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Book Reviews / Pneuma 34 (2012) 95-159
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Gonzalo Haya-Prats, Empowered Believers: The Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts, ed., Paul Elbert, trans. Scott A. Ellington (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011). xxv + 289 pp., $35.00, paper.
Empowered Believers was originally penned by Gonzalo Haya-Prats as a doctoral dissertation in Spanish at the Pontifical Gregorian University over forty three years ago and then given a French translation by J. Romero and H. Faes (L’Esprit Force de l’Eglise, Cerf, 1975). Scott Ellington provides this English translation, which his Foreword does not clarify if it derives from the French or the Spanish. Additional editorial footnotes, bibliographic entries, and Foreword are included by the editor, Paul Elbert. Haya-Prats’ proposition is that baptism in the Holy Spirit is associated with the phenomenon of prophecy in the fuller sense, subse- quent to conversion. This event in the life of the believer is associated with moral theology.
The book is composed of two parts. Part 1, The Lukan Understanding of the Spirit, delin- eates Lukan pneumatology by isolating the various strands of traditions and how Luke uti- lizes and shapes them. In Acts the Spirit’s role is not simply to be a substitute for Christ, but rather to equip the disciples to continue Christ’s prophetic mission as spokesman of the message of God. The Spirit is referred to as promise indicating superabundant power of the messianic age. Part 2, The Effects of the Holy Spirit, concludes that the Holy Spirit’s principal effect is that of testimony and evangelization. For example, accompanying the manifesta- tions of glossolalia and prophecy, there is kerygmatic reflection (e.g., the Day of Pentecost and Peter’s Sermon in Acts 2). There is nothing in Acts that attributes forgiveness of sins to the Holy Spirit. On the contrary, God gives the Holy Spirit to those who already obey him (Acts 5:32), to those who already have believed (Acts 11:17), and to those who already have been purified by means of faith (Acts 15:9). Faith and the forgiveness of sins precede God’s gift of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit directly affects the religious behaviours of the community by way of empowerment of the Christian life and by intensifying existing faith in circum- stances through various charisms.
In places it is difficult to determine Haya-Prats’ precise meaning and this raises questions about the translation. Some statements appear contradictory. For example, in describing Peter’s defence before the Sanhedrin (Acts 4), he states, “But a moral theology cannot ignore the fact that this event describes a human action that takes place within the fullness of the Holy Spirit” (xvi, his emphasis; see also xv, xvi, 156 ff., 187). Then, surprisingly, he states, “Acts does not attribute to the Holy Spirit the origin of Christian life nor the religious-moral behaviour of the community” (190). In the same manner Haya-Prats states: “Luke has, with difficulty, ignored the attribution of sanctifying effects to the Spirit” (240). Yet, just a few sentences later, on the same page, he writes, “Interpreting Pentecost as a gifting of the sanc- tifying Spirit is not an error because the Holy Spirit really is a sanctifier.” Perhaps readers able to consult the original Spanish dissertation can achieve further clarity on what is intended by Haya-Prats.
In this book, Haya-Prats makes an artificial distinction between the prophetic Spirit for testimony-evangelization bestowed restrictively upon the apostles, and the eschatological Spirit in exultant doxology bestowed generally upon all believers (197, 207, 223, 225). This distinction is most likely the result of the author’s Jesuit leanings towards the doctrine of apostolic succession. However, to the contrary, the details of Acts 2 indicate how the pro- phetic Spirit would be poured out upon all without discrimination (Acts 2:5, 9-11) and is
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/157007412X621734
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Book Reviews / Pneuma 34 (2012) 95-159
interpreted by Peter in this manner using Joel 2 (Acts 2:17-18). Furthermore, Stephen (cho- sen to “wait on tables” Acts 6:2), and Paul (who was never classified as an “apostle” by Luke in Acts) both demonstrated the Spirit’s charism of testimony-evangelization (Acts 6, 9-28), a charism that Haya-Prats claims to be the exclusive gift of the apostles. A qualifying edito- rial footnote was included (207n33) based upon “private communication with the author,” clarifying how Haya-Prats accepts the idea that spiritual impulse for evangelization pro- vided by the Holy Spirit was provided to other characters in Acts as well. However, this opinion is not stated within the book by the author himself.
Notwithstanding the above criticisms, Haya-Prats’ research on the subject of the Holy Spirit in Acts is to be commended for interpreting Luke’s writing in light of its own theo- logical proclivities. He demonstrates a narrative sensitivity to Acts’ emphasis on the theme of baptism in the Holy Spirit as the key component for empowerment for Christian mission, not to be equated with conversion. This is a direct challenge to James D. G. Dunn’s conver- sion-initiation proposition in his influential book, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (SCM, 1970), written about the same time.
However, we must take note that there have been many advances in the study of Lukan pneumatology since Haya-Prats’ original dissertation, addressing important hermeneutical and theological issues in the wake of Dunn’s work. While challenging Dunn’s conversion- initiation proposition, this book still leaves us with unanswered questions. Is Luke simply attempting to defend the integrity of the Early Christian movement in his time by demon- strating how the Spirit’s activity was a guarantee of the messianic age? Or is Luke more definitive in his pneumatology, advocating a baptism in the Holy Spirit subsequent to con- version as the necessary requirement for Christian service and, therefore, promoting a nor- mative and necessary two-stage experience in the life of all believers in Christ? Perhaps the editor and translator believe that Haya-Prats can be depended upon even at the present time to buttress the classical Pentecostal interpretation of Spirit-baptism in Acts, but his work neither clearly addresses this matter nor engages with the intervening discussions. Let the conversation continue.
Reviewed by John A. Bertone
Wycliffe College, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada [email protected]
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