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Strange Fire: Pentecostalism as Cure

for the Reformation


October 24, 2017 · Fr. Barnabas Powell

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an October 2017 series of posts


on the Reformation and Protestantism written by O&H authors and
guest writers marking the 500th anniversary of the nailing of
Martin Luther’s 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg on
October 31, 1517. Articles are written by Orthodox Christians and
discuss not just the Reformation as a historical event but also the
spiritual heritage that descended from it.

B y all observations and measures the Pentecostal Movement is

the fastest growing expression of Christianity in the world. Some


estimates set the number of Pentecostals at over 279 million
adherents worldwide, making Pentecostalism, arguably, a Fourth
kind of Christianity behind Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and
Protestantism.

But there is no denying that the Pentecostal movement would have


been impossible without the Protestant Reformation. The several
“restorationist” movements that exploded in America and England in
the late 18th and early 19th centuries all had one thing in common: to
recapture or restore the “power” or “holiness” of the “original”
Christian Church.

I contend that the growth of Pentecostalism, and the less strident


Charismatic movement (starting in the late 1950’s), is a result of a
theological poverty in Western Christianity that can be seen as early
as the “filioque” controversy and the unintended theological
consequences that followed. The emphasis of the West on rationalism
and the weak and sometimes bizarre forms of mysticism that
developed in the West gave rise to both the over reaction and sad
necessity of the Reformation which then gave rise to the even more
rationalistic movements of Calvinism and legalistic piety of the 1st
and 2nd so-called “Great Awakenings.” All of this led to the
subsequent Holiness movements of the 19th century along with the
multiplying of Christian “denominations” on the American continent,
and eventually led to the outbreak of the Pentecostal Movement at the
turn of the 20th century.

Currently there are over 700 denominations that would be considered


Pentecostal or Charismatic. As a side note, most American
MegaChurches are heavily influenced by the Charismatic Movement.
And even the “worship wars” in Evangelical denominations have all
but been decided in favor of the more emotional and “experiential”
influence on music and worship “styles” of the Pentecostal Movement
here in the United States and other English speaking countries.

As with many “restorationist” movements in Christianity,


Pentecostalism is also a uniquely American phenomenon that has
now spread worldwide, and is growing fastest in the Third World.
Pentecostalism started among the “lower” classes of American
society. Interestingly enough, Pentecostalism was also quite racially
integrated in its early days, with black and white Pentecostals
worshiping together and spreading the movement together. This
situation didn’t last long and eventually the Movement segregated
along racial lines to reflect the segregation of American society as a
whole. Also fascinating was the strong pacifist attitude among early
Pentecostals. While many Pentecostal young men did go into the
military, registering as a “conscientious objector” was the norm. This
emphasis on pacifism flowed naturally from the theology of the
Pentecostals as they emphasized the indwelling Holy Spirit bringing a
radical new society based on peace.

The “spirit filled” believer was changed from his old way of life to a
new life that even changed the way he talked. “Speaking in tongues”
(glossolalia), miracles of healing, visions, prophecies, boisterous
worship with emotional music and, yes, even rolling on the floor
(where do you think “holy roller” came from?) were the marks of the
Pentecostal movement.

Such enthusiasm wasn’t unique to Pentecostalism, since similar


emotional outbursts were common in the 1st and 2nd Great
Awakenings in American history. These experiences still exist to one
degree or another in many parts of the Movement to this day.
Unmoored from the wisdom of the timeless Church, these religious
experiences were increasingly “intoxicating” and addictive.

But the Movement wouldn’t stay an American phenomena long.


Building on the network of contacts on their Holiness Movement
roots, Pentecostals quickly spread through the English speaking
world among the downtrodden and the poor. Pentecostalism is
decidedly a movement born “on the wrong side of the tracks.”

Add to this the Protestant emphasis on missions and the


eschatological theology dominant among Pentecostalism
(Dispensationalism and an immanent return of Jesus), and you have
thousands of Pentecostal missionaries willing to go all over the world
to “spread the word!” And they certainly did. Most American
Pentecostal denominations today are larger outside the borders of the
US than inside.

Dr. Vinson Synan, former Dean of the Divinity School at Regent


University in Virginia and long time historian of the Pentecostal and
Charismatic movements, commented on the explosive growth of the
Pentecostal Movement across the increasingly Christian Southern
hemisphere by saying that those who want to deal with Christians will
not be able to ignore the Pentecostals, since they are on track to
become the predominant expression of the Christian faith in this
growing part of the world.

The human longing that gave birth to the Pentecostal Movement is


not bad in and of itself. The fundamental and basic hunger that is
addressed by Pentecostalism is a desire for intimacy with the
Uncreated God. This is good and God-given. We were meant for
intimacy with God.
But the theological poverty that was the atmosphere of the birth of
Pentecostalism guaranteed that the very good desire would be quickly
corrupted by weak theological support and a practical and total
disconnection from the history of the Christian Faith. And the
movement bears this out. All one has to do is turn on religious TV to
discover both old and new heresies finding fertile ground in the
hearts of ungrounded and disconnected Pentecostal believers.

One of the earliest heresies was the so-called “Oneness” heresy


concerning the doctrine of the Trinity. Once again, the weak
theological grounding of theologies concerning the Trinity produced
the natural over reaction of some in the young Pentecostal movement.
This led to some receiving a “revelation” of the oneness of the
Godhead. They began to teach a form of “modalism” and insisted that
God is not a trinity of Persons, but only one Person – Jesus.
Beginning with the “new issue” of baptism only in the name of Jesus
in the very early days of the Pentecostal movement, these often
sincere and fervent believers, cut off as they were from the wise
theology of centuries of Christian theology, made it up as they went
along.

