Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars
Click to get our FREE MOBILE APP and stay connected
| PentecostalTheology.com
113
Murray
W.
Dempster, Byron
D. Klaus and
Douglas Petersen, eds., Called &
Empowered:
Global Mission in Pentecostal
Perspective (Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson
Publishers, 1991),
321
pp.
$14.95 paper.
Reviewed
by L. Grant McClung,
Jr.
Who has the answer to what Pentecostals believe about mission and the
description
of how
they go
about
doing
mission?
Coming
out of a sense of
urgency
that caused them to “act now and
theologize later,” Pentecostals have been known more for action than reflection. Identifying
who the Pentecostals were and how
they
did the
job
was a task
largely
left
up
to
sympathizers
from
groups
such as the Church Growth Movement. Other outside
observers, however,
were not always
so
sympathetic.
This book is a statement
by Pentecostals
about Pentecostal
missions,
a move toward what I have called a “Decade of Self-Definition in the 1990s.” What has
emerged
since the mid 1980s are
signs
of a
budding “pentecostal missiology,”
a
development exemplified
in this volume.
Readers of this excellent new contribution will find that Pentecostals have a broader
understanding
of wholistic mission issues than the supposed
limited
agenda
of
evangelism/church planting
via the supernatural.
This collection of twelve articles–all from Assemblies of God authors–and three “outside observer”
responses
has
something
to say
about
biblical/theological dimensions,
the
integration
of
gospel
and culture, response
to non-Christian
religions,
and
missiological strategy. It reads well as a text
(which
I am
using)
or as a
pre-study tool,
for example,
for a field conference or consultation devoted to understanding
the Pentecostal/Charismatic contribution to world evangelization.
The three editors are
professors
at Southern California
College
in Costa
Mesa, California,
a Christian liberal arts
college sponsored by
the Assemblies of
God,
and are also involved in Latin America
ChildCare, an Assemblies of God
ministry
to
underprivileged
children in sixteen Latin American countries. The editors introduce each of the five sections of the book with a rationale for the theme of the section and a brief
synopsis
of each
chapter
in the section. These sectional introductions
give
an overall
conceptual
coherence to the
volume, reducing
the
choppiness
and unevenness that often attend multi-authored
anthologies.
Gordon Fee
opens
the first section on “Biblical and
Theological Dimensions of Global Mission in the Pentecostal Tradition” with a chapter
which aims to demonstrate that the roots of the Pentecostal conviction about the
global
mission of the church are to be found in Jesus’
proclamation
of the
kingdom
of God. In the next
chapter,
1
114
Murray Dempster
utilizes the
concept
of the
kingdom
of God as an integrating
center in the
development
of a wholistic Pentecostal theology
which features
evangelism,
social service and social action. Douglas
Petersen in the third
chapter
of this section
adopts
and modifies “the hermeneutical circle” of Latin American liberation theologians
in order to
promote
a Pentecostal
praxis
which
applies Jesus’
message
of the
kingdom
within the context of the Third World.
Section two focuses on “The
Emerging
Pentecostal
Integration
of Gospel
and Culture” and features
chapters
written
by
Everett
Wilson, Augustus Cerillo, Jr.,
and Del Tarr. Wilson
analyzes
the
phenomenal growth
of Pentecostalism in Latin America from a functional perspective, identifying
the
changing
social conditions in Latin culture which
encouraged indigenous,
national Pentecostal leaders to create “a church of the
people.”
Cerillo identifies the issues that Pentecostals face in
light
of the
ever-increasing global
trend of
urbanization,
and offers some
pertinent suggestions
for
formulating
effective urban ministries. In
rounding
out this
section,
Tarr
develops
a model of communication for
preaching
the
gospel
across the different cultural
regions
of the
globe.
The issue of
gospel
and culture is taken
up again
in section three but the issue is
analyzed
from the
perspective
of
differing
worldviews. Each author describes the worldview under
investigation
in his
chapter from his viewpoint as a participant: Peter Kuzmic
analyzes
the Marxist worldview, Sunday Aigbe analyzes
the worldview of tribal
people groups
and Sobhi Malek
analyzes
the Muslim worldview. Given the breakup
of the
former
Soviet Union
subsequent
to the
writing
of his chapter,
Kuzmic sho.wed
great insight
in
noting: “Anything
written about the ‘communist world’
today
should be written in
pencil.
All across Eastern
Europe
and in the Soviet Union monumental
changes are
taking place
at a
breathtaking speed
and in most dramatic and unpredictable ways” (143-44).
Even
though sweeping changes
have occurred in the Communist bloc
countries,
Kuzmic’s
study
still provides
a goldmine of information in understanding what is happening in that
part
of the world.
“Pentecostals and Current
Missiological Strategies”
is the
topic
of section four. A
chapter by Gary
McGee
provides
a
descriptive historical overview of the
multiple
mission
strategies
that Pentecostals have used in this
century.
A jointly-written
chapter by Byron
Klaus and Loren
Triplett
documents the historical connection between non-formal/informal national
leadership programs
and the mushrooming growth
of Pentecostalism, warns Pentecostals about their newly
found reliance on formal structures of national
leadership development
and calls for a renewed commitment to
indigenous leadership development
“in
ministry.” Missiologist Larry Pate,
in the last
chapter
in the
strategies section,
describes the
emergence
of the
2
115
“two-thirds world missions movement” and assesses its implications for Pentecostal missions efforts. Pate makes a
compelling
case that theological
and
practical
reflection on the
implications
of the
global shift embodied in the two-thirds world missions movement is the most important strategic
issue
facing
Pentecostal missions
today.
The fifth and final section of the book
provides
“Views from Outside” the Pentecostal
movement,
and
according
to the
editors,
the chapters
in this section “stress the
importance
of Pentecostals
learning to listen to the broader church as
part
of its
missiological activity” (xviii).
Pentecostal mission effort is evaluated from a Church Growth perspective by
Peter
Wagner,
from an ecumenical
perspective by Jeffrey Gros, FCS,
and from a Third Wave
perspective by
Charles Kraft. These
chapters, designed
to
provide “dialogical feedback,”
are stimulating
to read and
insightful
in both their
positive appraisals
and constructive criticisms.
Hopefully,
Called &
Empowered
will be
expanded
and revised in a subsequent
edition to include a broader
participation
of missions practice
and reflection from a wider
variety
of Pentecostal and Charismatic missions ministries,
along
with more contributions from women
(all
the authors are
male)
and voices from the “southern world” (only
three of twelve
essays
are from non-North
Americans).
The book, however,
is well-researched and
highly
readable for those seeking
to look
through
the window into the
self-understanding
of Pentecostals and their
responsibility
in world
evangelization.
Even the casual observer of this tradition would
agree
that the
energy Pentecostals
expend
in world missions
activity
flows out of the belief that Pentecostals are Called &
Empowered.
L. Grant
McClung, Jr.,
is Coordinator of Research and
Strategic Planning
for the Church of God World Missions and Associate Professor of Missions and Church Growth at the Church of God School of Theology in Cleveland, Tennessee.
3
