Dayton, Donald W. “Keynote Lecture.” Keynote paper presented at the Annual Wesley Studies Symposium, Tyndale University College & Seminary, March 22, 2016. (MPEG-3, 48:24 min.) 1 00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:02.740 Well, it is wonderful to be a part of this 2 00:00:02.770 --> 00:00:07.610 great event, Wesleyans and Pentecostals together. 3 00:00:07.640 --> 00:00:09.250 It's nice to know that we've gotten you 4 00:00:09.280 --> 00:00:13.000 out of the basement and brought you to church. 5 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:15.460 Our histories are so entwined. 6 00:00:15.490 --> 00:00:20.620 It just seemed natural that what is occasionally done in North America amongst 7 00:00:20.650 --> 00:00:25.580 the Wesleyan and Pentecostal learned societies, we might be able to do here. 8 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:28.700 Obviously, whenever anybody blames me in 9 00:00:28.730 --> 00:00:33.260 being too experiential in my theology, I just blame it on the Wesleyans. 10 00:00:33.290 --> 00:00:38.580 So it is good that we are here together to hash this out and find common cause. 11 00:00:38.610 --> 00:00:41.140 So great to be with you today. 12 00:00:41.170 --> 00:00:43.700 If there is any one 13 00:00:43.730 --> 00:00:51.100 individual who has done more for Pentecostals to understand theological 14 00:00:51.130 --> 00:00:55.180 roots, I know of no one other than Donald Dayton. 15 00:00:55.210 --> 00:01:00.820 So we are thrilled in a moment to present to him to you as our keynote speaker. 16 00:01:00.850 --> 00:01:03.540 May this day just be a wonderful day. 17 00:01:03.570 --> 00:01:05.920 Thank you for including us in laying the 18 00:01:05.950 --> 00:01:08.540 structure and appreciate it very much, James. 19 00:01:08.570 --> 00:01:13.260 And although Pentecostals seem to be very glad to take credit for whatever God is 20 00:01:13.290 --> 00:01:17.770 doing anywhere in the world, in this case, it's all the work of the Wesleyan 21 00:01:17.800 --> 00:01:20.620 Committee and James Peddler that has pulled this session off. 22 00:01:20.640 --> 00:01:22.980 So I thank you, particularly James. Thank you. 23 00:01:23.010 --> 00:01:24.800 Thank you. 24 00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:30.850 So I want us to move fairly quickly into Dr. 25 00:01:30.880 --> 00:01:36.040 Dayton's keynote address so that he has time to present. 26 00:01:36.600 --> 00:01:38.420 You should have received a schedule, 27 00:01:38.450 --> 00:01:41.460 however, when you came in, so please take a look at that. 28 00:01:41.490 --> 00:01:45.850 Start thinking about what sessions you want to go to later in the day. 29 00:01:45.880 --> 00:01:49.140 On the back of the schedule is a map 30 00:01:49.170 --> 00:01:54.020 of this level of our campus, and the rooms that we're going to be using are circled. 31 00:01:54.050 --> 00:01:56.660 So you can see there where you need to go. 32 00:01:56.690 --> 00:01:58.700 When we go for lunch, we're going to go 33 00:01:58.730 --> 00:02:02.140 down the hall to the right and downstairs one level. 34 00:02:02.170 --> 00:02:06.380 Or there's also an elevator at the end of that hall, and that will take you down. 35 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:08.140 And there's lunch is provided in your 36 00:02:08.170 --> 00:02:14.140 registration, and there'll be a buffet there, and you can sit wherever you like. 37 00:02:14.170 --> 00:02:18.140 If you're struggling over which presentation to attend, and you really 38 00:02:18.170 --> 00:02:22.450 would like to be in two places at once, we are going to attempt to make audio 39 00:02:22.480 --> 00:02:25.730 recordings of all of the papers and then post them online. 40 00:02:25.760 --> 00:02:27.560 So if you really want to hear Brad Noel, 41 00:02:27.590 --> 00:02:33.040 but you're interested in what John Blenck has to say, you can have it both ways. 42 00:02:33.160 --> 00:02:36.730 Our bookstore is also just down that hallway to the right. 43 00:02:36.760 --> 00:02:40.580 When you leave this room, please visit it at some point today. 44 00:02:40.610 --> 00:02:42.100 They have some copies of Dr. 45 00:02:42.130 --> 00:02:47.140 Dayton's books and other Wesley books that they've gathered together, and Pentecostal 46 00:02:47.170 --> 00:02:50.940 books that you might be interested in, and they have a sale table. 47 00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:52.840 I also just want to mention briefly, we 48 00:02:52.870 --> 00:02:57.340 have an author here today, Grant Gordon, who has written a book on it's. 49 00:02:57.370 --> 00:02:59.060 Whitfield, right? Yes. 50 00:02:59.090 --> 00:03:02.540 If you want to wave grant and he's got 51 00:03:02.570 --> 00:03:07.100 copies of his book here, please seek him out and find out about that book. 52 00:03:07.130 --> 00:03:10.900 It has some very fine endorsements. 