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Paradigm
Shifts and Hermeneutics: Confronting
Issues Old and New
Hermeneutics has been a hot
topic
for Pentecostals in recent
years.
In the annual
meetings
of the
Society
for Pentecostal Studies over the last decade,
no
topic
has been
investigated
with
greater frequency
or intensity
than the
topic
of hermeneutics. In
fact,
the four articles which comprise
this theme issue on Pentecostal hermeneutics are revisions of papers
that were
originally presented
as
part
of the
proceedings
of the society’s
annual
meetings.
Richard D.
Israel,
Daniel E. Albrecht and Randal G.
McNally
collaborated on their
paper
on
textuality, rituals, and
community
for
presentation
at the 20th Annual
Meeting
in Dallas, Texas on November
8-10,
1990. In the revision
published
in this
issue, they
took their
original three-part paper
and blended it into a jointly-authored single essay. Timothy
B.
Cargal developed
the
original draft of his article on
postmodern
hermeneutics for the 21 st Annual Meeting
in
Lakeland,
Florida on November
7-9,
1991. Jean-Daniel Pluss
presented
his
paper
on “the
myth”
of the Azusa Street revival at the 22nd Annual
Meeting
in Springfield, Missouri on November
12-14, 1992.
“Drinking
from Our Own Wells: Toward a Pentecostal Spirituality”
was the theme of this
conference,
and Pluss’ revision still alludes to this
metaphor
of
self def nition
in
probing
the
meaning
of Azusa Street for Pentecostals.
Joseph Byrd
read his paper on
preaching as a hermeneutical
activity
for the 20th Annual
Meeting
in
Dallas, Texas on November
8-10, 1990,
and his revised version for this issue of Pneuma benefits from both his return to
parish ministry
and his critical interaction with fellow scholars on Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics in
subsequent society meetings.
These four
articles, along
with
Roger Stronstad’s review
essay
of Gordon D. Fee’s
Gospel
and
Spirit,
reflect the kinds of hermeneutical issues–both old and new–that
provoke lively
debate
among
Pentecostal scholars.
The articles in this issue indicate that the
agenda
of Pentecostal hermeneutics is
changing
on three basic fronts: the
conception
of what constitutes a
text,
the issue of the
pre-understanding
of an
interpreter, and the
relationship
between a text and an
interpreter
that
produces meaning.
Hermeneutics still has as its
object
the
interpretation
of texts. However,
the notion of what constitutes a text has broadened considerably.
For
example,
one can conceive of the
meaningful
action of a faith
community
as a social text which is subject to hermeneutical investigation. Although
this broader
conception
of a performative text may
evoke fresh
interpretive insight
into the social world of a faith community
and the
personal identity
of its
members,
it also makes the task of hermeneutics more
complex. Meaningful
actions are now included in the intertextual
relationships
of hermeneutical
activity.
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130
Frank Bartleman’s well-known
description
of the
outpouring
of the Spirit
at the Azusa Street Mission illustrates the
scope of intertextuality in the hermeneutical
process
when
meaningful
action is considered as text. Bartleman declared:
“Los Angeles seems to be the place and this the time in the mind of for the
God,
restoration of the church to her former place, favor and … God has to His servants in all
parts
of the world and has sent power. Once more. as of old, they are come up for `Pentecost,’ to go out again into many
of them to Los spoken
Angeles, representing every nation under
Heaven. all the world with the
has from old
glad message
of salvation. The base of
operations
shifted, Jerusalem, for the latter `Pentecost,’ to Los And there is a tremendous.
Angeles.
God-given hunger
for this
experience everywhere.” ”
In order to
grasp
the
meaning
of Bartleman’s characterization of the Azusa Street
outpouring,
a reader needs to
probe
its intertextual connection in at least two directions.
First,
Bartleman’s
description
is connected
hermeneutically
to the social text of the latter “Pentecost” and the
meaningful
action of the
participants
who constitute the text. That social text is what
gives meaning
to Bartleman’s written text. Second,
Bartleman
employs
the text of the Pentecost narrative of Acts 2 as an
interpretive
framework in
constructing
his
report. Understanding
the
meaning
of Bartleman’s
description hermeneutically involves the reader in
tracking
the
interplay between
Bartleman’s written
text,
the social text of
meaningful
action at Azusa Street and the subtext of the Pentecost narrative. If a reader was not aware of the subtext of the Jewish Pentecost of Acts
2,
for
example,
the
meaning
of Bartleman’s
description
and its connection with the
meaning
of the social text
might
be misconstrued to mean that the Pentecostal Movement was once located in Jerusalem but now had moved its “base
of operations” to Los
Angeles.
