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Editor’s Note
With this issue of PNEUMA, the
journal begins
its twentieth
year of
publication
on the Pentecostal and charismatic movements. Over these two decades, the
journal
has benefited both from the
increasing educational
mobility
of Pentecostals and
charismatics,
and from the expanding
interest in Pentecostalism in the broader academic commu- nity
and church world. The
growth
of
scholarly production
as a con- sequence
of this
mobility
and
expanding
interest has allowed PNEU- MA to increase the
quality
and the size of each annual volume of the journal,
while still
providing
a sufficient flow of manuscripts to service other Pentecostal
publishing
ventures,
such as the EPTA Bulletin
(the journal
of the
European
Pentecostal
Theological Association),
the Journal
of
Pentecostal
Theology,
and the
newly released,
Asian Journal
of Pentecostal
Studies.
This
spring
1998 issue
typifies
the
diversity
of
topics
under inves- tigation,
and the
variety
of academic
disciplines
used,
in the current study
of Pentecostalism
by
scholars both inside and outside of the movement. The
topics range
from Pentecostal
theology
to Britain’s charismatic Jesus
Fellowship,
to Canada’s “Toronto
Blessing,”
to Brazilian
Pentecostalism,
to Pentecostal
responses
to Noll’s scandal of the North American
evangelical mind,
to Pentecostalism in Argentina, and these
topics
are addressed
by
a New Testament
exegete,
a sociolo- gist
in health studies, a
sociologist
of
religion,
an ecumenical theolo- gian,
a
systematician,
and a church historian. These
topics
and these academic
specializations
reflect the wide
ranging
issues
generated by this
global
movement and the academic
expertise
that is devoted to understanding
this world-wide
religious phenomenon.
Professor John
Christopher
Thomas’s Presidential Address is the lead article in this issue. The address was
given
at the historic 27th Annual
Meeting
of the
Society
for Pentecostal Studies held March 12- 14,
1998 in Cleveland, Tennessee, which
brought together
for the first time ever scholars from the
Wesleyan Theological Society
and the Society
for Pentecostal Studies. The theme of the
meeting, “Purity
and Power,”
reflected one of the
major identifying theological
motifs from each tradition and
signaled
the
dialogical
nature of the
plenary
and individual
paper reading
sessions. It was fortuitous indeed that SPS President Chris Thomas as a Church of God scholar delivered the Presidential Address since that
wing
of Pentecostalism has its roots deep
within the
Wesleyan
tradition and has maintained
theological
con- tinuity
with its
Wesleyan heritage
to the
present day.
In his address, Professor Thomas outlined the
challenges facing
the fourth
generation of Pentecostal scholars in
developing
a Pentecostal
theology
that is community-sensitive, integrative,
accountable, contextual and confes- sional,
that is informed
by Scripture,
that constructs the architectonic of
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ministerial
education,
and that drives the mission and
ministry
of the church as a
Spirit-empowered community
in the service of Jesus Christ.
The three articles which follow Thomas
by Stephen Hunt, Margaret Poloma,
and Richard Shaull
investigate interesting
trends in the con- temporary
Pentecostal/charismatic movements. Hunt shows how the Jesus
Fellowship
in Great Britain has
adapted
with
flexibility
to the changing
needs of its
membership
in
maintaining
a communal
living component
while
providing
other
options
of association with the fel- lowship.
A significant
finding
in Hunt’s
analysis
is the
ongoing
vitali- ty
of economic koinonia within the
fellowship
and its
positive
role in perpetuating
the life of the
community.
In the next
article,
Poloma reports
on her
empirical study designed
to
identify
the various conse- quences
of the
outpouring
of the
Holy Spirit
at the Toronto
Airport Christian
Fellowship
in
Ontario,
Canada. She outlines the results of her 1997
follow-up questionnaire
with the results of her earlier 1995 surveys
in
comparing
the correlations between a number of
variables, such as emotional
responses, physical
manifestations,
healing, empow-
erment,
and service.
Many interesting findings
result from Poloma’s investigation;
the most
provocative
for some
may
be the
positive
cor- relation
reported by respondents
between
experiences
of
spiritual
heal- ing
and an increased sense of
empowerment
for
serving
others. In the final
article,
Shaull charts his
personal
faith
journey
as a consequence of
participating
in a funded research
project
on Brazilian Pentecostalism. As the title of his
essay indicates,
the
study
of Pentecostalism in Brazil led him on a sojourn from academic research to spiritual transformation.
Accordingly,
Shaull’s
piece
is written in the engaging literary style
of
testimony.
Out of his field
experience
with Pentecostalism,
Shaull calls for a new
paradigm by
which to discern God’s
redemptive activity
in the world. His
slightly
revised article was first
presented
as a paper at the 27th Annual
Meeting
of the
Society
for Pentecostal Studies in the
spirit
of
inviting dialogue
between Pentecostals and mainline churches on the most effective
way
for the Christian
community
to
pursue justice
in a broken world marked
by poverty
and dehumanization.
In the
specialized
sections of this
issue,
Amos
Yong picks up
the dialogue
with James K. A. Smith and
Cheryl Bridges
Johns over the validity
of Mark Noll’s thesis about the role of Pentecostalism in scan- dalizing
the
evangelical mind,
and David
Bundy provides
a stimulating review
essay
on recent treatments of Pentecostalism in Argentina. Ten book reviews round out this issue of the journal.
The editors
hope
that this issue makes a helpful contribution to the research interests of the members and friends of the
society.
Murray
W.
Dempster
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