53 00:03:10.930 --> 00:03:13.640 So, as Van has already said, we're very 54 00:03:13.670 --> 00:03:17.560 pleased to have Donald Dayton here with us today. 55 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:20.880 When we sat down and said we want to do a 56 00:03:20.910 --> 00:03:24.900 Wesleyan Pentecostal event and we started to think, who should we invite? 57 00:03:24.920 --> 00:03:26.500 He was at the very top of the list. 58 00:03:26.530 --> 00:03:32.980 So we were so pleased that our first choice said yes and agreed to come here. 59 00:03:33.010 --> 00:03:37.300 I'll just read you a little bit about a tribute that was written about Dr. 60 00:03:37.330 --> 00:03:39.520 Dayton a few years ago when he was given 61 00:03:39.550 --> 00:03:43.610 the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Wesleyan Theological Society. 62 00:03:43.640 --> 00:03:46.500 And it says this scholars generally become 63 00:03:46.530 --> 00:03:49.540 great through their various accomplishments and publications. 64 00:03:49.570 --> 00:03:53.340 However, few of them dramatically change the way we think. 65 00:03:53.370 --> 00:03:56.200 Such scholars provide contribute to a 66 00:03:56.230 --> 00:04:00.660 paradigm shift, so to speak, in how we understand the world in which we live. 67 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:02.340 Donald Dayton is a scholar who has 68 00:04:02.370 --> 00:04:08.180 dramatically changed the ways we view Christianity, theology, and ethics, and 69 00:04:08.210 --> 00:04:10.940 not just in the United States, but around the world. 70 00:04:10.970 --> 00:04:14.980 In addition, his influence extends beyond accomplishments within the scholarly 71 00:04:15.010 --> 00:04:17.700 purview of the Wesleyan Theological Society. 72 00:04:17.720 --> 00:04:20.300 He has impacted both church and academy, 73 00:04:20.330 --> 00:04:24.820 mainline and evangelical, Wesleyan and Pentecostal. 74 00:04:24.840 --> 00:04:30.600 Would you please welcome Donald Dayton as he comes to speak to us? 75 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:22.780 Very honored and pleased to get the invitation to be here with you. 76 00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:27.900 Over the years, this area is very familiar to me. 77 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:33.300 I used to come up annually for the Carl Bart Society meetings on whose board I 78 00:05:33.330 --> 00:05:41.220 serve and still continue to serve for a total, I think now of 40 years. 79 00:05:41.250 --> 00:05:50.740 God forbid I should say that in the middle of the night. 80 00:05:50.770 --> 00:05:57.220 I decided to completely reorganize what I was going to say today, making it more 81 00:05:57.250 --> 00:06:03.180 autobiographical and less technical, thinking more about the 82 00:06:03.210 --> 00:06:09.180 diversity of persons attending this symposium. 83 00:06:09.210 --> 00:06:13.500 Perhaps I should also mention that I took a slightly early retirement. 84 00:06:13.530 --> 00:06:16.540 So I've been retired for twelve years, and 85 00:06:16.570 --> 00:06:25.380 I'm not sure that I have kept up well with the literature of both these movements. 86 00:06:25.410 --> 00:06:28.740 But I hope that you will attribute any 87 00:06:28.770 --> 00:06:36.720 incoherences to this last minute reorganization and leave me free of blame. 88 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:49.580 First of all, I want to remind you 89 00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:54.940 of what an extraordinary event a meeting like this is. 90 00:06:54.970 --> 00:07:01.640 And to illustrate that, I'm going to do some autobiographical reflections. 91 00:07:02.520 --> 00:07:10.280 I grew up in the Wesleyan Church, the 92 00:07:10.520 --> 00:07:16.180 Wesleyan Methodist branch, which were the antislavery folks pushed out of the 93 00:07:16.210 --> 00:07:19.900 Methodist Church in the States over the slavery question. 94 00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:25.740 We were the antislavery party, and the majority church thought we were getting in 95 00:07:25.770 --> 00:07:31.760 the way of their advancement and assimilation into American society. 96 00:07:33.760 --> 00:07:36.700 In the Wesleyan Church, 97 00:07:36.730 --> 00:07:44.380 speaking in tongues when I was growing up meant instant excommunication. 98 00:07:44.410 --> 00:07:47.820 My father, who was New Testament scholar 99 00:07:47.850 --> 00:07:53.140 primarily at Asbury Seminary but also elsewhere, wrote articles and books 100 00:07:53.170 --> 00:07:58.680 against the holy against the Pentecostal tradition, explaining that there was no 101 00:07:58.710 --> 00:08:05.400 such gift of tongues in the New Testament as it is commonly perceived. 