A.B. Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel in the Evangelical Church of Vietnam: A Study of Selective Theological Assimilation

The officially distinctive mark of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN) is the Fourfold Gospel emblem. It is inherited from A.B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), through the teaching of C&MA missionaries in Vietnam. However, ECVN adapted some of the teachings and reinterpreted the symbols in the Vietnamese context. The reason is that the assimilation of the Fourfold Gospel to the ECVN’s theology has been selected through a fundamentalistic perspective and a serious uneasiness about Pentecostalism, and hence, it has become disconnected from its original theological foundation.

Characteristics of the Diatessaron’s Sequence

This chapter elucidates the overarching structure of Tatian’s Diatessaron. The four separate Gospels differ among themselves in countless ways. To narrate Jesus’s ministry, Tatian incorporated all the Jewish festivals from the Gospel of John, but he rearranged the order of the feasts and the events surrounding them. Tatian’s narrative chronology has gone unrecognized in previous scholarship, because Ephrem’s commentary—albeit a key witness to the Diatessaron—suppressed most of the references to Jewish feasts. Besides the Diatessaron’s innovative chronology, Tatian often grouped characters and episodes thematically when rearranging the contents of the fourfold gospel. The Arabic harmony is the single best witness to the Diatessaron’s narrative sequence.

Reading the Fourfold Gospel From the Two Creation Stories in Genesis: A Creation Theological Understanding of the Fourfold Gospel for Holistic Mission

The Fourfold Gospel of regeneration, sanctification, divine healing, and the Second Coming was introduced to Korea in the early 20th century and played a crucial role in developing the Korea Holiness Churches. It seems, however, that the previous understanding of the Fourfold Gospel has some limitations in helping Christians to participate in missio Dei. Because missiological hermeneutics of the Fourfold Gospel has focused mainly on the theology of redemption, it has frequently led to a narrow understanding of missio Dei. Through the reading of the two creation stories in Genesis, we can recognize that God’s creative works already have redemptive meanings and that His redemptive works already have creative/creational meanings. In this sense, it is also possible to see the Fourfold Gospel from a creation theological perspective. This understanding may positively motivate Christians to participate in missio Dei to restore and complete God’s creation as his vicegerents and stewards.