Charismatic Experience, Not Just Charismatic Doctrine
Global Pentecostal Community as a Safety Net?
Some appeal to the Pentecostal community of interpretation to keep us on track hearing the Spirit. While there is some value in this approach, I believe that it is limited. When our views diverge from wider Christian standards, they invite greater inspection. Moreover, we explored above some common elements in Spirit hermeneutics, such as humble, experiential, eschatological, and cross-cultural readings. But Pentecostalism, including Pentecostal and charismatic scholarship, is currently too diverse to offer as much guidance on details.
I briefly addressed the subject of communities of interpretation when discussing reader-oriented approaches in chapter 5. Communities of interpretation have become prominent in hermeneutical and theological discussion, and many who speak of Spirit hermeneutics emphasize the role of the community. 1 Christian academicians often find themselves needing to abide by different ground rules in the academy and the church, and this is understandable. For devotion and for church edification, however, exegesis occurs within the believing community. 2 Acts 15:28 does suggest the value of truly Spirit-led community understandings; 3 the community of those listening to the Spirit also is responsible to evaluate individual claims to revelation (1 Cor 14:29).
A number of writers on Pentecostal hermeneutics emphasize the matter of community; such an emphasis is not surprising, given the role of community today in theology, philosophy, and social sciences (e.g., systems theory) more generally. Naturally any community will seek to contextualize the fruits of its exegesis for its own setting, and this includes Pentecostal and charismatic circles. 4
Because the theme of Christian community is so widely emphasized, I will summarize its importance only briefly here. Nevertheless, it is clearly a biblical notion; indeed, Greeks employed the Greek term ἐκκλησία , translated in English Bibles as “church,” for civic assemblies, but it also evokes the assembly of God’s people in the wilderness (that Hebrew term was translated into Greek even more frequently as συναγωγή , “synagogue”). Love for one another is expressed in relationships with one another (Rom 12:10; 1 Thess 4:9–10); those who withdraw from fellowship with fellow believers because they refuse to love these believers risk committing the apostasy of lovelessness (1 John 2:9–11, 19; 3:10–15, 18–19; 4:8).
Paul addressed churches in his letters and expected churches to function together even in disciplining members (1 Cor 5:4–5; 6:1–2; 2 Thess 3:14–15). Although churches were social groups that provided mutual reinforcement in the faith (see, e.g., Heb 3:13; 10:24–25), they were also more than this; the church is the many-membered body of Christ, and each member is expected to contribute for the good of the larger body (Rom 12:3–8; 1 Cor 12:7, 12–26; 14:26; Eph 4:7, 11–16). When traveling and founding churches, Paul and his colleagues initially lacked direct fellowship beyond their group, but they did have fellowship with each other. Team ministry is prominent in Acts and Paul’s letters (see e.g., Acts 13:1–3; 15:39–40; 16:3; 18:5; 20:4; 27:2; Rom 16:3, 21; 2 Cor 8:23; Phil 2:22, 25; 4:3; Col 4:10–14; 1 Thess 3:2; Phlm 24).
At least sometimes we pray together (Acts 2:42; 1 Tim 2:1–2), and thus we address prayers together to our Father (Matt 6:9). 5 Some apply 2 Pet 1:20 to speak of community in interpretation; but others also use this passage to argue against texts meaning whatever we want (relativistic reading), and in context it may refer to the inspiration of the prophets themselves (1:20–21; cf. NET). Paul can appeal to the global Christian movement, even if sometimes for what most of us understand as cultural practices limited to the sphere in which Christians then moved (1 Cor 11:16; 14:33, 36).
Since the majority of people in antiquity were illiterate to one degree or another, Bible study among first-century Christians was most often a communal exercise, and a key element of believers’ meetings together. Early Christians practiced corporate reading and exposition of Scripture, 6 a practice carried over from the synagogue. 7
Dangers in Appeals to Community
Although Paul does appeal to the values of the wider community, as already noted, our appeals to community risk the danger of circularity. A set of beliefs may function coherently within a community yet confront serious challenges in dialogue with other communities.
Further, what happens when a widespread interpretation within a wider movement is a fashion that is embraced in its day yet recognized as fallacious in retrospect? In the midst of revival fervor, the Moravians, being greatly used by God, sometimes fixated on Jesus’s blood in grotesque ways, such as viewing themselves as worms sucking his blood. Count Zinzendorf later recognized that they had gone too far with this approach and they returned to greater balance. 8 In the context of the Great Awakenings, most nineteenth-century US evangelicals were postmillennial, a decidedly minority position today.
