{"id":15869,"date":"2018-01-12T23:11:34","date_gmt":"2018-01-13T07:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=15869"},"modified":"2018-01-13T16:32:23","modified_gmt":"2018-01-14T00:32:23","slug":"evangelicalism-vs-pentecostalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/evangelicalism-vs-pentecostalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Evangelicalism vs. Pentecostalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bebbington in his book Evangelicalism in Modern Britain <\/em>lays out a clear history of the rise, spread, and splintering of evangelicalism in Britain. While I have studied a decent amount of church history, most of my evangelical church history that I\u2019ve studied has been more focused on the USA. How ethnocentric of me. Bebbington shows, of course, how evangelicalism began in England and found it’s way across the Globe. This blog will focus on some of Bebbington’s more important points and will then shift to focus on his emphasis on charismatic evangelicalism since my dissertation will focus on my particular pentecostal tribe.<\/p>\n

Bebbington\u2019s strongest point is the one which was also his broadest stroke. That is when he gave a precise definition of evangelicalism. This is significant because it is a task that seems more difficult today than ever. These definitions are important because they will the faith community draw lines against those who might look a little like us, but are not us. We should be reminded of Jesus warning of a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing as more and more counterfeits are being easily broadcasted through instant access social media. As far as Bebbington\u2019s specific list of four pillars of evangelicalism (conversionism, activism, Biblicism, and crucicentrism) it\u2019s important to note think none one of these four are particular to just evangelicalism, but rather evangelicalism is the specific combination of these four.<\/p>\n

Amongst the rest of this book, Bebbington went into his insights and very specific details of the british evangelical history leading up to today. And Bebbington did cover some very significant highlights of the charismatic movement in evangelical Britain. although still relevant in understanding what actual type of evangelicalism we have inherited. One particular chapter that was of particular use to me was Bebbington\u2019s walkthrough on the rise of the charismatic movement in the 1960\u2019s of England. The Charismatic movement along with the Pentecostal is actually one sect of Christianity that began in the USA (primarily, at least). Bringing the discussion around to Pentecostalism is important because the whole church should be a pentecostal church. That is pentecostal, lower case p, not \u201cPentecostal.\u201d The early church was, after all, pentecostal. It should be our job to that early church was pentecostal and it should be the description of the whole church.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, Jame K.A. White writes in this his book Thinking in Tongues<\/em> about the five tenets of Pentecostalism are White\u2019s list consisted of Radical Openness, Enchanted Theology, a non-dualistic affirmation, an affective epistemology, and an eschatological orientation.[1]<\/a> I bring this up to point to the fact that some theologians, such as Smith, actually categorize Pentecostalism in a different category as evangelicalism. Smith also goes forward to present a distinctly pentecostal worldview and again clarifies that although he thinks this should be the Christian worldview, it is only the worldview of Pentecostals is actually very different than the evangelical Christian worldview, and these two should be viewed differently.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bebbington did describe the charismatic movement is good measure and his explanation of the renewal tied with the rise of postmodernism is spot-on. Additionally, his explanation of the very difficult to understand, Nietzsche, was very clear and helpful to the conversation. Nietzsche was the one who ushered more doubt into the world perhaps than anyone else. But Bebbington wrote like the charismatic movement was evangelicalism becoming a post-modern movement. Many have credited this fact with the explosive numerical growth that Pentecostal\/charismatic have experienced.<\/p>\n

Bebbington said of the Charismatics in Britain that, \u201cexperience was likewise elevated above theology in the charismatic scale of values.\u201d[2]<\/a> It should be pointed out that Pentecostals view experience over theology in many cases, but they do not (at least good ones don\u2019t) elevate their experience over the word of God. In line with the first tenant of Radical openness of God, we see Pentecostal very open to new experiences and to see if God was in it. This is not an absurd notion. Afterall, when the original Pentecost came, there was no precedent for what was happening! Peter and the other disciples must have been very surprised to see tongues of fire come down and hear many different languages spoken at once! Part of the DNA of pentecostals is to be open to God doing the unexpected in our midst, and then after saying\u2026 \u201cOk, That was God\u201d, just as Peter did that first day. And it was this experience which brought Evangelicals into a shared community.[3]<\/a> Even Catholics had charismatics within their ranks.[4]<\/a> This is another way in which pentecostalism\/charismaticism has forked away from mainstream evangelicalism, in that it was able to blend back with the non-protestant and even unify them.<\/p>\n

Within this context one can see the effect evangelicalism has had, as well as some of the unqiue contributions that Pentecostalism produced. Understanding some of the core values of Pentecostals\/charismatics, (like that they value experience over theology) is another factor why my particular pentecostal tribe has not valued higher education as much as other denominations. Ironically though, many pentecostals would say this is a good thing.<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bebbington, David W.\u00a0Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: a History from the 1730s to the 1980s<\/em>. Routledge, 2015.<\/p>\n

Smith, James K. A.\u00a0Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy<\/em>. Grand Rapids, MI, William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2010.<\/p>\n

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Foot Note<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> James K. A. Smith,\u00a0Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy<\/em>\u00a0(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2010), Chap. 1.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> David W. Bebbington,\u00a0Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s<\/em>\u00a0(Routledge, 2015), pg. 242.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid. 243.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid. 247.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bebbington in his book Evangelicalism in Modern Britain lays out a clear history of the rise, spread, and splintering of evangelicalism in Britain. While I have studied a decent amount of church history, most of my evangelical church history that I\u2019ve studied has been more focused on the USA. How ethnocentric of me. Bebbington shows, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,366,1017],"class_list":["post-15869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bebbington","tag-evangelicalism","tag-lgp8","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15869"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15873,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15869\/revisions\/15873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}