102 00:08:13.160 --> 00:08:18.940 I remember with Howard Snyder, who, as most of you know, I'm sure, was here 103 00:08:18.970 --> 00:08:25.860 for several years recently in the early seventy s, I attended with him a meeting 104 00:08:25.890 --> 00:08:34.380 of Wesleyan Holiness participants in the Charismatic Renewal at that time. 105 00:08:34.410 --> 00:08:38.460 This was a very small group, 106 00:08:38.490 --> 00:08:44.640 and I have never been in a meeting with such psychologically devastated, brow 107 00:08:44.670 --> 00:08:50.420 beaten leaders who had been driven out of the Nazarene Church, the Wesleyan Church, 108 00:08:50.440 --> 00:08:57.960 the Free Methodist Church for their having moved into the Charismatic Renewal. 109 00:09:00.120 --> 00:09:06.980 Fortunately, a lot of this did not take well with me, 110 00:09:07.010 --> 00:09:14.940 not by intention, but just by I was sort of reacted against the Holiness tradition 111 00:09:14.970 --> 00:09:20.620 and had to find my way out and then back in Christian faith. 112 00:09:20.650 --> 00:09:27.460 And so, as I say, I didn't carry in my bones all of this and my father's 113 00:09:27.490 --> 00:09:36.300 teaching, and I started my theological studies at Yale Divinity School in 1964, 114 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:42.060 just after the event of the Charismatic Renewal at Yale Divinity School. 115 00:09:42.080 --> 00:09:43.940 In the university group. 116 00:09:43.970 --> 00:09:46.060 You can read about that in almost any 117 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:54.140 history of the early Charismatic Renewal, and it was quite an explosive event. 118 00:09:54.170 --> 00:09:59.140 It split the university into three groups. 119 00:09:59.170 --> 00:10:06.100 It spun off several in, a kind of post charismatic burnout who left the faith, 120 00:10:06.130 --> 00:10:09.340 and then it split the university into two groups. 121 00:10:09.370 --> 00:10:15.820 One wing who insisted on the charismatic gifts. 122 00:10:15.850 --> 00:10:22.860 They became a cause celeb in Yale College and became known as the God Squad and 123 00:10:22.890 --> 00:10:28.220 created a lot of havoc in the ministries on Yale campus and so on. 124 00:10:28.250 --> 00:10:33.740 The other party with which I had the most affinity was a more moderate group which 125 00:10:33.770 --> 00:10:39.800 allowed charismatic gifts but did not require them. 126 00:10:40.760 --> 00:10:43.520 I ended up in the university with those 127 00:10:43.550 --> 00:10:49.160 groups and ended up actually rooming with a couple of the guys who had 128 00:10:49.190 --> 00:10:53.140 been a part of that renewal, an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian. 129 00:10:53.170 --> 00:10:58.460 And it was that experience that raised for me the question of the status of the 130 00:10:58.490 --> 00:11:03.720 Pentecostal tradition more widely 131 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:16.420 evolved over a couple of decades in my understanding of all this. 132 00:11:16.450 --> 00:11:19.180 And I think I could tell you 133 00:11:19.210 --> 00:11:23.740 a number of interesting stories, but I don't really have time, although I prefer 134 00:11:23.770 --> 00:11:28.840 often to tell stories, to make theological points. 135 00:11:36.680 --> 00:11:42.580 When the in mid 60s, 136 00:11:42.610 --> 00:11:48.900 both the Society for Pentecostal Studies and the Wesleyan Theological Society, the 137 00:11:48.930 --> 00:11:56.380 constituency as it developed of those two groups left in effect the Evangelical 138 00:11:56.410 --> 00:12:01.660 Theological Society and set out on their own. 139 00:12:01.690 --> 00:12:04.300 But they took with them the evangelical 140 00:12:04.330 --> 00:12:10.980 articulations of the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture, and both the SPS 141 00:12:11.010 --> 00:12:15.340 and the Wts in early years were advocates of that. 142 00:12:15.370 --> 00:12:21.460 This created a lot of difficulty for the new generation who were not able to affirm 143 00:12:21.490 --> 00:12:27.180 those articulations, and so many of us had to wait a few years until both societies 144 00:12:27.210 --> 00:12:32.220 became convinced that they should abandon that formulation and declare somewhat 145 00:12:32.250 --> 00:12:36.420 independence from the evangelical traditions. 