Fire From Heaven A Testimony By Harvey Cox

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REVIEW Fire from Heaven: A Testimony Walter J. Hollenweger sympathetic analysis with which have to solid, some very solid but polemical Cox’s book Cox’s grimage, including mony is solid has weaknesses First, the strengths. testify. After all, A “professor” that 197 ESSAY by Harvey Cox The Secular Cityl write a Christian theology is to How can the author of the best-selling of Pentecostalism? That, of course, is the question I began to read Fire from Heaven.2 I could not put it down until I had read it from cover to cover. And that says something, for I read many books on Pentecostalism, some exciting but not rather boring, many-at least the ones of a or prophetic nature-neither solid nor exciting. Harvey is both solid and exciting. However, this judgment needs some qualification. book is in fact a theological testimony of his Christian pil- its detours and cul-de-sacs. In its honesty this testi- and moving. In its intellectual grasp of Pentecostalism it and strengths. All along his life Harvey Cox knew that one of the most important forms of communicating that is what the word “professor of theology” means. is “professing,” that is, testifying. Cox starts by confess- ing he never learned anything about the Pentecostal movement either in seminary or in graduate school. Even today, what we call the- scholarship is hopelessly United ological States and in Europe. A student at Harvard, for instance, where courses in Sufism or Tibetan Buddhism. There is even a class on Hindu goddesses. there were no offerings on Pentecostalism dilettantism of established both sides of the Atlantic is called “scholarship.” Cox teaches, can take research seminar, this academic out of step with reality, both in the But until Cox introduced a small (14). And theological institutions on What a joke! Perspective (New 2Harvey Cox, Reshaping of Religion Publishing I Harvey Cox, The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological York, NY: Macmillan, 1965). Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the in the Twenty-first Century (Reading, MA: Addision-Wesley Co., 1995). 1 198 So, Cox sets out to meet the Pentecostals in four continents. He reports what these meetings have done to him, how they reminded him of his own Quaker ancestors. They brought back to him memories of the moments through which he passed in a small Holiness church in his hometown. He also does not gloss over his companionship with those theologians who thought that religion was waning and finally disap- pearing. “Before the academic forecasters could even begin to draw their pensions,” Cox relates, “a religious renaissance of sorts is under way all over the globe” (xvi). Mind you, not all of this global religious expansion is Christian or even Pentecostal, but Pentecostalism is at the moment the most powerful and visible expression of this religious revival. What is it that attracted Harvey Cox to Pentecostalism? Certainly not its theology but much more its worship services and its testimonies, which he obviously enjoyed. He observed that Pentecostal congrega- tions are young and happy. He also realized that it is a serious mistake to equate Pentecostalism with fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is for him a crude form of nineteenth-century rationalism and contrary to Pentecostalism (303). Fundamentalists and Pentecostals are antago- nists, a view which thoughtful Pentecostals have also established, against official declarations of their church leaders.3 Contrary to fundamentalism, Pentecostalism is more at home singing its theology than arguing for it ( 15), something which Pentecostals have in common with New Testament Christianity and with many third-world cultures. It is furthermore an ecumenical move- ment, an original and successful synthesis of elements from a number of other sources, not all of them Christian. But Cox also regrets the political alliances some of its members have recently entered. He notes that they have introduced such recently invented dogmas as the “verbal inerrancy of the Bible” (17), which was not contained in Seymour’s declaration of faith, nor is it part of the general Christian tradition. What obviously fascinated Harvey Cox was Pentecostal music. He confesses that it was at a Pentecostal church that he for the first time in his life was allowed to play his beloved saxophone in a Christian wor- ship service, thus bringing together two of the driving forces in his life: jazz and religion (142). He rightly sees the parallels between jazz and Pentecostalism, not only in relation to its common roots in the African American soil, but also in relation to its structure (148). 3Russell P. Spittler, “Are Pentecostals and Charismatics Fundamentalists? A Review of American Uses of These Categories,” in Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture, ed. Karla Poewe (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 103-116. See also Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. 1997), 190-199. 