Pentecostal Churches and Homosexuality

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
William K. Kay ◽  
Stephen J. Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Secret Ballot ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
Sexual Immorality ◽  
Church Government

Historically, the majority of Pentecostal churches stem from holiness and revivalistic streams of Christianity, while neo-Pentecostal churches are often indigenous plantings that broke away from congregations established by earlier Protestant mission. Given their stress on religious experience and their belief in the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, Pentecostal churches have always stressed individual holiness, and this holiness is understood in terms of abstinence from drugs, alcohol, gambling, immodest dress, and sexual immorality as traditionally defined. This chapter describes adjustments and initiatives that indicate how new norms may emerge. The issue is essentially concerned with the interpretation of Scripture and variations in church government. Where these interpretations align with an LBGT-friendly hermeneutic, LBGT-friendly Pentecostal churches will and have emerged. Such changes tend to occur in new or split-off groups rather than in traditional Pentecostal denominations, especially when denominations are governed by large ministerial conferences where decisions are by secret ballot.

CHRISTIAN INDEPENDENCY AND GLOBAL MEMBERSHIP: PENTECOSTAL EXTRAVERSIONS IN MALAWI

2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harri Englund
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Contrasting Cases ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Pentecostal Churches

AbstractRecent scholarship on Pentecostalism in Africa has debated issues of transnationalism, globalisation and localisation. Building on Bayart's notion of extraversion, this scholarship has highlighted Pentecostals' far-flung networks as resources in the growth and consolidation of particular movements and leaders. This article examines strategies of extraversion among independent Pentecostal churches. The aim is less to assess the historical validity of claims to independency than to account for its appeal as a popular idiom. The findings from fieldwork in a Malawian township show that half of the Pentecostal churches there regard themselves as 'independent'. Although claims to independency arise from betrayals of the Pentecostal promise of radical equality in the Holy Spirit, independency does sustain Pentecostals' desire for membership in a global community of believers. Pentecostal independency thus provides a perspective on African engagements with the apparent marginalisation of the sub-continent in the contemporary world. Two contrasting cases of Pentecostal independency reveal similar aspirations and point out the need to appreciate the religious forms of extraversion. Crucial to Pentecostal extraversions are believers' attempts to subject themselves to a spiritually justified hierarchy.

Topics in the Ḥokhmat ha-Nefesh

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-176
Author(s):  
Haym Soloveitchik
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Hasidei Ashkenaz

This chapter focuses on Ibn 'Ezra's Ḥokhmat ha-Nefesh. Conflicting reports are to be found in the Ḥokhmat ha-Nefesh as to the origin of the soul. At times it is described as originating from the holy spirit via a process of inbreathing. On other occasions it is said to have been lit from the flames of the Kavod or of the heavenly throne. Other passages speak vaguely of its having been created from the place of the heavenly spirit. Whether any of these processes, or all of them, are genuine acts of creation or only emanations cannot be determined from the text. A prominent place in the Ḥokhmat ha-Nefesh is occupied by demuyot, mirror-images of man fashioned at the beginning of Creation and which stand in endless array before the Kavod, drawing their sustenance from the absorption of the heavenly light that streams forth from the Kavod, and in turn transferring this vitality to their earthly counterparts. The demut is a counter-shape and plays no role in the religious experience of Ḥasidei Ashkenaz.

The Outbreak of Evangelicalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 140-172
Author(s):  
Baird Tipson
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
John Wesley ◽  
British Isles ◽  
New Birth ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
George Whitefield

This chapter first describes the theology of the leaders of the evangelical awakening on the British Isles, George Whitefield and John Wesley. Both insisted that by preaching the “immediate” revelation of the Holy Spirit during what they called the “new birth,” they were recovering an essential element of primitive Christianity that had been forgotten over the centuries. Both had clear affinities with the conscience theology of William Perkins, yet both distanced themselves from it in important ways. In New England, Jonathan Edwards explored the nature of religious experience more deeply than either Wesley or Whitefield had done, and Edwards proudly claimed his Puritan heritage even as opponents found him deviating from it.

Experiencing the Spirit

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-79
Author(s):  
Simeon Zahl
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Temporal Specificity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit

This chapter argues that a constructive recovery of the category of “experience” in Christian theology is best accomplished through the lens of the theology of the Holy Spirit. Thinking about experience in terms of the work of the Holy Spirit helps specify what we mean when we talk about Christian “experience,” while also avoiding the problems that arise in appeals to more general concepts of “religious experience.” The chapter shows how a pneumatologically informed theology of experience draws attention to a problematic tendency towards abstraction and disembodiment in much modern systematic theology. It then argues that the work of the Spirit is likely to take forms that are “practically recognizable” in the lives of Christians in the world, exhibiting temporal specificity as well as affective and emotional impact, and that pneumatologies that cannot take account of such practically recognizable effects are deficient.

scholarly journals Spirit baptism and the doctrine of initial evidence in African Pentecostal Christianity: A critical analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mookgo S. Kgatle
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Unique Feature ◽  
Spiritual Experiences ◽  
The Public ◽  
Speaking In Tongues ◽  
Spirit Baptism ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
Fruit Of The Spirit