146 00:12:36.450 --> 00:12:40.820 So I was finally able to join about 1970, 147 00:12:40.850 --> 00:12:50.540 and I went to an early meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society, met in 148 00:12:50.570 --> 00:12:57.620 Oklahoma City, and one week later the SPS was to have its first meeting outside the 149 00:12:57.650 --> 00:13:04.860 auspices of the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America in Oklahoma City as well. 150 00:13:04.890 --> 00:13:10.420 And by this time I had begun some of my study of Pentecostalism. 151 00:13:10.450 --> 00:13:16.660 And I rather brashly made a motion in that meeting that the 152 00:13:16.690 --> 00:13:22.420 Wesleyan Theological Society send greetings to this new fledgling society 153 00:13:22.450 --> 00:13:27.620 which had followed them out of the Evangelical Theological Society and was 154 00:13:27.650 --> 00:13:32.980 modeling a society after the Wts as their model. 155 00:13:33.010 --> 00:13:38.260 And so I said, it would be nice if we would send fraternal or sororal greetings 156 00:13:38.290 --> 00:13:43.660 to the Society for Pentecostal Studies and encourage them in their work. 157 00:13:43.690 --> 00:13:49.660 As soon as I made the motion, deathly silence fell over the Wts. 158 00:13:49.690 --> 00:13:52.220 Nothing happened for several minutes. 159 00:13:52.250 --> 00:13:54.460 Finally, someone seconded the motion, 160 00:13:54.490 --> 00:13:59.780 making clear that they did not support it, but so that it could be discussed. 161 00:13:59.810 --> 00:14:01.620 It was discussed. 162 00:14:01.650 --> 00:14:02.980 It was voted down. 163 00:14:03.010 --> 00:14:05.540 I was the only one that voted for it. 164 00:14:05.570 --> 00:14:12.660 And then immediately there was a motion that we should expunge from the minute any 165 00:14:12.690 --> 00:14:17.600 hint that we had ever contemplated such an act. 166 00:14:18.040 --> 00:14:23.380 This was the level of antipathy between the SPS and the Wts. 167 00:14:23.410 --> 00:14:28.040 The Westland Theological Society and Society for Pentecostal Studies. 168 00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:34.140 Soon after that, in 72, 169 00:14:34.170 --> 00:14:37.940 I began my doctoral studies at the University of Chicago. 170 00:14:37.970 --> 00:14:42.100 And following, as I've indicated, my interest in Carl Bart, I intended to write 171 00:14:42.130 --> 00:14:46.800 a dissertation on Carl Bart's doctrine of sanctification. 172 00:14:47.680 --> 00:14:49.780 In the process of taking what they called 173 00:14:49.810 --> 00:14:57.140 a contextual minor at the University of Chicago, I studied Early Oberlin College, 174 00:14:57.170 --> 00:15:01.420 which resulted in a book which has just been reissued in a second 175 00:15:01.450 --> 00:15:06.420 edition 40 years now after its original publication. 176 00:15:06.450 --> 00:15:11.620 And I discovered in exploring Early Oberlin College that I had accidentally 177 00:15:11.650 --> 00:15:19.880 fallen into keys to understand the emergence of Pentecostalism. 178 00:15:20.160 --> 00:15:21.260 I didn't know what to do. 179 00:15:21.290 --> 00:15:23.280 I consulted with the chair of my 180 00:15:23.310 --> 00:15:28.780 department, the Greek Catholic theologian David Tracy, and he said, Don. 181 00:15:28.810 --> 00:15:33.500 He said, Everybody and their uncle in Europe is writing a dissertation on Bart, 182 00:15:33.530 --> 00:15:37.700 and it's in the DNA of their bones to understand it. 183 00:15:37.730 --> 00:15:42.860 You'd be much better off and make a much greater contribution to scholarship. 184 00:15:42.890 --> 00:15:47.220 He says, There may be half a dozen people who have any idea what you're talking 185 00:15:47.250 --> 00:15:51.500 about about this mid 19th century development, and you should pursue that. 186 00:15:51.530 --> 00:15:53.580 Well, this caused a great deal of 187 00:15:53.610 --> 00:15:58.940 reorientation in my self image, but I decided to pursue that. 188 00:15:58.970 --> 00:16:06.320 And the result of that was the book theological Roots of Pentecostalism. 189 00:16:07.280 --> 00:16:12.120 Took me about 15 years to write that book. 190 00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:15.580 I built up a personal collection 191 00:16:15.610 --> 00:16:20.480 of which only a part but 10,000 volumes were collected. 192 00:16:20.510 --> 00:16:23.640 For the writing of that dissertation, 193 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:29.620 it meant that I had to not have a bibliography when the book was published, 194 00:16:29.650 --> 00:16:32.460 because it would have taken up the whole book. 195 00:16:32.490 --> 00:16:38.280 So if you take a look at it, you'll see that it's a bibliographic essay. 