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Toward a Pentecostal Mark D. McLean* 35
Hermeneutic I
theology?
In one sense, To
begin with, is there a Pentecostal the answer is “NO!”
(William Menzies)’
I
a charismatic In his attempt elitism of recent innovation, on similar projects.
One
proceeds and
glue.
and nails and quickly while the former carpenter slowly that we all have had the hammer and nails there all I remember attending 1970s in Southern California featured speaker.
audience that his charismatic spiritual two
carpenters working the same tools at their disposal. furniture using a
drill, dowels, takes out a hammer meeting during the
early at which Dennis Bennett was the to
allay the fears of his message was some sort of he used the metaphor of
Both have exactly to build a piece of The other carpenter finishes the project labors on. He then assured which nonthe audience the time. Pentecostals Pentecostals do not have, this tool all Christians possess.
Dr. Menzies there is is
simply a
experience of
theology. Thus, fundamentalist place.3 hermeneutics uniquely Pentecostal hermeneutic.
Actually, evangelical theology real and recurring tendency the canon to the charismatic do not possess something but
rather, they have learned to use which is available to all,
and
is, indeed, something that
It
simply needs to be recognized.2 makes much the same point by insisting that
no Pentecostal theology because a Pentecostal theology “full Gospel”
biblical theology that restores the Pentecost to its rightful place in Christian Christian theology is
evangelical/ orthodoxy with the role and function of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church restored to its rightful If this is the case, Pentecostal/ evangelical/ fundamentalist must be identical.4 Therefore, there can be no of Pentecostal and
worshipper.s Though forms, such
the insistence on the unity and hermeneutics is based upon
the
very
of charismatic groups to abandon for “fresh and authoritative revelations” of the Holy Spirit this abandonment of the canon is often subtle at first, it can and at times it does continue to express itself in grotesque called “soul marriage”6 a strong commitment to canon, revolves around the use of the “plain sense”
as the insanity Even when there is outwardly the argument 1
36
(sensus literalis) found exegesis”7 of the text and tlie intentionality charistmatic “popular revelation of that a Pentecostal that the twentieth of the author critical-contextual century Pentecostal movement by “grammatico-historical, and the possibility of a fuller sense of the text, the “rhema word,”
as the jargon of one strand of the current religion”
names it,8
the
personal the
Holy Spirit to the individual which transcends the plain sense of the written canonical text.9 The very reasonable fear of many
Pentecostal leaders and educators is hermeneutic will soon abandon or so distort the Scripture will founder and cease to be Christian. « Yet,
it is my
contention that not only
is a Pentecostal a vital necessity if we are to have an effective it is inescapable.
A
hermeneutic will either be a well articulated, hermeneutic ministry to our “modern” Pentecostal canonically based expression twentieth century Pentecostal deaths of their charismatic oddities discussed world, of normative Christianity, or the movements will wither after the chapters or
twenty-second century leaders and become the religious in the opening of future books like Gelpi’s which study the
twenty-first “neo-charismatic” movements. If we lose our hold on the Bible, rule of our faith, and
conduct, that infallible n
faith we are lost.
With its strong commitment traditional hermeneutics has opted for
reason, epistemologically in the interests of I I
propositional theology.
either abdicated validate faith pleading E rvinl ‘ ‘
to a critical-historical exegesis, for an epistemology that
or
conversely sought to
by
a
category of
special (Howard space theology. 12 Being theology is Bible centered The other side of the coin from that of “pentecostal to
evangelical/ fundamentalist ultimately interprets the classical experience out of the Bible. Pentecostal an ex post facto as our early leaders did, want to be assured that our “experience”
a canonically based, scripturally sound the
Gospel of Jesus Christ and the life of the Church. To Pentecostals past
and
present, basis for such an assurance.
exegesis act of the Holy Spirit, cadets” is a total commitment hermeneutics which Pentecostal admittedly Christians, we, just is part of
many
provide the
exegetical traditional Pentecostal subsequent the book of Acts seems to The of Acts suggested that a an enduement of power for
2
conversion, known as the Baptism 37
initially evidenced by
in the Holy Spirit, is and, indeed, could be called a service, distinct from speaking in tongues, to be expected and
sought, normative Yet,
not
only
charismatic doctrine Pentecostal expectation. 13 in recent times we have witnessed a number of attempts from without, but also from within the Pentecostal/ neo-
From
fervent of the distinctive century them, speaking in
tongues. “Pentecostal heritage”, centered Christians, a
canonically based, scripturally Jesus Christ and the life of the generation “Pentecostals,” have not experienced charismatic Christians, Dunn and the suggested by them to movement to deny
the
validity of “initial evidence” which gave
the twentieth movement its identity. 14 Ironically, these attempts are also basically ex post facto in their nature.
within the Pentecostal movement the problem often centers around third generation Pentecostals who, despite their faith in God,
their sense of the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives, have not experienced that “initial evidence” of This leaves on the outside looking they
want to be sure that their experience sound part
of the Gospel Church. To many
of these third as well as the neo-charismatics who the initial despite their in.
Being Bible is
of
evidence, as well as nonworks of James D. G.
for the book of Acts adherence to traditional hermeneutical principles positive forms, century necessary; important the twentieth century. ‘ total rejection of Pentecostal the
exegetical hermeneutical principle Gordon Fee seem to fill a vital need in allowing understand their “experience”
of the Holy Spirit. 15 It is not the purpose of this discussion, however, to solve the “initial evidence”
issue, but rather to indicate that a strict evangelical/fundamentalist leads to a position which, in its most suggests the distinctives of the twentieth Pentecostal movement are perhaps but not vital to the life of the Church In its more negative phenomena.
conceptual analysis nice, but not in forms, it leads to a _ III
governing presence pro What is at stake is not which one has done the more adequate of
key
Christian ideas, but which has the more adequate or
apt imaginative grasp of the basic discrimen all Christian theology, viz, the mode of God’s nobis.
(David Kelsey)» 3
38
It is once we have understood (i.e., anyone possibility of
avoiding and hermeneutic.
coefficients, viz, conjunction given theologian individual to another outline, the
understanding the Holy Spirit in the common different. The Pentecostal a vital part operation agent today Kelsey’s incisive insight into who is trying to make sense of to the