Pentecostal Triangle of Primitive Faith

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Dr. Th. Dony K. Donev

The modern call for Primitivism derives from the idea of personal experience

with God. There is yet no truth for and about Pentecostalism that does not emerge from experience. Irrational in thinking and in an intimate parallel to the story of the Primitive Church, Pentecostalism combines the discomfort and weakness of the oppressed and persecuted. It is the story of one and yet many that excels through the piety of the search for holiness and the power of the supernatural experience of Pentecost. It is the call for the reclaiming and restoration of “the faith once delivered to the saints.”

Such an idea of “looking back to the church of antiquity” derives from a Puritan background and is indisputably Wesleyan. In a letter to the Vicar of Shoreham in Kent, Wesley writes that the parallel between the present reality and the past tradition must remain close. For Wesley, the primitive church was the church of the first three centuries. Equality in the community as in the primitive church was the context in which Wesley ministered. Everyone was allowed to preach, both deacons and evangelists, and even women “when under extraordinary inspiration”

Of course, for Wesley, the Primitive Church was restored with the Church of England. The Pentecostal response was quite different, “The Methodists say that John Wesley set the standard. We go beyond Wesley; we go back to Christ and the apostles, to the days of pure primitive Christianity, to the inspired Word of truth.” The main characteristic of restoration was the personal experience of God. This experience was vividly presented by the Wesleyan interpreters in the quadrilateral along with reason, tradition and scripture. Such a scheme, however, may not be fully sufficient to describe the Pentecostal identity, as well as the paradigm of the Primitive Church.

The experience of God in a Pentecostal context carries a more holistic role, which is connected with the expression of the individual’s story and identity in both personal and corporate ecclesial settings. Through the experience then, they become a collaboration of the story of the many, and at the same time remain in the boundaries of their personal identity. The experience of both the individual and the community that holistically and circularly surrounds Pentecostalism is expressed in prayer, power and praxis.

Since Pentecostalism is based on the personal experience of God, prayer as the means of spiritual communication is its beginning. Being the source of spiritual power in the individual’s life it becomes the means of existence within the community of believers. Power derives only from God through a spiritual relationship which expressed through prayer, develops as a factor of constant change. The product is a unique praxis, which in the quest for church holiness and personal morality appeals for redefinition of the original ecclesial purpose and identification with the lives of the first Christians. The triangular formula of prayer, power and praxis is then the basis for Pentecostal theology.

Pentecostals claim primitivism aplenty, conformity to the apostolic experience of Pentecost and the Book of Acts. It affirms that modern Christianity can rediscover and re-appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit, described in the New Testament and particularly in Acts of the Apostles. In a social context, it was a call against public injustice. Globally the Pentecostal movement was a powerful revival that appeared almost simultaneously in various parts of the world in the beginning of the twentieth century. In the United States it occurred during the time of spiritual search.

During the first seventy years of national life of the USA barely 1.6 million immigrants arrived. In 1861-1900 fourteen million entered the country, and it was precisely within the recorded decade of 1901-10, with 8.8 million immigrants, that the Pentecostal movement began. The mass migration was in an immediate connection with the rapid urbanization and industrialization occurring in a chronological parallel. Since first generation immigrants are usually rootless, combined with sociological changes, the context created a search for identity and roots. In America, Pentecostalism came as an answer to this search.

In parallel, the beginning of the Church of God was a call for restoration and a literal return to the Primitive Church. It was The Christian Union committed to “restore primitive Christianity.” In its early years the Church of God focused on four main characteristics of the Church from Acts: (1) great outpouring of the Spirit, (2) great “ingathering of souls,” (3) tongues of fire and (4) spread of the Gospel. Similar to the Early Church, it began in the context of persecution, presence and parousia. While heavily persecuted the Church of God constantly remains in the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit in a firm expectancy of the return of Christ. The Genesis of the Church of God was a restoration of the Pentecostal prayer, power and praxis of the Primitive Church.