2 199 Cox also sees the points of contact between art and Pentecostalism. He mentions the rumor-unfortunately he does not give any documen- tation-that Anthony Quinn played the trumpet in the orchestra pit of Aimee Semple McPherson’s Angelus Temple and that Charlie Chaplin sneaked into the back row to enjoy Aimee’s compelling stage presence (124).4 He could have mentioned other examples, such as the former jazz musician Douglas Scott (who became an evangelist in France),5 the Danish opera singer Anna Larsen Bjorner,6 and the Norwegian T. B. Barratt, who was a student of Grieg and a writer in his own right. But the reverse is also true. Many Pentecostal preachers became writ- ers, artists, or singers, including James Baldwin, Elvis Presley, and Sven Lidman.7 All of this shows that Pentecostalism is-contrary to the opinion of most theologians-in the middle of the cultural stream of the modem urban world. Having for many years fought for racial justice, Cox of course was attracted by the fact that Pentecostalism started in a black church is Los Angeles. In fact, when Cox was appointed to a chair of theology at the venerable Harvard University, he could not start his new job because he happened to be in prison as a result of supporting black Americans in a demonstration, something which was rather uncommon for white Pentecostals. Ironically, the majority of Pentecostals worldwide are now black. Cox reports that William J. Seymour, the black pastor of the Azusa street mission, was clearly in opposition to the prevailing Aryan master-race ideology dominant in California in the early twentieth cen- tury. But there is more to this: Seymour’s Pentecostalism was not just an early equal opportunity program. It had powerful archetypal signif- icance by raising the “wretched of this world” to untold human and divine dignity (100). Cox also comments on the indigenous nature of Pentecostalism in the third world. Pentecostal pastors in Brazil outnumber Roman Catholic priests, and almost all are-in contrast to the Catholic priests-native Brazilians (175). He also notes that most Chilean Pentecostals voted for Salvador Allende in 1970 (170). Harvey Cox detects in Pentecostal language and devotion many Catholic elements, 4He also mentions the rumor that President Bill Clinton played the saxophone in a Pentecostal church in Arkansas (xv). 5G. R. Stotts, Pentecbtisme au pavs de Voltaire (F 69290 Craponne, France: Viens et Vois, 1978). But see the 338-342. critique of David Bundy on this book in Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 6Anna Larsen Bjomer, Teater og Tempel: Livserindringer (Kopenhagen, Denmark: H. Hirschsprungs Forlag, 1935). SCM Hollenweger, The Pentecostals (London, England: Press, 1972; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1988 3rd edition), index. 7Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 387-397. 3 200 for instance in the sermon of an Italian Pentecostal preacher who attrib- uted a term from the “Hail Mary (“full of grace”) to Jesus, thus unknowingly giving his theology a strong female accent. The most astonishing statement by Cox is his claim that Pentecostalism-particularly in Latin countries-produces a feminism scci generis. The tremendous contribution of female evangelists, singers, missionaries, and teachers in Pentecostalism has been noticed for a long time, although many Pentecostals (including Pentecostal women) theoretically say that the woman should be subject to the “head of the family.” Cox discovered that Pentecostal women (in Italy and in Latin America) feel liberated when their husbands assume responsibilities and stop drinking and fooling around with other women. When the males are converted to Pentecostalism, they stop walking about in their macho posture, and start caring for their wives and children. That does not mean that Pentecostal women become subdued housewives only. In Brazil Cox met Bendita de Silva. “This woman could out-preach every liberationist priest I had ever met” (although officially her speech was labeled a “testimony,” not a sermon), Cox writes. He adds, “and she was a member of the left opposition party,” (115). Ironically, she belongs to a church which Cox believes to be a Brazilian branch of the United States Assemblies of God (165). Cox also notes that women learn skills in Pentecostal churches which they can utilize elsewhere. They plan their number of children and see in family planning an important Christian responsibility (137). Refused ordination, they become missionaries and go to places where men are afraid to go. They become healers and teachers, writers and editors (138). Of course, that sort of feminism is a two-edged sword, especially as many Pentecostal women also protest against being forced into subordinate roles. Nevertheless, I wonder what Western middle-class feminists have to say to this type of feminism. According to Cox, the African independent churches constitute “the African expression of the worldwide pentecostal movement,” a state- ment which is highly controversial in Pentecostal circles but clearly documented by David Barrett and the South African Pentecostal Allan Anderson.8 They are “being highly syncretistic while their leaders preach against syncretism” (248). The same is of course true for all 8 Allan Anderson, “Pentecostal Pneumatology and African Power and Concepts: Continuity Change,” Missionalia 19 (April 1990): 65-74; “African Pentecostalism and the Ancestor Cult: Confrontation and Compromise,” Missionalia 21 (April 1991): 26-39; Bazalwane: of .4frican Pentecostals in South Africa (Pretoria, South Africa: University South Africa, 1992); and Mova: The Holy Spirit in an African Context (Pretoria, South Africa: University of South Africa, 1991). 