A Brief Oneness Pentecostal Response

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

Pneuma 30 (2008) 225-226

Response

A Brief Oneness Pentecostal Response

James A. Johnson

Presiding Bishop Emeritus, The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc.,

Pastor, Bethesda Temple Church, 5401 Bishop J.A. Johnson Lane,

Normandy, MO 63121, USA

bethesda@accessus.net

I am deeply grateful to God for the privilege of having served for two years with the Oneness/Trinitarian dialogue teams. They met in my second year to consider one of the core beliefs of Pentecostal people, mainly the meaning and formula for Water Baptism. I am also appreciative for having been chosen by the former Presiding Bishop of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Norman L. Wagner, to participate in the dialogue. The atmosphere of the meetings which I attended was Holy Spirit-impacted and as a consequence the dialogue was very congenial. The late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes of the United States Supreme Court in “Abrams vs. United States” said the following:

The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas — that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

(Abrams vs. United States)

40 S.C. (1919)

I do not believe that either team moved away from its basic theological position on the meaning and formula for Water Baptism. But I could tell that there was a healthy and scholarly exchange in the free trade of ideas. Having read the Final Report, I view the dialogue as a very worthwhile endeavor that provided for the Oneness and Trinitarian Pentecostals an open

1

226

J. A. Johnson / Pneuma 30 (2008) 225-226

door for future dialogue. It may be that with such dialogue in the future, the theology in this area and others for both segments of Pentecostals will be further refined.

I am glad that this series of meetings was authorized by the Society of Pen- tecostal Studies and that I was a part of this exchange in biblical thought.

2