Likewise, one academically trained charismatic interpreter partly supported his connection between the Toronto Blessing and Ezekiel’s river by noting that “it arose from the shared experiences of the global charismatic community.” 9 Although I affirm (against some critics) the value of the Toronto Blessing, 10 I would question this appeal to “the global charismatic community.” Had most ordinary Spirit-filled worshipers in China and Africa, for example, even heard of this revival?
Most importantly, when Paul appeals to the global Christian community, it is not a single Christian communion such as Anglicans, Lutherans, or Assemblies of God coming up with interpretations suiting each such movement’s own traditions to insulate them from correction by others. 11 Paul is appealing to the global church, Christ’s body. If one argues not for the communion of self-identified Pentecostals but for all who are baptized in the Spirit, even Pentecostals today do not all agree on the definition of baptism in the Spirit. Indeed, by their most common classical definition, namely an experience that includes or climaxes with tongues, only half of classical Pentecostals themselves count.
Granted, empowerment by the Spirit grants a special dynamic in interpretation that we should seek; but how do we identify who has this gift (cf. 1 Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11; 1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6), apart from the likely consistency of their revelation with ours, or by using Scripture as the shared measuring stick? My effort to guess which scholars were charismatic (noted later in Appendix C) often proved embarrassing, as some spiritually gifted for teaching and scholarship did not so identify; clearly the gift of teaching is not limited only to those who pray in tongues. Further, those who did self-identify as charismatic defined their experience in a range of ways. The scholars who identified as charismatic, including those who pray in tongues and are denominationally Pentecostal, also hold a range of views and use a variety of interpretive approaches.
Apostolic Authority and Communities
Further, even Paul’s appeal to community may be more complicated than we at first assume. Like Jeremiah, who had to stand against the other prophets of his day (Jer 2:8, 26; 5:13, 31; 14:13–15; 15:17; 23:14–21; 26:8; 27:9, 14–18), Paul often challenged his circle of churches (1 Cor 4:21; 2 Cor 13:2), denounced false teachers (Gal 1:8–9) and sometimes had to stand against genuine but mistaken apostles (Gal 2:11–14). Toward the end of Paul’s life, most Christians in the geographic sphere of his greatest ministry success had turned from him (2 Tim 1:15); had they been our community of interpretation, we would have rejected the word of the Lord.
On a local level, prophets together evaluate revelations (1 Cor 14:29). Nevertheless, Paul’s apostolic or high-level prophetic authority can also supersede beliefs of local prophets (14:37). Of course, anyone can claim to have such authority, and this danger becomes an issue in 2 Corinthians, where Paul must counter rival apostles. Here, to defend his apostolic authority, Paul appeals to his sufferings and his role in founding their church by the Spirit and gospel (2 Cor 2:14–7:4); he denounces his rivals there as false apostles (11:13) and Satan’s agents (11:15). Some who claim apostolic authority today appear less apt than Paul to narrate what they have sacrificed and suffered for their calling (contrast Matt 10:2, 16–20; 1 Cor 4:9–13).
Some Pentecostal denominations, like more traditional denominations, would circumvent the difficulty of defining apostolic authority by taking a cessationist position with regard to apostles and senior-level prophets. The problem with this approach is that no biblical evidence warrants this cessationism any more than for the other gifts (unless we are limiting “apostles” to its usual Lukan, but not usual Pauline, sense of the Twelve), 12 and a Pentecostal cannot make such a case without inconsistency in their hermeneutic. Still, biblical apostles’ authority derives from their commission and message, not from the churches’ recognition. They are known by their message and their obedience to Christ. 13
The canon’s authority was subsequently recognized by the church community, but insofar as we regard it as revelation its authority did not derive from the community. Apostles and prophets often challenged God’s community, and were not always heeded in their generation. The community we must heed, then, is that of God’s agents of revelation through history, with unrivaled attention to their tested revelation now available to us in Scripture. The church can be and often is an agent of revelation, but we cannot simply equate with revelation the voice of one part of the church or the voice of the church of any given generation.
Who Is the Pentecostal Community?
Appeal to a Pentecostal “community of interpretation” is of limited value unless we define Pentecostalism. Do those who speak of Pentecostal interpretation refer to classical Pentecostal denominations, or to global pentecostalism, a much wider category that many statisticians call renewalists?
