Pentecostalism (capitalized) when referring to the classical expression, which focused on speaking in tongues.13 In contrast, he uses the terms pentecostal and pentecostalism (lowercase) to refer to the historic movement in general, inclusive of the three types of Pentecostalism described by the New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements.14
Similarly, Douglas Jacobsen and James Smith have, according to Smith, “adopted the nomenclature of ‘small-p’ pentecostalism as a way of honoring the diversity of pentecostal/charismatic theologies while at the same time recognizing important family resemblances and shared sensibilities.”15 Smith, however, contrary to Yong, identifies himself as a charismatic and not a Pentecostal, and thus utilizes Pentecostal (capitalized) to also refer to the charismatic traditions. He acknowledges that the term pentecostal or pentecostalism (uncapitalized) “is meant to be a gathering term, indicating a shared set of practices and theological intuitions that are shared by Pentecostals, charismatics, and ‘third wavers.’”16
Thus far, the terms have been capitalized out of respect for the broader tradition. From here throughout however, this study will follow Yong’s methodology, using the terms pentecostal or pentecostalism (lowercase) to refer specifically to a North American ecumenical pentecostalism in interconnection with orthodoxy. These terms are inclusive of the neo-charismatic groups as well as the classical and mid-nineteenth-century Pentecostals. The term pentecostal will be used in conjunction with the term orthodoxy as a qualifier for orthodoxy to argue that both a spirituality and a theology of signs and wonders have always existed as part of the historic apostolic tradition.
By the term orthodoxy, I do not mean the Eastern Orthodox Church (capital O), but what Thomas Oden identifies as the “integrated biblical teaching as interpreted in its most consensual classic period.” For Oden, it refers to a classic textual tradition that
encompasses both Eastern and Western Christianity. Lowercase orthodoxy is a term not limited to any particular history of Greek, Antiochene, Syriac, Armenian, Mar Thoma, or Coptic Orthodoxy, although it certainly includes all of these. I speak of lowercase orthodoxy as a sociological type, while greatly respecting the historical rootedness and durability of its capitalized form.17
This consensual classical period spans the first thousand years of the church, before the Great Schism. Here orthodoxy is not limited to right teaching and belief in the theological sense but is inclusive of a practical pastoral dynamic as well. From this perspective, orthodoxy is the recovery of ancient scriptural interpretation and teaching, the usage of tradition as a faithful recollection of Scripture, the recovery of both writings of the earliest Christian writers (fathers, doctors, and theologians of the church) and a creedal and consensual identity, and, last, a renewed liturgical/sacramental spirituality with a recovered devotion for the Eucharist taking center stage.
According to Leslie K. Best, the term Afro-Latino is used to identify “a person who is Latino and of African heritage.”18 Alejandro de la Fuente and George Reid Andrews define the field of Afro-Latin American studies “first as the study of people of African ancestry in Latin America, and second, as the study of the larger societies in which those people live.”19 This book uses the term Afro-Latino in the second sense, as a collective, sociologically referring to a group or community of both African Americans, Latino Americans, or Latinos with African descent in social motion.
This term stems from the reality of racial disparities for African Americans as well as Latinos in the United States, which are often interrelated. This has been particularly true in the southern states. Ramona Houston states, “Throughout its history, African Americans and Latinos have been subjected to similar forms of racialization, segregation and discrimination which in turn, have produced some of the same social, political and economic issues within each of these communities.”20 Houston’s call is for an Afro-Latino coalition based on intergroup commonalities that supports collaboration between the two groups. Thus, given the similarities of racial and social designation, one can speak of an Afro-Latino community as a group of people who are either African American or Latino American with African heritage. I will provide a more concise definition of the term and how it is used in chapter five.
Finally, the term Pentecostal orthodoxy is used to refer to a segment of the broader pentecostal movement that is recovering classic consensual Christian teaching, along with elements of liturgical/sacramental worship, while retaining an affective spirituality and theology. My use of the term “affective spirituality and theology” means to suggest, straightforwardly, Theodore Runyon’s understanding of John Wesley’s Christian experience as orthopathy.21 For Dale Coulter, orthopathy describes “how right affections fuse right beliefs (orthodoxy) and right practices (orthopraxis) within Wesley’s thought.”22 Importantly, members of this segment are usually more inclined to stay within their own Pentecostal tradition, incorporating and contextualizing the theology and spirituality learned, rather than joining a historic mainline liturgical tradition.
ORGANIZING THIS BOOK
This book makes the bold claim that, through an ecumenism of the Spirit, segments of Pentecostalism have been given the opportunity to recover the Great Tradition. I will argue that, unlike other Protestant movements before it, Pentecostalism as a multidiverse religious category can situate its spirituality, ministry, and theology within the broader mystical and monastic Christian traditions. Pentecostal orthodox ecclesiology, however, must be situated as an expression within the broader paleo-orthodox Christian movement, which includes other expressions, such as evangelical orthodoxy, the ancient-future movement, and the convergence worship movement.