The hermeneutical
proposals
in all four articles either
explicitly develop
or
implicitly presuppose
the intertextual nature of the interpretive
task. In
fact,
each
argues
or assumes that an intertextual reality
is what makes hermeneutical
activity possible. Israel,
Albrecht and
McNally
chart the broad contours of a Pentecostal hermeneutics based on the intertextual connections between biblical
texts,
the ritual texts enacted in Pentecostal
worship
and the relational texts of the Pentecostal
community. Cargal plays
off the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy
as a subtext in
explaining
the
way
Pentecostals–whether in the
academy,
the
pulpit
or the
pew–have typically gone
about the task of
interpreting
the biblical text. Pliiss
interprets
the event of the Azusa Street Revival from the
vantage point
of a social text in order to induce the reader to
re-experience
the charismatic
spirituality
of
early Pentecostals in the context of an
increasingly
institutionalized Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement.
Joseph Byrd
views Pentecostal
.
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131
preaching
as hermeneutical
activity
that
helps
a
congregation
of listeners to
appropriate
the
meaning
of a biblical text into the text of their
everyday
lives.
These articles share in common an
assumption
that human life itself is textual in nature, and that the task of a hermeneutics is to construe the meaning
of the text of human existence in a way that makes sense. No doubt the
author(s)
of each article would find
specific points
of difference with one another.
However,
if their individual work was compiled
into a
working
definition of a Pentecostal
hermeneutic,
it might
be formulated as follows. A Pentecostal hermeneutic is an interpretive paradigm
which
explains
and understands the
variety
of texts that Pentecostals believe disclose the
meaning
of human life. These texts include written
Scripture,
ritual
enactments,
relational life within a
community
of
discourse,
Christian tradition and ecclesial associations, key
historical events such as the Azusa Street
outpouring of the
Spirit,
and
preaching activity
which translates an ancient biblical
text into
present-tense proclamation.
Not
only
has the
conception
of a text become broader in the hermeneutical
proposals
of Pentecostal
scholars,
but the
conception
of what it means to be an interpreter of texts has also shifted. The shift has been
away
from
describing
the role of an’
interpreter
within the object-subject split
that has characterized the modem
methodological discussion about hermeneutics. To
speak
of text and
interpreter
within the framework of the modern world has meant to
speak
of a text as an object
and an
interpreter
as a
subject.
This
object-subject thinking meant that the text had an
objective meaning
which could be distorted if the
interpreter uncritically
read his or her
subjective experience
into the
meaning
of the text. The solution to this
problem
was for the interpreter
to understand the historical nature of human consciousness. The
interpreter
lived in
history which,
without
exception,
conditioned the
pre-understanding
the
interpreter brought
into the
interpretive
act. There was no
getting
around that fact.
However,
the
interpreter
was reading
a text written
by an
author who also lived in history and within that historical context intended to
say something through
the text. What the author intended to
say
was an
objective
fact discoverable through
historical
investigation
and
competent language study.
Critical historical consciousness thus linked the
objective meaning
of a text to what an author intended to
say
when
writing
or
redacting
a text in its historical
setting.
An
interpreter utilizing
the historical critical
method, therefore,
could
effectively
checkmate his or her own
subjective imputation
of
meaning
on a text
by focusing
on authorial intent. The meaning
was resident in the author’s
intent;
the
interpreter through critical historical
investigation
of the text discovered that
meaning.
While not
denying
the role of the historical critical method as an important component
in arriving at a comprehensive understanding of a
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132
text,
the four articles in this issue move the hermeneutical
agenda
of Pentecostals
beyond
the exclusive connection of
meaning
with authorial intent.
Further,
the notion of an
objective interpretation
of a text that is intended to undercut the
interpreter’s subjective
involvement in construing
the
meaning
of a text is critiqued in all the articles. Wilhelm Dilthey,
Martin
Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer,
Paul
Ricoeur, Jurgen Habermas, among others,
have become
highly
influential dialogical partners
for Pentecostals in
clarifying
the
necessary involvement of the
interpreter
in understanding the
meaning
of a text. Because an act of
interpretation always
involves the
interpreter
in posing questions
to a text, in
interacting
with the
language-world
of a text via the
language-world
of the
interpreter,
and in
articulating
the meaning
of a text in present-tense
discourse,
the
interpreter’s subjective engagement
with an text is an
indispensable part
of the hermeneutical process.
While historical critical consciousness
rightfully emphasized that an
interpreter
lives in
history
and is
thereby
conditioned
by
time and social
location,
the more
telling
factor in a hermeneutical
theory
is that
history
and culture live in the
interpreter.
The
tradition,
the loyalties,
the values and the
particular
communities of discourse of a reader is what
gives
a reader the
capacity
to understand the
meaning
of a text.