Classical Pentecostalism is hardly small; the Assemblies of God, in particular, is now one of the world’s largest Protestant denominations. Denominational Pentecostals together outnumber any of the other global Protestant communions taken by themselves. 14 Yet in the West, the majority of classical Pentecostals are theologically indistinguishable from other comparable noncessationist evangelical groups apart from the initial evidence doctrine. 15
Early critics of North American Pentecostalism sometimes derided it as the “tongues movement,” but while tongues was a Pentecostal distinctive (in those days rarely discussed favorably outside that movement), it was not the heart of what Pentecostalism was about. 16 The empowerment of the Spirit was less distinctive theologically, because many others also affirmed it (before the Pentecostal revival, it was a strong Wesleyan and Keswick emphasis, for example); yet many observers would suggest that pentecostalism spread throughout the world more because of its core emphasis on the Spirit than because of its distinctive emphasis on tongues.
Recent biblical scholarship provides an analogy for distinguishing what is central from what is distinctive. In the heyday of redaction criticism, scholars highlighted Luke’s or Matthew’s changes to Mark to determine what was distinctive about Luke’s or Matthew’s theology. This approach has some value and offered more relevance for preaching than had source criticism (directed more toward historical concerns). Soon afterward, however, narrative critics began rightly pointing out that we learn Luke’s theology not only from what he changes, but from what he retains. We must read Luke-Acts as a cohesive whole rather than as Lukan additions to material that Luke regards as theologically superfluous or irrelevant. It is not sufficient to focus on what is distinctive to us, any more than Matthew and Luke decided to omit whatever had already been covered by Mark. It is not just what is distinctive that defines us; if we act as if it is, we allow those outside our community to shape our identity.
Is a Pentecostal hermeneutic one that simply arrives at classical Pentecostal conclusions regarding initial evidence? Both redaction criticism and narrative criticism are sometimes employed to this end, but does this make them uniquely Pentecostal methods? And if the methods deployed to arrive at this distinctive conclusion are not uniquely Pentecostal, is there a uniquely Pentecostal hermeneutic? (I use “uniquely” here in distinction from “distinctive”; but distinctive characteristics of the pentecostal hermeneutic, such as eschatological and experiential readings, are not limited to classical Pentecostals.)
When, by contrast, we speak of more than half a billion pentecostals globally, we are including all charismatics and even many independent movements that are barely recognizable as Christian theologically, yet are counted because they are independent and experience-oriented. 17 Even in the forms that nearly all classical Pentecostals would embrace as sharing their experience of the Spirit, global pentecostalism exhibits more theological diversity than has classical Pentecostalism. It is not united regarding the initial evidence doctrine or the nomenclature of “baptism in the Spirit” for subsequent experiences. Insofar as we speak of “global Pentecostalism” as an interpretive community, or even global Pentecostal scholarship as an interpretive community, we cannot easily speak descriptively of a monolithic global Pentecostal theology or hermeneutic. (For discussion of this reality concerning the pentecostal scholarly community, see Appendix C below.)
Making Charismatic Distinctiveness Superfluous
As Appendix C should make obvious, the divide between charismatics and other continuationists is not really clear, insofar as we define “charismatic” as anyone who is a genuine continuationist in practice (that is, they affirm spiritual gifts for the church and practice the ones they have) 18 with the further limitation, for the purposes of the list in Appendix C, to those who are also willing to accept the title. If we were to include other explicitly continuationist scholars who affirm spiritual gifts, even though they might not call themselves charismatic, the list would make the book too long (e.g., Craig Blomberg, D. A. Carson, and my former colleague Ronald J. Sider).
When inquiring as to whether some scholars were charismatic, for compiling Appendix C, I sometimes received replies from scholars that they were not, but that they were appreciative of the valuable emphases that charismatics brought to the body of Christ. In some cases it was a matter of definition; they did not attend a charismatic fellowship or did not pray in tongues, and so did not accept the label, although some of those who accepted the label also had neither of these characteristics. (Indeed, most of my former students at Palmer Seminary will remember me as openly charismatic, yet everyone also knew that I was serving as an associate minister in a Baptist church.)
Only a very small proportion of contacts seemed to dissociate themselves from a charismatic label emphatically, and sometimes it appeared that they did so based on negative past experiences with Pentecostal or charismatic groups. (I have also had some of these negative experiences with some kinds of Pentecostals or charismatics myself, though more than enough positive experiences with other kinds of Pentecostals or charismatics to counteract them.)
During this research I suggested to Joel Carpenter, a religious history scholar at Calvin College, that the trend of the future might be most of Christendom being charismatic in the sense of practicing noncessationist (not necessarily in the sense of everyone praying in tongues). In response he observed that, “the demise of cessationist teaching, thus making ‘charismatic’ redundant as a special category,” is happening in some parts of the West; meanwhile, most Africans never bought into cessationism to begin with. 19 No wonder John MacArthur has complained about the charismatization of the African church!