Pentecostalism is known for the belief in Spirit baptism that is accompanied by the doctrine of initial evidence, that is, speaking in tongues. The practice of the doctrine of initial evidence has become a unique feature of Pentecostalism for many years since its beginning. Similarly, Spirit baptism and the doctrine of initial evidence are practised in African Pentecostal Christianity, especially in classical Pentecostal churches and charismatic movements. However, there are challenges with this doctrine: speaking in tongues is perceived as the only evidence, and there is an emphasis on gifts than fruit of the Holy Spirit and a great emphasis on public spiritual experiences than personal encounters with God. In re-imagining the doctrine of initial evidence in African Pentecostal Christianity, speaking in tongues should not be emphasised or practised as the only evidence of Spirit baptism because there are other evidences that demonstrate the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The emphasis should be on prayer than the speaking of tongues. In addition, priority should be given to the fruit of the Spirit and on a personal encounter with God. Finally, speaking in tongues should be accompanied by interpretation in a public service because the public cannot understand the language.

scholarly journals Pentecostals and the pulpit: A case study of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Nel
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Literature Study ◽  
Worship Service ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
Apostolic Faith Mission ◽  
Comparative Literature Study

In general, early Pentecostals did not use any pulpits in their halls in order to underline their emphasis that each believer is a prophet and priest equipped by the Holy Spirit with gifts for the edification of other members of the assembly. All participated in the worship service by way of praying, prophesying, witnessing and bringing a message from God. From the 1940s, Pentecostals in their desire to be acceptable in their communities formed an alliance with evangelicals, accepted their hermeneutical viewpoint and built traditional churches in accordance with the Protestant tradition. From the 1980s, the pulpit started disappearing from the front of Pentecostal churches. This is explained in terms of new alliances that Pentecostals made with neo-Pentecostalist churches and a new hermeneutical viewpoint. The hypothesis of the article is that the Pentecostal stance towards the pulpit was determined by its hermeneutical perspectives. It is described by way of a comparative literature study and applied to a specific case study, the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa.

scholarly journals REMEMBERING AND COMMEMORATING THE THEOLOGICAL LEGACY OF JOHN G. LAKE IN SOUTH AFRICA AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-170
Author(s):  
Marius Nel
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
African American ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
Apostolic Faith Mission ◽  
Azusa Street

John G. Lake visited South Africa in 1908 as part of a missionary team with the aim to propagate the message of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as experienced at the Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission in 312 Azusa Street, Los Angeles under the leadership of William Seymour, son of African-American slaves. Lake’s missionary endeavours that ended in 1913 established the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa and eventually also the African Pentecostal churches (‘spiritual churches’, ‘Spirit-type churches’, ‘independent African Pentecostal churches’ or ‘prophet-healing churches’) constituting the majority of so-called African Independent/Initiated/Instituted (or indigenous) churches (AICs). This article calls for remembering and commemorating Lake’s theological legacy in South Africa in terms of these two groups of churches.

scholarly journals RICHARD HOOKER’S WORRIES ABOUT THE MIND: THE PATH TO CERTAINTY

Perichoresis ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-49
Author(s):  
Rudolph P. Almasy
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Religious Doubt ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Mind

ABSTRACT Focusing on two of Richard Hooker’s sermons, “Certaintie and Perpetuitie of Faith in the Elect” and “Learned Sermon of the Nature of Pride”, this essay explores Hooker’s worries about how the mind reacts to matters of religious doubt, curiosity, arrogance, and mental confusions. These worries of what enters the mind influence the search for what Hooker calls the certainty of adherence (faith) and the certainty of evidence (knowledge). Such worries, prompted by what Hooker sees as the mind’s frag- ileness in the face of religious experience and religious truth, lead Hooker in the sermons, as well as in his Ecclesiasticall Lawes, to a certain religious and rhetorical position which emphasizes the notion of approaching faith and knowledge in terms of simplicity or singleness. This approach, Hooker counsels, should lead the potentially confused mind, regardless of the certainty it seeks and of the influence of the Holy Spirit, toward the notion of surrender-to God or to the rhetor.

Rattlesnakes, Holiness, and the Nearness of the Holy Spirit

2018 ◽  
pp. 63-83
Author(s):  
James Hudnut-Beumler
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Black Churches ◽  
Actual Practice ◽  
Prosperity Gospel ◽  
The South ◽  
Evangelical Churches ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
Serpent Handling

Although the outside image of southern Pentecostal Holiness is often sensationalized by associations with serpent handling believers, that actual practice is confined to roughly a thousand individuals in an Appalachian crescent in the South. The story of Wesleyan Holiness belief in the nineteen century transforming in the twentieth to a wide variety of Pentecostal bodies is an important one that gains importance in the contemporary era wherein the South’s growing number of “bapticostal” black churches and other churches effecting the prosperity gospel far outnumber the formal number of Pentecostal churches. Furthermore, the convictions that the Holy Spirit is nearby and waiting on believers’ calling have come to characterize even many mainline and evangelical churches’ practice to the point where one can speak of the Pentecostalization of southern Christianity.

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