- Around 2008 or so, I went back to Oklahoma to visit kin, collect “family history” stories and make copies of pictures. Most of my visiting was around eastern Oklahoma (Tulsa), but a longing to see one of the children of one of the “saints” I’ve known took me to Oklahoma City–the city of my birth–so I made arrangements to spend a couple of days there, and he put me up in the vacant home of his deceased parents and his childhood.
- After his Deaf father’s death, his Hearing mother returned to the Pentecostal Church of her youth, and he took her and became Pentecostal himself.
- Together, we visited significant places of our youth and the much-changed city. And, because my stay was over the weekend, I went to church with him, the same church that he, his mother, and sons attended.
- It was summer, and I dressed in my summer clothes: Hawaiian shirt and jeans. Great fun, attending a Pentecostal church with my childhood friend, and joining him at the front of the church for public prayer, led by the visiting preacher who moved through the crowd, pausing intermittently with one or another person as the Spirit led him. Nothing like a bright Hawaiian shirt to attract a prayer, and pray the Brother did, grabbing my head with both hands while he prayed “in tongues” for whatever he thought I might need to have a personal “Come to Jesus” moment. I was actually pleased and grateful for the extra effort on my behalf.
- And when we returned to our seats, I got down on my knees, along with many others, and I thanked God for the experience and “the brief trip down Memory Lane”.
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. . . .
Say more!
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There have been unbalanced teaching, questionable interpretations and practices, overreactions in spiritual matters and even mental violence in the history of small pentecostal churches. Here, pentecostals have gone through an internal process started by pentecostals that had bad experiences as children living surrounded by very devoted pentecostals. That discussion has been quite open and the pentecostal churches have taken a surprisingly accepting and repenting stand to the accusations. Workers are trained to recognize, avoid and reject biblically unhealthy and mentally dangerous behaviors.
Here, one influential factor seemed to be a period of nation-level revival about 40 years ago. During a period of revival, we get large numbers of new believers that are burning but have very little undestanding of healthy biblical teaching. In such conditions, the situation is messy and diverse, with various kind of ‘grazy’ interpretations and practices. If there are not enough of balanced older believers acting as spiritual fathers and mothers, the risk of collateral damage is high, possibly also in families of untrained preachers and missionaries.
Just watched the movie ‘Jesus revolution’ (2023 movie) that may give a glimpse of what a revival might look. The movie has been accused of presenting a ‘whitewashed’ version of the reality. Anyway, it may show something of the semi-chaotic nature of a revival and how God uses faulty persons that struggle with their internal brokenness and weaknesses, like Simpson in the OT story.
Despite all the faults and weaknesses, I rather have a semi-chaotic revival sent by God than an orderly and ‘orthodox’ religious church community that is barren. The wild ‘spiritual babies’ can be guided and educated towards a more balanced life but a barren community is doomed to death.
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“Only lasted a few years!”
And the damage it did or could do in that time. Some folks still aren’t right after it. Still hunting witches and demons, and are just as toxic as ever.
I’m sorry this happened to you.
I was a little older, when those winds blew through town, even into my independent Baptist church. But in the form or guest speakers, and not during Sunday worship. The effect on me was first mild worry, but the more I heard, the more I was convinced these people like Mike Warnke were exagerating or liying outright. Sometimes I was able to identify clear examples. I was disgusted and started distancing myself from all the parachurch evangelical cultural stuff I could. If I lost the good, I don’t feel like the loss was great enough to outweigh the bad.
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Adam, if you get a chance, read The Manifest Beauty of Genesis 1 to get an idea of the depth and richness of meaning you can find in the text. It goes far beyond the surface of a literal historical view, whether you hold that view or not. And one of the most meaningful aspects to me is how it functions as a polemic towards the prevailing narrative of the time.
So, I am with @CMaddy on this, and think it is a wonderfully Biblical view, as there is a rich history of polemic teaching in both OT and NT.
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As imperfect as spiritual awakenings are, there is some outstanding stuff that comes out of them.
One of my favorite books is Edwards’ A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, and there may be no thing that I would like to experience in the 20th century more than a worship service at Azusa Street in 1906.