I personally do pray in tongues often during my academic work; tongues helps renew my spirit even as my mind is absorbed in the work. 20 Yet I believe that the title “pentecostal” and even the particular gift of tongues are not always the best way to determine who is genuinely practicing their spiritual gifts or experiencing blessings from the Spirit. When I taught at Palmer Seminary probably roughly a quarter of us who taught there prayed in tongues, and roughly one-third had significant accounts of healings; yet I did not observe a clearly significant correlation between those two groups. My Congolese father-in-law did not pray in tongues, yet many instant healings occurred after his simple, concise prayers. 21 I certainly pray abundantly in tongues and readily own the title charismatic, but people like my father-in-law, or spiritually gifted friends like Danny McCain (who has a flourishing ministry throughout Nigeria) or Ron Sider, seem to me no less people of the Spirit than most charismatics I know.
Most Christians today are abandoning cessationism, and therefore are in principle continuationist. At the same time, many do not actively embrace the gifts personally or seek to learn how to help their churches embrace them. That is, in practice many remain functionally cessationist. This divide unfortunately precisely characterizes many Western Pentecostals today as well—continuationists in doctrine but not in practice. There is little theologically distinctive about being noncessationist today; what is distinctive is actively embracing a lifestyle that expects, as God determines, the activity of God’s Spirit. And that line of distinctiveness runs through Western Pentecostal churches just as it runs through others, though on average Pentecostals at least retain a corporate appreciation for, and thus often more room for, the activity of some spiritual gifts.
If we go where God is leading, however, the way of the future may be most of active Christendom becoming charismatic—in the sense of practicing noncessationist—as suggested above. If we really get past cessationism in practice, “charismatic” will truly become “redundant as a special category.” 22 To remind us of what we already know, those of us who identify ourselves as charismatic cannot afford to boast in our giftedness, as if we gave ourselves the gifts (1 Cor 4:7), or as if we are the only members of Christ’s body who are gifted (12:14–21). Nor do we need to be “special” in the sense of being different from the rest of the body of Christ; it is God’s love that makes us precious to him. Christ has gifted his entire body; as more believers recognize this biblical reality—helping them to do so is our continuing contribution to Christ’s body—we will recognize how each member is special and necessary for the body.
Charismatic Experience, Not Just Charismatic Doctrine
Partly because we come from a range of starting points, charismatic experience by itself does not lead everyone to the same hermeneutic (note again the diversity of names in Appendix C), though in most Catholic and mainline Protestant circles, those with this experience do tend to have higher views of Scripture and greater attentiveness to its message than, on average, do their peers. (Charismatic experience makes plausible many sorts of experiences in the biblical text that some who lack any analogous experiences are more tempted to dismiss.) The biblical purpose of charismatic experience in the narrowest sense is power for ministry; to be effective in Bible interpretation, however, it still needs to be supplemented with close attention to the biblical text.
What charismatic or other Spirit-experience does directly offer, however, is a living encounter with the God of the text. Naturally this experience, insofar as our theology, faith and obedience welcome it to be fruitful, cultivates a love and excitement for embracing and actively obeying Scripture that we would not have if we engaged Scripture on an exclusively rational level. Nomenclature aside, all believers should welcome the Spirit’s guidance in hearing and following the voice of the true God in Scripture.
Apart from noncessationism, which is widespread, what the Spirit provides is an experiential dynamic that not only welcomes us to experience the text but invades and empowers our lives to experience it. Such a dynamic is not limited to Pentecostals and charismatics, but is often more prevalent among us because we actively embrace it. Experiencing the Spirit further—whether we call the experience further baptism in the Spirit, multiple fillings of the Spirit, or simply continuing experiences with God, keeps us open to this dynamic embrace of the Spirit’s power and love in our hearts. How can the presence and activity of the Third Person of the Trinity living inside us not make a difference?
Ideally, because Scripture portrays the gifts as belonging to the entire body of Christ and especially for building up the body of Christ, all Christians are charismatic (including cessationists, regarding the gifts that they do embrace and exercise).
A Pentecostal/charismatic hermeneutic is not extraordinarily distinctive today—but that is true primarily because the Pentecostal movement has already done its theological work over the past century. Tongues as initial evidence might remain an issue of debate, but nobody today can boast simply because we uphold a heritage of continuationism. Instead, if any of us want to lead the way in the Spirit today, we need to actively embrace continuationism in our lives and our churches and not just in theological principle. Of course, for that we need God’s power; merely simulating old patterns of revival cannot bring back the Spirit. Yet he promised that if we recognize our dependence enough to ask him for the Spirit, he will not withhold his blessing (Luke 11:13).