196 00:16:52.400 --> 00:16:54.140 I'm going to go on a little bit more with 197 00:16:54.170 --> 00:16:59.300 this story just to explain how we came to the point of 198 00:16:59.330 --> 00:17:02.700 having, as we do now, joint SPS W 199 00:17:02.730 --> 00:17:11.290 Theological Society meetings in the 1980s. 200 00:17:11.320 --> 00:17:14.660 I began because of my interest in SPS, 201 00:17:14.690 --> 00:17:19.940 in the Pentecostal tradition, to attend SPS, 202 00:17:19.970 --> 00:17:24.980 and it was a somewhat difficult position because I am not a Pentecostal. 203 00:17:25.010 --> 00:17:29.010 I have never had charismatic experience so on. 204 00:17:29.040 --> 00:17:34.090 A lot of people assume I'm a Pentecostal because of my book and my advocacy. 205 00:17:34.120 --> 00:17:36.840 I've been interviewed as a Pentecostal, 206 00:17:36.870 --> 00:17:40.620 and they discover in the middle of the interview that I'm not. 207 00:17:40.650 --> 00:17:43.530 One issue of Modern Reformation was 208 00:17:43.560 --> 00:17:46.940 completely rewritten because they were fascinated with the interview. 209 00:17:46.970 --> 00:17:53.770 So they changed the theme of the meeting and had it on has the reform tradition, 210 00:17:53.800 --> 00:18:03.530 hijacked evangelicalism and left out the Pentecostal and Holiness traditions. 211 00:18:03.560 --> 00:18:10.620 But I could not be a member because I was not a clear Pentecostal. 212 00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:12.530 They struggled with that for a long time, 213 00:18:12.560 --> 00:18:20.140 and I was very moved in the mid 80s when they changed the Constitution so that I 214 00:18:20.170 --> 00:18:26.220 could be a full member and then be eligible for election to office. 215 00:18:26.250 --> 00:18:32.050 And I was absolutely stunned when they proposed me as a President Elect 216 00:18:32.080 --> 00:18:37.740 of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, the first, and I think still the only non 217 00:18:37.770 --> 00:18:43.660 Pentecostal, non charismatic to be president of that society. 218 00:18:43.690 --> 00:18:50.010 I knew immediately, I was sure that if I accepted that invitation, that would be 219 00:18:50.040 --> 00:18:54.810 the end of my career in the Wesleyan Theological Society. 220 00:18:54.840 --> 00:19:00.960 Not that I have calculated those kinds of career paths on that kind of basis, but I 221 00:19:00.990 --> 00:19:04.090 was so moved to be invited that I said yes. 222 00:19:04.120 --> 00:19:05.880 And 223 00:19:06.040 --> 00:19:12.570 I was absolutely stunned when Bill foffle, the librarian at Asbury Seminary, 224 00:19:12.600 --> 00:19:20.620 manipulated behind the scenes to invite the SPS to meet at Asbury Seminary 225 00:19:20.650 --> 00:19:27.010 and arranged behind the scenes for me to be elected President Elect of the Society 226 00:19:27.040 --> 00:19:31.400 for Pentecostal I mean, of the Wesleyan Theological Society. 227 00:19:31.840 --> 00:19:36.740 I could not have believed in a million years that this could ever have happened. 228 00:19:36.770 --> 00:19:38.940 And I've sometimes suggested, jokingly, 229 00:19:38.970 --> 00:19:43.620 that my tombstone should read that for one week because of the schedule. 230 00:19:43.650 --> 00:19:50.700 I was president of both the Wts and the SPS only a dozen years after my ill fated 231 00:19:50.730 --> 00:19:55.940 motion at the Wesleyan Theological Society in Oklahoma City. 232 00:19:55.970 --> 00:20:02.920 And at that meeting we began a I had 233 00:20:03.080 --> 00:20:09.360 the Saturday afternoon session of the Wesleyan Theological Society devoted to 234 00:20:09.390 --> 00:20:15.120 the relationship between the Holiness and the Pentecostal traditions. 235 00:20:15.360 --> 00:20:19.040 Howard Snyder gave a presentation out of 236 00:20:19.070 --> 00:20:24.570 his book The Divided Flame, arguing that the two emphasis of the two traditions 237 00:20:24.600 --> 00:20:27.810 were complementary and need to be brought into dialogue. 238 00:20:27.840 --> 00:20:31.180 And one of my favorite papers of all time 239 00:20:31.210 --> 00:20:37.080 was given by Susie Stanley, who used the biography of Alma White, the founder of 240 00:20:37.110 --> 00:20:40.420 the Pentecostal Union, Pillar of Fire movement. 241 00:20:40.450 --> 00:20:45.700 Her husband became a Pentecostal, and they separated over that question. 242 00:20:45.730 --> 00:20:47.220 He went to England. 243 00:20:47.250 --> 00:20:49.570 She took a boat over to England to try to 244 00:20:49.600 --> 00:20:56.140 reconcile and wrote a book of model and poetry entitled My Heart and My Husband. 245 00:20:56.170 --> 00:21:02.440 And the story of their marriage is, in effect, the story of the alienation of the 246 00:21:02.470 --> 00:21:07.050 two movements and the difficulty that they've had relating to each other. 