Within the context of the Pentecostal tradition, a hermeneutic must function both to
explain
a text and to activate the reader’s
participation in the world
portrayed
in the text. In
keeping
with this Pentecostal conviction, Israel,
Albrecht and
McNally argue
that an
interpreter understands the
meaning
of biblical
texts,
ritual texts and social texts when these texts make a claim on an interpreter about human existence. One of the most fundamental claims is that human life is designed to be lived in an
empowering community
which
provokes
each member to develop
a holistic
spirituality. Cargal
claims that the
paradigm
shift from a modern to a
postmodern age provides
an
opportunity
for Pentecostals to endorse a hermeneutic that
interprets
the biblical text from within the
experiential
world of Pentecostal faith. Pluss reads the historical text of Azusa Street
metaphorically
in order to activate the Pentecostal
community
to recover a
spirituality grounded
in an experience
of the
baptizing power
of the
Holy Spirit. Byrd
believes that a Pentecostal hermeneutic functions to translate biblical texts into a Pentecostal
proclamation
which creates a
symbolic
world in which parishioners
can
interpret
the nature of their
prophetic
witness in the world.
Thus,
the authors of all four articles
agree
that it is legitimate for Pentecostals to
bring
their
experience
with them into the
interpretive act of
understanding texts,
whether the texts are
biblical, behavioral, historical or performative.
Israel, Albrecht, McNally, Cargal,
Pliss and
Byrd,
each in his own way, imply
that the
legitimacy
of this
subjective participation
in
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133
discerning
the
meaning
of a text needs to be
qualified by two important considerations.
First,
a Pentecostal hermeneutic d la Ricoeur presupposes
that an
interpreter
has moved
through
a
stage
of critical historical consciousness in the
process
of
interpreting
a text. There is no
legitimacy
in
uncritically reading
one’s own
subjective experiences into a text in what Ricoeur defines as a first naivete.
Second, a Pentecostal hermeneutic à la Gadamer
presupposes
that the interpreter’s subjective engagement
with the text will be
adequately qualified by
the structure and the content of the text itself Because a text has a fixed
relationship among
its own
signs
and
symbols,
it imposes
its own structure on the
legitimate
reference
range
of meanings open
to an
interpreter.
These two
qualifications already
allude to a shift in the
way
scholars think about the
relationship
between an
interpreter and a text in formulating a Pentecostal hermeneutic.
Following
the lead of Gadamer and
Ricoeur,
the authors of the four articles utilize the notion of “a fusion of horizons” in order to conceptualize
the
relationship
between a text and an
interpreter.
The concept
of a fusion of horizons is crucial in
overcoming
the
faulty dichotomy
which drives a
conceptual wedge
between the
objective meaning
and the
subjective meaning
of a text. As
implied
in the idea of a fusion of
horizons,
Gadamer and Ricoeur are interested in describing how a text and an
interpreter
function
together
in the
production
of meaning. Meaning
is produced at the
point
where the world of the text and the world of the
interpreter conjoin.
In this
conceptual scheme,
the text is a world unto itself with its own
signs, symbols
and structure. Through
its own fixed
relationships
of
signs
and
symbols,
the text points beyond
itself to some referent. The world of the text constitutes its horizon.
Similarly,
the
interpreter
lives in a world of which he or she is conscious. This
reality
of
being-in-the-world
constitutes the horizon of the
interpreter.
When the horizon of the text melds with the horizon of the
interpreter,
the text
gives meaning
to the
interpreter
and the interpreter gives meaning
to the text. In the act of
interpretation,
the interpreter
breaks
through
the horizon and enters into the world of the text. The world of the text
gives meaning
to the world of the interpreter.
But the converse is equally true. In the act of interpretation, the text breaks
through
the horizon and enters the world of the interpreter.
The world of the
interpreter gives meaning
to the text. The text is
appropriated
into the life-world of the
interpreter
and
given
a present-tense meaning.
Israel,
Albrecht and
McNally
show the
importance
of
participatory reading
in
appropriating
the
meaning
of biblical
texts,
ritual texts and social texts into an authentic Pentecostal
community
with a holistic spirituality.
In order to show what these texts
mean,
the three authors follow Ricoeur in
moving beyond explaining
these texts to understanding
these texts in terms of the claims
they
make about the
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134
world and how life should be lived. The claims need to be lived out in real life in order to understand their
meanings. Israel,
Albrecht and McNally
believe that the horizon of the texts and the horizon of Pentecostal
experience conjoin
in the existential confirmation of the claims of biblical
texts,
ritual texts and social texts.
Cargal
notes that the horizon of the Pentecostal
interpreter
of Scripture
has been defined
by
the
evangelicalization
of the Pentecostal Movement. In the
paradigm
shift from a modem to a
postmodern age, Cargal
sees an
opportunity
for Pentecostals to move
beyond
a Fundamentalist hermeneutic and
approach
the biblical text from a horizon which is more
compatible
with Pentecostal
experience.