4 201 Christian churches, including and even more so the Western Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal churches.9 Cox rightly criticizes modem academic theology’s dismissal of the “demonic” in the Bible. As an exception to this he draws attention to Paul Tillich who had to flee from Nazi Germany (286). On the other hand, he thoroughly questions the thoughtless and unbiblical emphasis on “spiritual warfare” among the so-called “Third Wave” Pentecostals. On some more ugly features of modem Pentecostalism he just asks: “What has happened to the spirit of Azusa Street?” (297), a question which many Pentecostal scholars ask too. Cox sees a battle raging between fundamentalists and experiential- ists within Pentecostalism (310). He points to a cleavage between third- world Pentecostals and their North American and European brethren and sisters (311). He mentions in particular that Nicaraguan and other Latin American Pentecostals have taken positions diametrically opposed to North American Pentecostals. The same is true for black South African Pentecostalism. The question must be asked: Why do third-world and Western Pentecostals not talk to each other about some of the burning issues of our world? Why do Western Pentecostals always quote the third-world Pentecostal statistics in their favor but pay no attention to what this majority of Pentecostalism says and does? Why do they always mention their worldwide connections yet they do not help their third-world coreligionists in their fight against the brutal consequences of globalization? In analyzing this book, I must also mention some of its weakness- es. First, this book does not introduce the reader to the fact that Pentecostal scholars obviously can think theologically. Perhaps that was not as exciting to Cox as Pentecostal music and Pentecostal prac- tical approaches to politics in Latin America. However, it is a fact that more and more Pentecostal scholars are emerging who can easily hold their ground in any academic discussion. Scores, perhaps even hun- dreds of them, earn their doctoral degrees at reputable universities, not only in the United States and in Europe but also in the Third World. They learn the discipline of scholarly research without confusing theo- logical work with the gospel. It is true that sometimes they have prob- lems in convincing their fellow Pentecostals that theological thinking and scholarly research can also be a gift of the Spirit. But Pentecostalism is not comprised merely of a singing and praying crowd of enthusiastic believers and practical doers, as one might guess from 9See “A Plea for a Theologically Responsible Syncretism,” in Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 132-141. This chapter will appear in an enlarged form in Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies (January 1999) under the title, “Capitalism and Syncretism.” 5 202 Harvey Cox’s book. There are a growing number of Pentecostal the- ologians who ask the very question which is at the heart of Cox’s book: Why do the mind and the heart have to be such antagonists, the one try- ing to force the other in? (12). Contemporary Pentecostal scholars are no longer willing to leave their head together with their hat at the church door. They have quite a lot to say on the relationship between experience and biblical revela- tion, or in Harvey Cox’s terminology, between experientialism and fun- damentalism. They do not accept that one has to be a fundamentalist in order to take the Bible seriously. They develop a type of biblical schol- arship which is critical but not destructive. They do not believe in cre- ationism. They are prepared to introduce their congregations to a criti- cal and historical reading of the Bible which does not dissolve the bib- lical message into so many exegetical theories but makes it alive for the ordinary believer without asking him or her to take on board a whole lot of unnecessary baggage of our rationalistic or antirationalistic past. They know full well that Noah and Methuselah are not historical per- sons and that the Gospels are not biographies of Jesus but theological tracts on the life and work of Jesus. Whether they will be more suc- cessful than mainline theologians in passing on these insights to the rank-and-file Pentecostals remains to be seen. Another weakness in Harvey Cox’s book is that he does not report the important commitment of a number of Pentecostals to ecumenism, for example in Pentecostal dialogue with the Vatican, with the World Council of Churches, with the World Council of Reformed churches, and even with the Orthodox churches. Ecumenically minded Pentecostals defend themselves by appealing to Pentecostalism’s ecu- menical past, including the ecumenical past of the Assemblies of God (USA), who would very much like to forget these pages of its history. 