247 00:21:07.080 --> 00:21:09.330 Anyway, we began to push the questions of 248 00:21:09.360 --> 00:21:17.330 whether we could meet together, and that was the beginning of that. 249 00:21:17.360 --> 00:21:21.940 A few years later, Cheryl Bridges Johns and Susie Stanley, both of whom had been 250 00:21:21.970 --> 00:21:28.980 president of their respective societies, met at a meeting, interestingly enough, of 251 00:21:29.010 --> 00:21:33.940 the Faith and Order Commissioner of the World Council of Churches in Santiago de 252 00:21:33.970 --> 00:21:39.620 Compostela in Spain, and they decided to propose actual joint meetings. 253 00:21:39.650 --> 00:21:45.560 And soon thereafter that came into eventuality, 254 00:21:45.800 --> 00:21:53.980 so that now the two societies meet jointly as like this meeting every five years. 255 00:21:54.010 --> 00:22:00.120 And two years from now, we will meet again in Cleveland, Tennessee, at the Church of 256 00:22:00.150 --> 00:22:07.160 God headquarters, where we held our first joint meeting a couple of decades ago. 257 00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:19.240 Now, let me talk just a little bit 258 00:22:19.270 --> 00:22:22.330 about the book theological roots. 259 00:22:22.360 --> 00:22:29.760 To expound the relationship theologically between the two traditions. 260 00:22:30.520 --> 00:22:36.760 As I've indicated, this book took about 15 years of research. 261 00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:44.780 It it traces a development from the time of Wesley 262 00:22:44.810 --> 00:22:51.220 and his struggles with his designated successor, John Fletcher, over certain 263 00:22:51.250 --> 00:22:56.180 certain theological questions, particularly about whether Pentecost 264 00:22:56.210 --> 00:23:01.810 should be described as an event of entire sanctification in the Wesleyan tradition. 265 00:23:01.840 --> 00:23:04.090 Wesley rejected that notion. 266 00:23:04.120 --> 00:23:06.140 Fletcher advocated it. 267 00:23:06.170 --> 00:23:13.500 These two streams circulated and caused trouble for about a century. 268 00:23:13.530 --> 00:23:16.700 And finally, the Fletcherian articulation 269 00:23:16.730 --> 00:23:24.050 won out starting in mid 19th century to the end of the century, when 270 00:23:24.080 --> 00:23:30.480 Pentecostalism emerged, in effect, out of that struggle. 271 00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:35.520 Let me risk 272 00:23:35.840 --> 00:23:45.660 my current articulation of what was going on at that .1 of the problems with the 273 00:23:45.690 --> 00:23:51.180 sort of Fletcherian articulation, the Pentecostal articulation of the Methodist 274 00:23:51.210 --> 00:23:57.620 tradition was that Wesley's theology was derived 275 00:23:57.650 --> 00:24:02.740 primarily from the Johanne literature, a couple of verses in Hebrews and so on. 276 00:24:02.770 --> 00:24:06.570 But it was primarily a Johanne vision. 277 00:24:06.600 --> 00:24:09.220 The late 19th century 278 00:24:09.250 --> 00:24:16.810 Holiness Movement began to preach Wesleyan themes out of the Book of Acts. 279 00:24:16.840 --> 00:24:20.290 The problem was it didn't work. 280 00:24:20.320 --> 00:24:25.660 Acts is not particularly congenial to the Wesleyan themes. 281 00:24:25.690 --> 00:24:31.260 It comes as a shock to most people, for example, that the word love and any of its 282 00:24:31.290 --> 00:24:36.380 cognitive never appears in the Book of Acts. 283 00:24:36.410 --> 00:24:41.860 There is one text in chapter 15 purifying their Hearts by Faith, which has a 284 00:24:41.890 --> 00:24:47.050 somewhat Wesleyan is amenable to the Wesleyan interpretation. 285 00:24:47.080 --> 00:24:52.420 So I view what happened then as distinctly unstable. 286 00:24:52.450 --> 00:24:55.140 It couldn't go on like that. 287 00:24:55.170 --> 00:24:59.220 And so what happened was that the 288 00:24:59.250 --> 00:25:06.140 Pentecostals or the wing that would become Pentecostalism began to preach out of the 289 00:25:06.170 --> 00:25:09.860 Book of Acts with the themes that were in the Book of Acts. 290 00:25:09.890 --> 00:25:17.500 And the Pentecostalism then broke out about 1900. 291 00:25:17.530 --> 00:25:19.860 And as I say, did a much more successful 292 00:25:19.890 --> 00:25:23.290 job of the interpretation of the Book of Acts. 293 00:25:23.320 --> 00:25:27.260 And I'm sure you know the story from then. 294 00:25:27.290 --> 00:25:29.330 During the next century, Pentecostalism 295 00:25:29.360 --> 00:25:35.780 went from nothing to becoming the second largest tradition in the Christian fold. 296 00:25:35.810 --> 00:25:38.090 Most estimates run 297 00:25:38.120 --> 00:25:44.020 half a billion adherence to Catholicism's, 298 00:25:44.050 --> 00:25:50.200 1 billion adherence the Westlands. 299 00:25:51.400 --> 00:25:53.480 A lot of the readers of my book assumed 300 00:25:53.510 --> 00:25:58.640 that I was trying to break down the defenses of the holiness movement to 301 00:25:58.670 --> 00:26:03.020 Pentecostalism, and I was advocating moving toward Pentecostalism. 