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103
Pentecostals and Social Ethics
Revivalism and Social
Reform (Abingdon, 1957)
was a book borne out of a 1955
prize-winning essay
written
by
a
youthful Nazarene historian,
Timothy
L. Smith. In
it,
Smith showed how nineteenth
century evangelists “played
a key role in the
widespread attack
upon slavery, poverty,
and
greed” (p. 8). Two decades later, Donald W.
Dayton
of the
Wesleyan church, penned
a series of articles in a Christian counter-culture tabloid, the Post-American. These articles were
ultimately brought together
under the title Discovering
an
Evangelical Heritage (Harper
& Row,
1976). Dayton’s
concern was to reconcile two
seemingly
irreconcilable currents in his own
experience:
his
“evangelical”
or holiness heritage
and the values of the student movements of the 60s.
In each
case,
these authors and their readers were
surprised by what
they
found. Revivalism and the Holiness Movement were both
deeply
involved in
bringing
about social transformation. The battles which
they waged
on issues of civil
rights
and social
justice were battles
against
issues
deeply
rooted in American
religion
and culture.
The means
by which they
chose to
fight
them included the preaching
of non-violence and
engagement
in selected acts of civil disobedience. The effect which came as a result was substantial.
Chattel
slavery
was abolished in the US. Women were
recognized as
legitimate
heirs to the call of God into full-time
ministry.
Social programs
were
developed
to aid the
poor.
Laws were enacted to mediate the
power
of the
powerful.
But what does this have to do with
pentecostals?
In many ways, pentecostals
are heirs both to revivalism and to the Holiness Movement.
The spiritual
and social commitments of these movements lie behind the birth of Pentecostalism. Yet for the most
part, pentecostals
are
ignorant
of their
heritage
and are not
widely known for their
continuing
contribution to the resolution of social justice
issues. In
many instances, pentecostals
have come to question
those who
question
the status
quo. They
have become selective in the
way they
understand the concerns of
evangelism. They
have
carefully
chosen the elements of Jesus’
ministry
with which
they
wish to be identified. And this is especially true within the North American context.
According
to
Luke,
Jesus stood at the
beginning
of his
ministry and
proclaimed:
The
Spirit
of the Lord is upon
me,
because he has anointed me to
preach
good
news to the
poor.
1
104
He has sent me to
proclaim
release
to the
captives
and
recovering
of
sight
to the
blind,
to set at
liberty
those who are
oppressed,
to
proclaim
the
acceptable year
of the
Lord.
(Luke 4:18-19; RSV)
Pentecostals have often
preached
this
passage
as
though they were
empowered
to do these
things. [Cf.
Alice E.
Luce,
Pictures
of Pentecost
(Springfield: GPH, 1950) 169-174.]
And in many
respects they
have done an admirable
job. They
have
preached
the
good news to the
spiritually poor. They
have
brought
release to
many
in spiritual captivity.
Their involvement in
signs
and wonders has opened many
blind
eyes
to the
power
of the
Gospel.
The once spiritually oppressed
now
testify
of the liberation
they
have found in Jesus Christ. And
pentecostals
have been faithful in their proclamation
that this is the
“acceptable year
of the Lord.” But these successes have been
largely
limited
by a spiritualized
hermene- utic
given
an existence
totally independent
from a literal one.
While
pentecostals
have ministered
freely
to those
enduring spiritual poverty, they
have often
ignored
the
plight
of the economically
or socially deprived of our
society.
Their
approach
all too often has been to move
away
from the
city,
and
away
from the poor,
and to
argue
that Jesus
anticipated
that we would
always have the
problem
of the
poor
around.
Perhaps
it is the case that pentecostals
have wanted to distance themselves from their own disadvantaged past. Thus, they
have sometimes
reinterpreted
the problem
in
spiritual
terms. “You have not because
you
ask not,” they say.
The result has been to
promise
a
heavenly reward, designed
to
encourage
the
acceptance
of
present conditions,
or it has led to the
development
of deviant
theologies
of health and wealth. Pentecostals have
typically
overlooked those who are captive
to the abuses of the
unjust
structures
of society
or ideology, and at times have turned their
eyes away
from the
plight
of those who are
oppressed by
their fellow human
beings,
whether
by economic, political, social, military
or even
religious
means. Until recent
years,
the
tying
of
physical healing
to ones own faith in the atoning
work of Christ has led to little if any concern for
physical healing
other than
by
means of
prayer.
