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Beyond Pentecostalism

Reviewed by Philip Joy.

This is the third volume in the Pentecostal Manifesto series – fleshing out the bones of an emerging and influential Pentecostal theology-cum-worldview which is necessary in the author’s opinion because 21st Century global theology is in crisis. Well, it is, if you think about it a bit. The contracting ‘established’ churches have their backs to the wall. Western theology has remained a “philosophical, speculative and secular (viz) exercise,” (i.e. a modernist island). Eastern/Asian theology is trying to formulate itself in contradistinction to what is Western in an effort to find an authentic Asian Christianity. Black, African and Liberation theologies are undergoing political, ecclesial and ministerial crises. We, who confess the same Lord, do not seem to believe the same things! We are floundering in a sea of postmodernism.

On the other hand, Pentecostalism, existing (in huge numbers) at the geo-political, sociological and intellectual margins of the mainline Christian communities, finds no threat in the postmodern melting pot. Rather it offers hope of a truly global theology precisely because it exists, as New Testament theology did, at the boundary, not at the centre; it can look in and offer what Stanley Grenz has called a “generous orthodoxy.” If it has, in part, to give up its own identity in so doing, then so be it.

The engine of this new vision is what Vondey calls ‘play’ – in theology and worship – in which the confessional theology of Pentecostals can help Christians globally overcome their rational, performance-orientated, utilitarian and institutionalized dimensions (I quote from the blurb). To use one of Vondey’s analogies, ‘play’ may be explained as being similar to what the jazz musician does when performing a jazz standard melody: always remaining faithful to the structure and form of the music so that the piece is an instantly recognizable, but always recreating, striving to find new means of expression, always pursuing original and exciting variations. Accordingly, ‘play’, which the mainline theologies have apparently lost, can ensure that orthodoxy remains faithful without becoming ossified. This, I must admit, sounds attractive.

In Vondey’s words, which describe the books six chapters, play therefore can promote a “revival of theological imagination and its integration in the use of reason”; it can connect “the objectivisation of scripture with a charismatic view of revelation”; it can lead to a “formulation of doctrine beyond the confines of credal formulations”; it can bring about a “transformation of fixed liturgies into a liminal and anti-structural notion of ritual”; it can create a “revision of ecclesiality which envisions churches, not as distinct alternative institutions, but dynamic multicultural and ecumenical movements”; finally, it can bring “an emphasis on renewal which takes churches beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy.”

This is a pretty comprehensive vision. Some elements are exciting, others challenging and some raise theological hackles depending on your shibboleths. Doubtless the Episcopal churches would worry about ‘liminal’ and ‘anti-structural’ liturgy, the Orthodox churches would see no need to go beyond orthodoxy, the Evangelicals would worry about the watering down of scripture with ‘charismatic revelation’; we might even suppose that the Pentecostals would resist losing their character as a ‘distinct alternative institution!’ But Vondey never said it would be easy, least of all for Pentecostals. Taken as a manifesto, this is an uncompromising document. Whether global churches can take on the challenge to cast off their pet identities and innate conservativism in the pursuit of a global theology is for the next century to decide, but this reads as utterly serious in the attempt. Practical? – uncertain.  Inspiring? – definitely!