Okay…the YEC lens ends up leading to a biblical interpretation that goes (simplistically) like this:
- God created the earth in 6 literal days.
- Therefore, evolution (and its corollaries) isn’t true.
- Because: we must read scripture literally (for all the reasons) and God could do it this way (because he is God).
- Therefore, what Genesis 1 means is that God did it in 6 literal days…because…he can…because he’s God.
I do understand that this is a simplistic interpretation, but the end result is that the only or “primary” meaning to be found in Genesis 1 is that “IT IS TRUE.” It becomes a circular interpretation that generates confidence in the authority of Scripture. And that’s all.
Pentecostals are (or at least should be?) concerned with the activity of the Holy Spirit. Where is the Holy Spirit?
Right there…in creation…hovering over the waters. What waters? The chaos waters. God’s creative breath/wind/spirit which is a Person is present in Creation bringing about God’s intent. This is not just true “at the beginning.” It’s universally true. So practically speaking, where is chaos? It’s all through scripture…at Babel, in rebellion and corruption, in exile, in death and crucifixion…but God’s Spirit is at work breathing life…overcoming death, restoring unity and the people of God (undoing Babel, humanity’s attempt to unite in rebellion against God—seen at Pentecost)…it’s all the way through!
I mean, I could go on and on, but Genesis 1 is the start of seeing the Holy Spirit at work creating and throughout Creation, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead (that’s life over chaos/death) and the same Spirit that is at work saving me, renewing me, empowering me, etc.
That’s a very brief outline (top of my head) for Genesis 1 from a Pentecostal perspective.
@DOL I have received requests from the congregation to have presentations from groups like Answers in Genesis and I’ve had one congregant do me the favour of subscribing me to Creation magazine for a year. I wouldn’t entertain or endorse presentations like that unless we could balance it with a contrary presentation from someone like you. But really, I’d rather just have someone like you in. But how often do you make your way from Alberta to Ontario? And what college did you speak at? The Edmonton one? Vanguard?
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Well…yes, a Christian can and should state that…IF…
…by “mythical” you mean “foundational stories intended to shape beliefs and actions” and if by “stories” you mean “narrative.”
Because the Bible is predominantly a narrative composed predominantly of narratives (which some exceptions). And it is intended to shape beliefs and actions.
So, yes, we should state that the OT is a mythical tale of stories. Because “mythical” doesn’t mean “untrue.” And stories is what shapes understanding, belief, aim, action, etc., far more than "propositions do.
Well if you must rely on a strawman misinterpretation of Pentecostal theology, then of course you must be correct and winning whatever argument you are striving to win…right?
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That we value what happened at the Azusa Street is hindsight. The services and their consequences changed the lives of many people but those who were not part of it would not have appreciated what they observed in the meetings. The site and building were not respectable and the participants of the meetings behaved in a manner that secular news and some Christian theologians described as outrageous and unorthodox.
History books (hindsight) tells the value of events and changes but influential beginnings may often be undervalued at the time these events happen.
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Just as there was not anything particularly noteworthy about William Seymour.
What stood out for me from the history of the revival was how they sang in tongues without musical instruments and it was described as a heavenly sound. I would love to have been there. There was a time in my life where I wouldn’t have been open to it, and who knows what the next great work of the Spirit will be like.
Oh no!! 
Hi. For about 5 or 6 years, I would offer a 4 hour lecture on Science & Religion at Vanguard College. I am happy to deliver a lecture to your group. And you are very wise to offer different options. This allows people to make their own decisions.
I have a lecture I do about 10 times a year, and it works very well via Zoom.
Here is the Handout:
https://sites.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/holamoureuxbeyond.pdf
Title: Beyond the “Evolution” vs. “Creation” Debate
Abstract:
Are there only two positions on origins: either “evolution” or “creation”?
This lecture is an introduction to academic terminology, science-religion
dialogue, and various views on origins (young earth creation, progressive
creation, evolutionary creation, deistic evolution, and atheistic evolution).
Lamoureux will also share his personal testimony of coming to faith in
Jesus and his struggles with understanding origins.