In chapter one, “Reconstructing Foundations,” I present a short developmental history of the paleo-orthodox movement along with its key expressions, characters, events, and literature. I reconsider the traditional historical outline compiled by other resources in regard to the amalgamation of the liturgical/sacramental, evangelical, and charismatic/Pentecostal streams of the church, aiming to present a broader narrative of the shift among Protestants that ultimately leads to a Pentecostal orthodoxy. The chapter concludes by analyzing why Pentecostalism has never been considered orthodox.
In chapter two, “Can Anything Orthodox Come from Pentecostalism?,” I will look to answer the question posed in the preceding chapter: “Can Pentecostalism be orthodox?” The chapter’s title, utilizing a play on words from the conversation between Nathanael and Philip in John 1:46, will present a scholastic and ethnographic research study of Pentecostal academic resources, churches, clerical organizations, and individual clergy drawn to the faith and practice of the Great Tradition. Inquiring who, what, where, why, and how, I first explore a Pentecostal orthodoxy by presenting a continuation of my own personal story as well as the stories of other Pentecostal clergy who have been drawn to the faith and practice of the Great Tradition. Second, the chapter explores the contrasts and comparisons between historical Pentecostalism and the Christian mystical tradition. Last, it reviews the history and ecclesiological developments of the clerical organizations that house Pentecostal clergy currently practicing forms of a Pentecostal orthodoxy. The overall aim of the chapter is to problematize the historical notion that Pentecostalism and orthodoxy are antithetical religious concepts.
Chapter three, “Pentecostals on a Pentecostal Trail,” wrestles with the question of whether Pentecostals recovering the Great Tradition can or should remain within Pentecostalism instead of “coming home” to other canonical traditions upon such a recovery. After a brief consideration of the matter, I include a continuation of my own personal story and share the stories of three other pentecostals on a journey toward the recovery of the Great Tradition as well.
Chapter four, “Toward an Afro-Latino Pentecostal Orthodoxy,” will explore an Afro-Latino Pentecostal perspective and the impact various forms of religious white normativity have had on the perception of Afro-Latino Pentecostal groups that are recovering a classical consensual Christian faith, believed to belong solely to “white” Christians. Guided by my understanding that my journey is no longer an isolated example of a broader phenomenon within Pentecostalism, one of the questions that must be asked is, Where are all the other Black and brown Pentecostal/charismatic people in this story? What is it about liturgy and sacramentality, in particular the Eucharist, in conjunction with early African Christianity, that has attracted Afro-Latino Pentecostals/charismatics to aspects of the Great Tradition? This chapter will argue that these Afro-Latino Pentecostal groups, aided by historical African Christian resources, are engaging in “colorful” or varied, fresh expressions of worship, situating an Afro-Latino Pentecostal orthodoxy within the broader Pentecostal orthodoxy movement.
Finally, chapter five, “An Ecumenism of the Spirit,” presents readers with the ecumenical impacts that pentecostals recovering the Great Tradition can have on the “New Ecumenical Movement.” This chapter contrasts the old ecumenism of the twentieth century as “a spiritual ecumenism” with the twenty-first-century, grassroots, Spirit-led ecumenical movement as “an ecumenism of the Spirit.” It argues that a Pentecostal orthodoxy is part of the broader ecumenism of the Spirit and explores ways in which pentecostals recovering the Great Tradition can come to be seen as part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
What a most wonderful time we live in as Pentecostal/charismatic believers. If you are a Pentecostal and you find yourself tired of solely identifying yourself with ripped-jeans, muscle-shirt preachers with $100 haircuts and heavily tinted beards; if you find yourself tired of moralistic therapy accompanied by emotional, performance-based worship devoid of godly and heavenly revelation; if you find yourself tired of the superficial and devotion to vestments, protocols, and ordinations with no connection to any historical or theological spiritual practice; if you yearn to discover the spiritual, contemplative, and theological writings of the Fathers and Mothers of the early church; if you find yourself frustrated with the lack of classical hermeneutical proximity as it relates to exegetical biblical preaching; if you find yourself desiring to renew your practice of a liturgical and sacramental spirituality inclusive of the Eucharist as the sacrament of the kingdom—then you are being drawn to the ancient wells of the Great Tradition. My hope is that as you read this book you will find the direction you need for your next season of ministry and personal spirituality.