This
brings
us back to where we
began.
Pentecostals are the offspring
of nineteenth
century
revivalism and of the Holiness Movement. How is it, then, that such vital movements, such socially
active movements as these, have had such little
impact upon
the current
generation
of pentecostals in this
regard?
Has this always
been the case?
Perhaps
it is easier to answer the second question
first.
_
2
105
In the
early days
of the Pentecostal revival there were
many holiness
people
who became
pentecostal
and who saw their social commitments
potentially empowered by
the
Holy Spirit
to an even greater degree through
their new
pentecostal experience.
Finis E. Yoakum, M.D.,
for
example,
was reared in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,
then became a Methodist. He was a neuro- surgeon
who
reportedly
made
$18,000
a month and held the Chair of Mental Diseases at Gross Medical
College
in Denver.
Following a near fatal accident in 1894 he came to Los
Angeles
where he was healed
through
the
prayer
of a holiness
pastor.
He
began
to
preach divine
healing
and had a pentecostal
experience.
At the direction received in a vision, he set
up
what became known as the
Pisgah Home Movement. It
provided help
to the
homeless,
the
poor,
and such social outcasts as alcoholics,
drug addicts,
and
prostitutes. By 1911 he was
supplying 9,000
clean beds and
18,000
meals each month to the
indigent. People
such as
Stanley
H. Frodsham were closely
associated with his
ministry
which was
widely
advertized in The Latter Rain
Evangel,
Word and
Work, and Confidence magazines.
. George
and Carrie
(Judd) Montgomery
lived in the San Francisco Bay
area from 1890 onward. Carrie had been reared in the Episcopal
Church, but following
her sudden and dramatic
healing had
alligned
with the
healing
and Holiness Movements. Carrie established a
healing
home in
Buffalo, published
a
journal, Triumphs of
Faith, and traveled
with such notable
figures
as A.B. Simpson
and W.E. Boardman.
George
made a vast fortune in mining,
stock
trading,
and other business investments. When George
and Carrie settled in
Oakland, CA., they joined
the Salvation
Army,
the Christian & Missionary
Alliance,
and later the Assemblies of God.
They published the journal
until
1946, donated property
for a retirement home for
aged
“colored” folk and for a Salvation
Army
Rescue
Home, provided
financial
support
to a variety
of
early pentecostal
missionaries and
evangelists,
built an orphanage,
founded a mission on the
Barbary Coast,
financed extensive mission work
among Hispanics
in the Southwest and in Mexico,
and constructed the Home of Peace where missionaries could rest while en route to or from the mission field.
Frank Bartleman
spoke publicly
on a wide
range
of
social, economic, political,
and ecclesiastical issues. Never one to mince words,
or to soft
peddle
what he
believed,
Bartleman
literally inundated the
pentecostal press
with his strident assessments. Not only
did he critique Federal
spending programs, question
whether the US had a free
press, harangue
artificial market
supports, plea for food
give-away programs,
and rebuke certain economic and
.
.
.
.
3
106
militaristic
practices
in his
day,
he criticized certain
pentecostal practices
with
equal vigor.
He considered
many pentecostals
to be too
willing
to
compromise
their
calling
and
join
forces
against
a “biblical” form of
pacifism,
allow American civil
religion
to be preached
from the
pentecostal pulpit, support
economic
policies which were
oppressive
to the
poor,
and
engage
in activities which would
deprive
the
missionary message
of the
ring
of truth.
A book titled
Discovering
a Pentecostal
Heritage
could
easily
be
on these
characters,
as well as the likes of
Lilian
penned including chapters
A.J. Tomlinson, and his ministry to the
poor
in Appalachia, Trasher and her
orphanage
for
Egyptian children,
Aimee
Semple McPherson and her
Temple Commissary,
and William J.
Seymour’s contribution to racial
equality
in the church. The answer to the second
question,
then is that at its
inception pentecostalism
had a variety
of
people
who worked on social issues.