10 Although Pentecostals can argue on the propositional level, the strength of these dialogues lies in a type of theology which is nearer to experience than to the texts of the past. And perhaps the time of pure- ly propositional debates is over anyhow. As an insider of the World Council of Churches, Harvey Cox must know that this ecumenical institution is at the present time in a crisis of which the financial prob- lems are only a symptom not the cause. At a time when economic forces operate at a global scale, Christians cannot be content with a denominational and local testimony. I believe that Pentecostals have a . lOCecil M. Robeck, “The Assemblies of God and Ecumenical Cooperation,” in Pentecostalism in Context: Essay in Honor of William W. Menzies, ed. Wonsuk Ma and Robert P. Menzies (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 107- 150, for his extremely important historical analysis of this issue. 6 203 responsibility to take up that challenge and continue their testimony to these institutions, as they did in the past. 1 1 Finally, I come back to my initial question: How can the author of The Secular City write a sympathetic book on Pentecostalism? Already at the time when he wrote his best-seller, he had a sneaking impression that “it wasn’t necessarily so.” At a worship service in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on Mark 14:3-9 (during a conference on technology and the future), Harvey Cox commented: “This is a bad text for a schol- arly conference. Hunger we fight with better agricultural methods, poverty with better schools, the population explosion with family plan- ning. And now we must hear that Jesus sanctions waste! The poor we have always amongst us, but not him.” A woman joins him: “That is exactly the point. We do not only share money and knowledge but also fun and beauty…. Sharing is the secret of joy.” In other words, Harvey Cox discovered long ago that the secularist approach is not good enough for humanity. In his early days he concentrated on political experience (not just political theory). Now, he adds to this religious experience, something which he already knew from his Baptist past. In The Seduction the Spirit and in On Not Leaving it to the 1 of Snake, Cox tells the story of his “turn-around.” All in all, he writes, his Berlin years as a fraternal worker had led him to a somewhat uncritical fascination with the Marxist critique of religion. That is why his attempt at combining Marx with a superficial reading of Bonhoeffer was bound to lose steam. A young Marxist philosopher, Cox relates, told him on a cold night in East Berlin after some glasses of cognac in a pub that per- haps religion will eventually disappear but for the next few thousand years it will certainly be around and that’s why they, the Marxists might better come to terms with religion. And Harvey Cox adds: “Perhaps we theologians might also better come to terms with religion.” So, the book on Pentecostalism is one of the many books 13 in which he comes to terms with religion. He realizes that not only Eastern religions-and not even in the first instance Eastern religions-are prepared for a comeback but also Christianity in the form of Pentecostalism, one of the least aca- demically discussed variations of religion. 11 Not two (215) but 12 Pentecostal churches are members of the World Council of Churches. Some of them are huge. Harvey Cox could not know this since not even the WCC knew how many Pentecostal churches are members of the WCC. See Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 384-387. Cox, On Not Leaving it to the Snake (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1967) and The Seduction of the Harvey NY: Simon and Spirit: The Use and Misuse of People’s Religion (New York, Schuster, 1973). ? 3Harvey Cox, The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy MA: Harvard and Peril (Cambridge, New University Press, 1969) and Turning East: The Promise of the Orientalism (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1977). 7 204 I am sure that Cox will be criticized from all quarters for his views. The remaining secularists among the theologians will not forgive him for his turnaround. Denominational theologians will regret his all-in-all positive approach to Pentecostalism. And Pentecostals? They are a bit uneasy because Cox meets them on the field on which they believe they are the strongest, at the level of testimony. From a university theologian they would prefer a favorable discussion of their theology. And to make things worse, where Cox argues theologically, namely in relation to the topic of syncretism, they do not like it, although his claims are obvi- ously true. So, once again, Harvey Cox falls between all the stools. But that is a good place to sit for a disciple of Jesus. 8