Pentecostalism

It is my hope that in this page, we can discuss some issues on Pentecostalism. I believe that providing a space to critique our tradition and the many facets of our “pentecostal” journey will help us better understand not only our treasured experience with the Holy Spirit but also how we relate with the larger body of Christ and even to the other faiths represented in our society. I will be inserting “cybernated” articles from time to time which I hope will stimulate discussions. If there are things that may be too sensitive to post, you may just e-mail me (sweek@hotmail.com) and perhaps I can bring it up in ways that may benefit others.

Let’s start with Pentecostal scholarship. Is there such a thing?  You notice that many books and articles written by Pentecostals are not well documented – academic research wise, so you find that there are no footnotes or bibliography. If you have thought on this, you may respond and let’s see how this goes. Future topics may include pentecostalism and abuse of power(?). Wow, there might be something about pentecostal spirituality which produces leaders who think that their only accountability is to God! A book will be published on this, maybe 2009 or 2010, I’m planning to be one of the writers. You can help by alerting me if you find some links regarding this issue. So here it is, let’s begin!  Below are two free article previews I found from the CT website. The link is also provided at the end.

(1) Whither Pentecostal Scholarship?
The overlap between people with the Spirit and people with Ph.D.’s.
By Arlene M. SÁnchez Walsh

May 1, 2004

A common topic of debate in my grad-school history classes was “who can tell whose stories?” (Postmodern historians eschew the term history, too loaded with leanings toward a metanarrative.) Can men tell women’s stories? Euro Americans tell African Americans’? Latinos’? Asians’? Where does the authority reside? Strangely, though, one category was never debated: whether the nonreligious could tell the stories of the religious. It was presumed, if you were religious, you could not be trusted to tell your own story; only the nonreligious scholar could be trusted to handle such combustible material. (Somehow, when it came to religion, “objectivity” snuck in through the back door.)

It’s not surprising, then, that in the recent flood of books on Pentecostalism from secular academic presses, there are relatively few by Pentecostal scholars. Where, I wondered some months ago, were Pentecostal scholars being published? Perhaps by evangelical presses, where secular suspicion of faith-based scholarship would not prevail. But when I examined catalogues from the academic divisions of the most prominent evangelical publishers–InterVarsity Press, Baker Book House, Zondervan, and so on–there was an obvious lack of Pentecostal scholarship. In order to understand this discrepancy, I decided to query my colleagues in the Society for Pentecostal Studies (SPS), speak to representatives of various evangelical presses, and place this evangelical/Pentecostal division in historical context.

For some, the idea of Pentecostal scholarship is an oxymoron. Pentecostals historically did not bother to develop an intellectual tradition. Most recently, Grant Wacker’s exceptional work Heaven Below chronicles the anti-intellectual nature of early Pentecostalism.1 … Christianity Today.

To read the full article: whither

(2) Church of God in Christ: COGIC Presiding Bishop Ousted
Alleged abuse of power leads to historic vote for Church of God in Christ
Corrie Cutrer

January 8, 2001

For the first time, the nation’s largest Pentecostal and African-American denomination, the 5.5 million-member Church of God in Christ (COGIC), has voted out its presiding bishop.

Gilbert E. Patterson, pastor of Temple of Deliverance in Memphis, Tennessee, defeated the former presiding bishop, Chandler D. Owens, with 59 percent of the vote. The November 14 election, held in Memphis during the 104-year-old denomination’s annual Holy Convocation, was the culmination of a hotly contested race that followed a lengthy dispute over Owens’s alleged abuse of power.

Owens, who pastors Greater Community COGIC in Atlanta, had claimed that his spiritual authority was analogous to the pope’s. The bishop told an Orlando, Florida, circuit court judge in July 1999: “I have the authority to make all of the decisions within the church without any disruption or confirmation. I have a board—a general board—that approves my decisions, but they’re still my decisions. Same as the Catholic Church—same identical deal. The pope has the right to send a priest to a Catholic church, and has the right to remove him. I have the same authority.”

Claiming the right to make decisions unilaterally, the bishop tried last year to remove pastor Derrick W. Hutchins from his 800-member Orlando Institutional Church of God in Christ. (Owens declined to return phone calls by Christianity Today.)

Owens told Charisma magazine that Hutchins had violated an earlier agreement to give up his pastorate at two other churches, in South Carolina and Tennessee, before officially becoming pastor at the Orlando church. “Brother Hutchins never did receive a permanent appointment from me,” Owens said. “As far as I’m concerned, it was like a temporary appointment. He promised to give … (Christianity Today)