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Reconstructing Foundations
OF THE MANY RESOURCES on the amalgamation of evangelical, charismatic/Pentecostal and liturgical/sacramental streams, few attempts have been made to offer a concise historical outline of the major expressions that encapsulate such spirituality.1 Even fewer resources address how such expressions have contributed to segments of pentecostalism now looking toward the recovery of the Great Tradition.
This chapter looks to consider the history of the church expressions that combine the evangelical, liturgical, and charismatic streams of the church. These three streams, which to some extent can be seen being practiced in much of the early church, as illustrated in Lesslie Newbigin’s book The Household of God, represent an outline that fits the practical and theological journey of pentecostals recovering the historic Great Tradition.2 In truth, while other claims can be made in regard to other streams (e.g., the social justice stream), all Christian traditions will hold to, in one way or another, the existence of a charismatic, evangelical, or liturgical/sacramental element in their ecclesiology. I will examine three of these expressions in particular: evangelical orthodoxy, the convergence worship movement, and ancient-future faith. These expressions will be situated within the broader paleo-orthodox movement and examined as antecedents to a Pentecostal orthodoxy. This work claims the paleo-orthodox movement as a valid, Protestant, theological, Spirit-led renewal movement dedicated to the recovery of the Great Tradition.
PALEO-ORTHODOXY
Since 1979, Thomas Oden has used the term paleo-orthodoxy to describe “an orthodoxy that holds steadfast to classic consensual teaching, in order to make it clear that the ancient consensus of faith is starkly distinguishable from neo-orthodoxy. The ‘paleo’ stratum of orthodoxy is its oldest layer. For Christians this means that which is apostolic and patristic.”3 Paleo-orthodoxy, or “ancient correct belief,” refers to the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century Protestant theological movement that sees the essentials of Christian theology in the consensual understanding of the faith as displayed within Christianity’s first five centuries, the first seven ecumenical councils, and the writings of the church fathers before the Great Schism.4 As a theological movement, it looks to critique the liberal rationalism and subjectivity of Christian modernity and to answer the questions of Christian postmodernity by recovering classical Christianity. John C. Peckham writes that paleo-orthodoxy looks to “encourage Protestantism (especially evangelicalism) to retrieve the orthodox consensus of Christianity, particularly that of the patristic tradition.”5
The paleo-orthodox movement, along with its expressions (evangelical orthodoxy, convergence worship, ancient-future faith, Pentecostal orthodoxy), most commonly takes a communitarian approach to theology. Similar to the canonical approach, the communitarian approach sees the canon of Scripture as authoritative, yet emphasizes the authority of the Christian community in adopting what Peckham calls a “community-determined extracanonical rule of faith or other normative interpreter for theological doctrine.”6 An extracanonical normative interpretive arbiter is a way of interpreting Scripture and developing the authority of doctrine away from a solely scriptural (sola Scriptura) approach. It argues that community can also have a decisive say in the interpretation of Scripture and in developing authoritative doctrine.
This fact is significant for paleo-orthodox segments within Protestantism, since a community-determined extracanonical normative interpretive arbiter represents one way of thinking about a recovery of an ancient consensual method of interpreting Scripture. Roman Catholicism’s communitarian approach to theological method, for example, involves its magisterium (teaching office) as its extracanonical normative interpretive arbiter, while Eastern Orthodoxy adheres to what it has come to know as “the rule of faith,” which is a symbiotic relationship between the church, Scripture, and the apostolic tradition.7
In Protestant postliberal renewal movements such as paleo-orthodoxy, extracanonical normative interpretive arbiters also make meaning within the practices and faith of a believing community. Paleo-orthodoxy, in particular, adopts Vincent of Lérins’s rule of faith—ubique, semper, omnibus (everywhere, always, and by all)—as its guide toward its consensual and Spirit-guided discernment of Scripture.8 The Vincentian rule, according to Oden, is the “decisive text for orthodox ancient ecumenical method,” because agreement at all three levels (that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all) “assures reliable truth.”9 Oden’s reliance on the Vincentian rule for the recovery of classical consensual Christianity is shared by many high-church Anglicans, and within Methodism (Pentecostalism’s direct antecedent) John Wesley himself was influenced heavily by the Vincentian rule.10
While teaching at Drew University, Oden was challenged to study the classical writers of the Christian tradition by his Jewish mentor, Will Herberg. This led Oden to have what he describes as a radical “change of heart” regarding the importance of patristic intervention within modern and postmodern theology. Oden says, “Holding one finger up, looking straight at me with fury in his eyes, [Herberg] said, ‘You will remain theologically uneducated until you study carefully Athanasius, Augustine and Aquinas.’”11
It was Oden who coined the term paleo-orthodoxy. For Oden orthodoxy is defined as “nothing more or less than the ancient consensual tradition of Spirit guided discernment of Scripture,” which consists of the “integrated biblical teaching as interpreted in its most consensual classic period.”12