Please email me if you are interested: dlamoure@ualberta.ca
Blessings,
Denis
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I watched the church I was baptized at transform from a focused, caring community with balance and depth into the equivalent of a piece of self-destroying art after its pastor of forty years stepped down due to health. The guy who took over was judgmental, opinionated, given to witch hunts, and very insistent on some teachings that belonged in history books, with the result that the congregation splintered three ways. Before the splinter became more than factions the former pastor met with the new head guy and offered some counsel and admonition, but the response was basically, “Go home, I’m in charge now”.
People tend to recoil at the idea that it could take seven years to become a full member of the church back in the early years as being authoritarian and controlling, but the structure was designed to channel the semi-chaotic elements and help form spiritual maturity and community. I’ve heard the objection that “things were different then”, and have to agree: for the first half-millennium of the church, they were in a continuous state of what today gets called “revival” and had to learn how to manage that! And their experience should be a warning: over and over it was young believers, young clergy, and clergy enamored of shiny new ideas that resulted in heresy that tried to tear the church apart. There are significant denominations at present which arose from that very thing, young and/or poorly trained/discipled leaders leading themselves and then others astray.
We think of the ancient church as having priests and bishops and that’s about it, but a look at some of the ancient bishoprics’ records show a church definitely organized to channel ‘revival’, with catechists, teachers, exorcists, counselors, preachers, visiters, liturgists, readers, and some others I can’t recall at the moment: at every stage of a Christian’s spiritual life there wasn’t just one pastor who did it all, they had specialists – for example catechists had their expertise in the area of teaching young Christians, teachers in the area of teaching those who had a solid foundation in the basics of the faith, exorcists dealt with spiritual warfare all the way up to casting out demons, and so on – and those are just the offices that counted as priests; the different tasks among deacons was also long. As a result, no matter what issue a Christian might be having at whatever stage of physical or spiritual life, there was someone to call on, where today people try to “fly solo” not just out of pride but because there’s no one specifically trained and gifted to help with issues.
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Um, what?
The Old Testament is a collection of a whole variety of things from “stories” to poetry. Genesis 1-11 is all older than the first possibility of anyone writing it down, and definitely older than the majority of ancient near eastern scholars today believe. Much of it is polemical, starting with the Creation story that is a point-by-point attack on the Egyptian creation story; it isn’t just that account that uses “pre-existing Mesopotamian mythology”.
You write as one who has never actually studied the scriptures – though I must admit I have no idea what “a mythical tale of stories” is supposed to mean. In literary terms, Genesis 1 - 11 pretty much all counts as myth – which, if you’ve been paying attention, doesn’t mean “made up stories”. I prefer to use the term “mythologized” because the accounts are built around actual events but have poetic and hyperbolic and other elements added that are characteristic of myth.
And when scholarship makes something reasonably obvious, a Christian isn’t going to pretend that it isn’t true, since there is a little piece of instruction against that which comes down to us through Moses.
Which isn’t possible when a person rejects the literary type(s) and the ancient writers’ worldview(s).
Here’s some good advice:
I presume you mean The Manifold Beauty of Genesis One: A Multi-Layered Approach by Gregg Davidson, Kenneth J. Turner, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®
I just recently started with the opening in that and found myself saying, “Slow, down, old chap; let’s go back to the beginning and start over”. Even being early in the book I’m willing to say that no Christian (or Jew) should venture to teach about the Creation story without having read and pondered this book – in fact as much as I like Walton, I’ll list this book above his; ot’s a good corrective to some of his over-enthusiasm for a certain view.
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Yes! Jesus told us His Father “is working till now”, and the same is true of the Spirit: only what He meditates/hovers over can have form and order and life.
A connection Christians who treat baptism as something an individual does with a view towards other believers rather than as what the church believed for a millennium and a half as being something God does miss a huge connection here: in terms of waters, there are two sets with respect to the Holy Spirit, the waters of chaos that are antithetical to life, and the waters of Baptism that the Spirit fills with life, burying us with Jesus – waters made new by the Word and Spirit.
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When the ox is not worth hiring, it’s time to stop hiring him (or her).
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Yep… there is also the believer’s authority. That’s one of the things I recall from my charismatic Bible school days.
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That’s the one! When i typed it I knew I should have looked it up and got the link. It is sad being old and lazy.
Or just forgetful… or all three. 
(I can talk. ; - )