In a postmodern age,
a biblical text is
interpreted
within the
experiential context of
particular
communities of discourse. An
example
or two might help clarify Cargal’s point.
A liberationist hermeneutic
provides
a unique insight
on what a text means from within a world of poverty and systemic oppression.
A feminist hermeneutic draws the
interpreter
into the world of sexual
objectification portrayed
in a biblical text. In both these
examples,
a
meaning
of a biblical text unfolds
precisely
because the
experience
of the
interpreter
connected with the horizon of a text in a
particular way.
In an
analogous manner,
a Pentecostal hermeneutic would
help
Pentecostals to
portray
the
meaning
of biblical texts from the horizon of a Pentecostal
experience
of the world.
Moreover,
such a commitment would
help
Pentecostals to enter the
postmodern age
with its commitment to
diversity
and
pluralism.
Pliiss
challenges
Pentecostals to
acknowledge
the routinization of the Pentecostal
experience
of the
Spirit
into a formalized doctrine. Pliiss believes that
today’s
Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement needs to recover its earlier
experiential
character. In order to do
so,
Pentecostals need to read
again
the social text of their
history. By conjoining
their world with the social text of Azusa
Street,
Pliiss believes that the Pentecostal-Charismatic
community
can
appropriate
the charismatic spirituality
of
early
Pentecostals.
Byrd
believes that Pentecostal proclamation
is an event which
provides
an
opportunity
for the horizon of a biblical text and the horizon of the
Pentecostal community
to fuse together.
Such an
appropriation
of the
meaning
of a text in the life of the
congregation
and its individual
members, however, requires
that Pentecostal
preachers
receive a
theological
education in a hermeneutical model 6 la Ricoeur. In all the
articles,
the
conception
of “a fusion of horizons” demonstrates the
important, legitimate
and inevitable role
played by
tradition in a
functioning
Pentecostal hermeneutic.
While the four
major
articles in this issue focus on new trends in Pentecostal
hermeneutics, Roger
Stronstad’s review
essay
of Gordon D. Fee’s
Gospel
and
Spirit:
Issues in New Testament Hermeneutics takes
up
a controversial hermeneutical
question
that has been around
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135
for a while. Did Luke intend to teach the so-called Pentecostal hermeneutic? Did Luke in the narrative of Acts,
particularly
in chapters 2,
10 and
19,
intend to teach that the
experience
of
Holy Spirit baptism is
always accompanied
with
glossolalia. Although
Stronstad and Fee share a fundamental commitment to the methods of biblical
criticism, they
differ
sharply
on the normative value of Luke’s narrative for the church
today.
In his
essay,
Stronstad
pinpoints
the differences between his interpretation of Luke and the views
espoused by Fee
in Gospel and Spirit.
Five book reviews and a cumulative index of the first fifteen volumes of Pneuma round out this issue of the journal.
The cumulative index is
organized
in four different
ways
in an attempt
to
provide
maximum service to researchers of the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement. The first index is
arranged according
to the authors of the articles. One hundred and eleven
( 111 ) different authors have contributed to Pneuma over the
past
fifteen years.
The second index is
arranged according
to the titles of the articles.
Anyone doing
research on
specific topics
will find this index particularly helpful.
The titles can be scanned in order to locate articles on a
particular topic.
One hundred and
sixty-two (162)
articles have appeared
in Pneuma over the
past
fifteen
years.
The third index lists the books that have been reviewed in Pneuma
according
to the authors of the books. One hundred and seven
(107)
books have been reviewed in Pneuma over the
past
fifteen
years.
The fourth index lists the articles and the books reviewed
by
volume and issue. Because
many
of the individual issues of Pneuma clustered around a theme,
especially
in recent
years,
this index will be
especially helpful
to
anyone investigating a particular theme.
I am
particularly proud
to
present
this cumulative index in its various formats to the
readership
of Pneuma. Patricia Terrell
began
the work of compiling
the index
during
the
Spring
semester of 1993 when she served as
my
Research Assistant at Southern California
College. Patricia’s initial work was
picked up by Kimberly
Rinker who extended the index
through
the fifteenth
volume, expanded
the index into four different formats and reworked the individual format
style
within each index. Marlon
Dempster proofread
the entire
index,
rechecked the entries in the index
against
the contents of the first fifteen volumes of the
journal
and verified the
accuracy
of the cross-references
among
the four different formats of the index. The members of the
Society
for Pentecostal Studies and the readers of Pneuma are
especially
indebted to Patricia
Terrell, Kimberly
Rinker and Marlon
Dempster
for their collaborative work in compiling “The First Fifteen Years of Pneuma: A Cumulative Index of Volume One
through
Volume Fifteen.”
Murray
W.
Dempster Editor
7