Yet the first
question
still needs a response. At least three factors must enter into the discussion. First, the millennial
perspective
of pentecostals
differs
markedly
from that of
many
revivalists and holiness folk of the nineteenth
century. Shortly
before the turn of the
century
it
changed
from a
post-millennial
to a
pre-millennial positions
Hence
pentecostals
came at a time when
“evangelicals” didn’t have time to think about
building
the
Kingdom
of God. Its coming
in
power
was imminent.
Second,
the rise of old liberalism and the social
gospel
tended to taint
pentecostal, holiness,
and evangelical
involvement with issues of social
justice.
It became identified as a “liberal”
tool,
and therefore as something “off limits” to
pentecostals. Third,
the issue of
peer pressure
also came into play.
As pentecostals rubbed shoulders with
evangelicals they
also adopted
the values and concerns of
evangelicals
who stood over against
the “liberals” who
employed
the social
gospel.
Since the rise of charismatic renewal,
questions
of social
justice have
again
been raised and calls for charismatics to
engage
in social issues have also been heard. Lutheran minister
Larry
Christianson provided
the first feeble
attempt
in his A Charismatic
Approach
to Social Action
(Bethany, 1974).
Shiela Macmanos
Fahey
soon followed with Charismatic Social Action:
Reflection/
Resource Manual
(Paulist, 1977).
The third “Malines Document” Charis- matic Renewal and Social Action: A
Dialogue (Servant, 1979)
was co-authored
by
Cardinal
Leon-Joseph
Suenens and social activist Archbishop,
Dom Helder Camara. More
recently,
a call for social responsibility
has come from Peter M. Moonie of Australia in “The Charismatic Renewal and Social Action: A Call to
Involvement,” Zadok Centre News 19 (July,
1981)
10-13.
4
107
This issue of Pneuma
provides
us with four articles which are focused around the
subject
of social ethics. Should
pentecostals have one? If so, what should it look like? Richard Mouw
lays
the foundation
by pointing
out some of the biases which
typically underlie the
subject
when
approached by
Christians who relate to the
Trinity
in a specific
way. “Many,”
he argues, “do not associate an
emphasis
on life in the
Spirit
with an
aggressive program
of social
justice.”
He calls for a clear
dependence upon
God the
Holy Spirit
as but one
person
of the Triune
God,
for
power
to do whatever we are asked to do.
Murray Dempster approaches
social ethics first from the stand- point
of the Old Testament. He shows how
deeply embedded,
issues of social
justice
were in
Israel,
and he moves to a recognition that they are just
as important for the
pentecostal
of today. He warns us that the Christian faith can be transformed into an
ideology
that may “unwittingly
serve the cause of oppression.”Thus, he challenges pentecostals
to
identify
a “distinctively
pentecostal starting point for
theological
reflection on moral existence.” He believes that this may
be found in the
pentecostal experience
of Acts 2.
Two
specific
issues are
analyzed
in relationship to
social justice. Leonard Lovett a black,
pentecostal,
urban
pastor
assesses the subject
in light of the now
frequent appeal
to Liberation
Theology. He notes that “authentic liberation must be
grounded
in
spiritual encounter.” In the midst of that
encounter,
he maintains, one
may experience
the
power
and
glory
of the
Spirit.
Miroslav Volf, a pentecostal
who lives in a socialist
state, Yugoslavia,
assesses the subject
of work. He finds in a developed theology of the charismata the answer which is able to
bring
about social transformation in the workplace,
with an ultimate
impact upon society.
The
question
of whether
pentecostals
and charismatics should have or
develop
a social ethic
clearly anticipates
an affirmative response
in
today’s
situation. The success of
pentecostalism
in Third World nations has
only
increased the need to deal with
many practical problems
of everyday life as well as with
global
issues. It is my hope
that these articles will spark debate and discussion within the
Society
for Pentecostal Studies in such a way that the mission of Christ
may
be more
effectively accomplished by pentecostals
and charismatics who will draw
upon
the
power
of God’s
Spirit
to
bring about transformation in the
complex marketplace
of everyday life.
Cecil M.
Robeck,
Jr. Editor
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