302 00:26:03.050 --> 00:26:07.020 If anything, I was advocating that the holiness movement, 303 00:26:07.050 --> 00:26:11.860 with its sort of failure to find an articulate interpretation of the Book of 304 00:26:11.890 --> 00:26:17.680 Acts, ought to move back to more Westland motif. 305 00:26:22.920 --> 00:26:29.090 Well, the Wesleyan tradition, holiness tradition 306 00:26:29.120 --> 00:26:35.760 in particular, was in effect shunted to a sidetrack 307 00:26:36.600 --> 00:26:41.780 by this experience in conflict with Pentecostalism and 308 00:26:41.810 --> 00:26:49.260 lost a lot of its dynamic in its pyrophobia or pentecostal phobia, which it 309 00:26:49.290 --> 00:26:55.400 withdrew from the themes of pentecostalism 310 00:26:56.720 --> 00:27:00.620 so that the Holiness movement as such was 311 00:27:00.650 --> 00:27:06.050 relegated to the 9th place in the Christian tradition. 312 00:27:06.080 --> 00:27:08.700 Demographically, it's number nine, whereas 313 00:27:08.730 --> 00:27:13.960 Pentecostalism has become demographically number two. 314 00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:15.760 Now, 315 00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:22.570 I expected theological risks of Pentecostalism to be controversial, 316 00:27:22.600 --> 00:27:28.440 but I had no idea how vehement the response would be. 317 00:27:28.920 --> 00:27:32.740 This was particularly true in the holiness movement. 318 00:27:32.770 --> 00:27:39.040 People hated my book, and I will use as an illustration the Nazarene's Church of the 319 00:27:39.070 --> 00:27:42.800 Nazarene and Timothy Smith, its great historian. 320 00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:46.940 The problem was 321 00:27:46.970 --> 00:27:51.420 that three places in the articles of religion of the Nazarene Church, it 322 00:27:51.450 --> 00:27:56.260 indicates that entire sanctification comes by the baptism of the Spirit. 323 00:27:56.290 --> 00:27:59.500 And part of the results of my dissertation 324 00:27:59.530 --> 00:28:05.940 work and book was that Wesley rejected this position. 325 00:28:05.970 --> 00:28:08.460 And once Timothy Smith made me mad. 326 00:28:08.490 --> 00:28:10.840 So I said in public that he was closer to 327 00:28:10.870 --> 00:28:17.620 Pentecostalism than he was to Wesley in his theology of late 19th century, more 328 00:28:17.650 --> 00:28:21.220 Pentecostalized articulation of the Wesleyan tradition. 329 00:28:21.250 --> 00:28:25.140 This was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. 330 00:28:25.170 --> 00:28:31.420 And he, in effect, spent the rest of his life trying to refute me. 331 00:28:31.450 --> 00:28:33.660 I think he did not succeed, 332 00:28:33.690 --> 00:28:40.880 but he launched a vicious campaign that lasted maybe two decades. 333 00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:49.740 He assumed, as I said, that I was trying to destroy the holiness movement by 334 00:28:49.770 --> 00:28:52.460 breaking down the barriers to Pentecostalism. 335 00:28:52.490 --> 00:28:54.440 And he called secret meetings of the 336 00:28:54.470 --> 00:28:59.810 Christian Holiness Association leadership about how they could put a stop to me in 337 00:28:59.840 --> 00:29:05.320 my efforts to destroy the holiness movement. 338 00:29:06.040 --> 00:29:07.700 I understand 339 00:29:07.730 --> 00:29:15.700 that at the Nazarene Theological Seminary, my book was forbidden to be discussed 340 00:29:15.730 --> 00:29:20.600 for at least three years for fear it would split the Church of the Nazarene into 341 00:29:20.630 --> 00:29:27.020 those that accepted my analysis and those who tried to buy into the Timothy Smith 342 00:29:27.050 --> 00:29:31.380 articulation of the development of the kind of 343 00:29:31.410 --> 00:29:34.760 Pentecostal articulation of Wesleyan theology. 344 00:29:36.320 --> 00:29:42.780 And for a decade, Timothy Smith would propose one or maybe two papers to the Wts 345 00:29:42.810 --> 00:29:50.120 program, all designed to refute my theological articulation. 346 00:29:52.440 --> 00:29:58.290 I'm told that he even bought a cottage in the Cotswold in england to be near Oxford. 347 00:29:58.320 --> 00:30:04.660 So every summer he could do research to prove that the Pentecostal and Nazarene 348 00:30:04.690 --> 00:30:09.090 articulation was appropriate reading of Wesley. 