One might have hoped that, as the movement matured, it would


outgrow the excesses of its past, but the Oneness Pentecostals actually
make up a third of all the Pentecostals in the world today.

But weak theology on the doctrine of the Trinity is not the only
“strange fire” that burns in the fields of Pentecostalism. The so-called
“Prosperity Gospel,” the hyper-individualism that seems to reign
within the movement and all its offshoots, the emotionalism that
leads to nothing more than religious sentimentalism, and even the
weakness of dependence on ecstatic experiences all feed a notion of
faith as an addiction rather than a sober lifestyle of peace.

Reading this you may wonder if I see any good in my former


Pentecostal roots. I am, after all, a son of the Pentecostal Movement,
and a former pastor in that tradition. You may be surprised to read
that I consider Pentecostalism the greatest hope for Western
Christianity to correct the theological mistakes of its past. I am
convinced that Pentecostalism is God’s gift to the West to draw
Western Christianity back to a more ancient and healthier theological
experience with God and a truly catholic embrace of mystery.
Pentecostalism is, after all, the poor man’s mysticism, and, as I said
above, a clear cry for intimacy with God.

I am indebted to my Pentecostal roots for fanning the flames of this


desire for intimacy with God in my own heart and for an experience in
Christian community I cherish to this day. It eventually led me home
to the Orthodox Church where, instead of burning my spiritual house
down with “wild fire”, I found a wise “fireplace” for the fire kindled in
my heart by my Pentecostal upbringing. Thank you, Brother Holder
and Open Bible Tabernacle. I shall be in your debt forever.

Western Christianity had to birth the Pentecostal movement if it was


ever going to escape the sterile and clinical approach to the mystery of
the Christian faith that was such an easy slander to be hurled at the
various mainline Protestant denominations.

We struggle in our modern day with the exponential multiplication of


Christian denominations and movements flowing from the
Reformation, which all seem to desire to take seriously and fulfill this
God-given hunger for intimacy with God and joy in this life and the
next. So, we Orthodox Christians must find a way to see how God has
given us a tremendous opportunity to help these sincere and
spiritually hungry seekers to find the “fireplace” for their zeal and
their unbridled passion, even if that passion is for God!

The stories of shipwrecked lives as a consequence of the undisciplined


“fire” of the Pentecostal Movement would fill a library. Most
Pentecostals hit that place in their lives when all the experiences start
to feel hollow. As with any intoxication, the “high” has to always
increase to keep the feeling of euphoria alive. Many either come to
think of themselves as “just not good enough” to “feel” God with them
anymore, or they abandon the faith altogether, looking for a “new
drug” that will satisfy them. These spiritual refugees deserve our
attention and love. After all, we claim to have the fullness of the faith
and all the spiritual food anyone would ever need.

But the only remedy for the spiritual sicknesses that pervades
Pentecostalism is a return to, or perhaps a discovery for the first time,
of the wisdom of the undivided Church. This must include rigorous
theological work that takes seriously the truth that we cannot truly
understand what the Holy Spirit is saying to His Church today unless
we are willing to hear what He has said to His Church in the past. The
foolish behavior of making final choices about deep theological truths
before we have gathered all the relevant theological evidence has
produced too many spiritual casualties to be allowed to continue. And
the “embarrassment of riches” that Orthodoxy possesses only means
we Orthodox will be without excuse when we are asked by Jesus,
“Why didn’t you feed these hungry people?”

Pentecostalism is not going away. Christians from the more ancient


traditions of the Church had better become well acquainted with this
religious movement, because societies are increasingly affected by
these religious phenomena. Even our own modern society has, at the
very least, embraced this perpetual adolescent mentality that makes
Pentecostalism so very attractive even to many of our own Orthodox
youth!

Pentecostals must abandon the prideful notion that their movement


dropped out of heaven completely disconnected from the historical
realities around them. The shallow “me and Jesus got our own thing
going” mentality will never lead to anything more than a perpetual
spiritual kindergarten. In the end, Pentecostalism may find itself
increasingly dissimilar from Christianity if it can’t find a way to
reconnect with a timeless Christianity preserved in the Church.

The non-Pentecostals of the Reformation would also do well to


examine why this movement is so prevalent in their theological
context. Why does the Pentecostal Movement flourish where Western
theology dominates? My contention is that this reality is God’s way of
drawing prideful humans back to mystery and transrational intimacy.
We need this check on our arrogance and delusional self sufficiency to
ever be courageous enough to return to the healthy mystery of the
undivided Church.

If the children of the Reformation can see Pentecostalism as the “gift”


that it is for them, they may just discover what was the foundational
deficiency that drove the Reformation in the first place!

For me, Orthodoxy is the natural home for Pentecostals and


Charismatics. It is here in the wise “fireplace” of the timeless Church,
the Body of Christ, that I find the healthy and mature “Way” of living
that fosters both an intimacy with God and an honest and healing
humility that keeps me forever focused on Jesus Christ. It turns out
that what my Pentecostal past told me I should have with God is truly
possible within the timeless rhythm of the Orthodox Way.

Finally, as history shows, the Church eventually comes to grip with


theological truths in the face of heretical threats. May the blessed and
live-giving Holy Spirit give courage to the hearts of His people to pass
on a robust and healthy Christian faith to future generations. The
souls of precious and God-loved persons are at stake here.

To my Pentecostal and Charismatic friends: Come Home!

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