349 00:30:09.120 --> 00:30:15.720 And as I say, he published several books going after me. 350 00:30:16.600 --> 00:30:23.420 I said, by my judgment at least, he failed in that I recently was at 351 00:30:23.450 --> 00:30:31.500 Asbury, and the head of the Nazarene College in Australia indicated that. 352 00:30:31.530 --> 00:30:38.260 Now, most Nazarenes agreed with me, but it was a pitch battle for a couple of decades 353 00:30:38.290 --> 00:30:44.860 over these questions, because, in a sense, the Nazarene tradition in effect had 354 00:30:44.890 --> 00:30:48.330 articulated itself over against Pentecostalism. 355 00:30:48.360 --> 00:30:51.240 And it was originally the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene. 356 00:30:51.270 --> 00:30:56.480 But very early on, Pentecostal was dropped from the name of the church. 357 00:30:58.400 --> 00:31:07.420 The Pentecostal response was also very, 358 00:31:07.450 --> 00:31:10.460 very negative, somewhat to my surprise. 359 00:31:10.490 --> 00:31:15.050 And here I'm going to illustrate this with some incidents from the Assemblies of God. 360 00:31:15.080 --> 00:31:19.330 And I have in mind in particular the work of Edith Bloomhoffer, who is more or less 361 00:31:19.360 --> 00:31:25.620 the semi official or maybe even official historian of the Assemblies of God. 362 00:31:25.650 --> 00:31:27.800 As I was writing my dissertation, I used 363 00:31:27.830 --> 00:31:36.050 to send her chapters, and she never responded in like manner. 364 00:31:36.080 --> 00:31:37.940 And when she finished her dissertation, 365 00:31:37.970 --> 00:31:41.860 she instructed Harvard not to release it to anybody. 366 00:31:41.890 --> 00:31:46.020 And I had to send a spy into the 367 00:31:46.050 --> 00:31:52.980 Central Bible College to make a photocopy of the copy she had deposited there and 368 00:31:53.010 --> 00:31:59.050 smuggle it out and send it to me so that I could understand what she was doing. 369 00:31:59.080 --> 00:32:09.680 Now, these are harsh words, but I think in many ways her dissertation is dishonest. 370 00:32:09.840 --> 00:32:16.980 She was writing on the Reformed roots of Pentecostalism. 371 00:32:17.010 --> 00:32:22.600 She uses figures like AB Simpson, who was 372 00:32:22.630 --> 00:32:26.040 a Canadian Presbyterian originally, and DL. 373 00:32:26.040 --> 00:32:27.800 Moody to illustrate this. Well, DL. 374 00:32:27.830 --> 00:32:34.120 Moody was a Methodist originally, a Methodist layman, and he 375 00:32:36.440 --> 00:32:42.660 was approached by two Free Methodist ladies to say that your preaching lacks 376 00:32:42.690 --> 00:32:45.540 power, and we would like to pray for you with power. 377 00:32:45.560 --> 00:32:47.600 And then he had this famous experience in 378 00:32:47.630 --> 00:32:51.180 Wall Street which launched him into an international career. 379 00:32:51.210 --> 00:32:59.500 Now, Edith never mentions that experience, the role with the Free Methodist ladies. 380 00:32:59.530 --> 00:33:05.320 She traces back in all these half dozen figures to where if she went another two 381 00:33:05.350 --> 00:33:08.260 or three years, you would see the holiness influence. 382 00:33:08.290 --> 00:33:10.330 But she stops before you get to that. 383 00:33:10.360 --> 00:33:15.290 So, like AB Simpson, she traces back as Canadian Presbyterian, but never mentions 384 00:33:15.320 --> 00:33:21.280 the Holiness Evangelist, which drew him in to the Holiness movement. 385 00:33:23.560 --> 00:33:26.420 I think it's also true 386 00:33:26.450 --> 00:33:30.330 that she never really grasped the radicality of my argument. 387 00:33:30.360 --> 00:33:33.570 I'm not arguing that the Wesleyan Holiness 388 00:33:33.600 --> 00:33:38.500 movement was one of the influences in bringing about Pentecostalism. 389 00:33:38.530 --> 00:33:41.220 I'm arguing that it was the determined 390 00:33:41.250 --> 00:33:47.540 influence, and that this is to be seen in a chapter, the 391 00:33:47.570 --> 00:33:50.780 chapter on healing, which most people seem to ignore. 392 00:33:50.810 --> 00:33:52.810 But I consider it the capstone of my 393 00:33:52.840 --> 00:33:57.220 argument where I demonstrate that the rise of the healing movement 394 00:33:57.250 --> 00:34:01.570 I demonstrate this both historically and theologically, historically, 395 00:34:01.600 --> 00:34:07.180 that each figure in the early healing movement went through a series of crises 396 00:34:07.210 --> 00:34:12.100 conversion, sanctification and then raised the question about healing. 397 00:34:12.130 --> 00:34:16.020 And that I argue that theologically 398 00:34:16.050 --> 00:34:19.060 the development was it was a radicalization of holiness. 399 00:34:19.090 --> 00:34:24.960 Soteriology that if I can be saved in a moment from the guilt of sin and if I can 400 00:34:24.990 --> 00:34:29.690 be saved in the moment from the power of sin and entire sanctification, can I be 401 00:34:29.720 --> 00:34:34.690 saved from the effects of sin in a moment in an experience of divine healing? 402 00:34:34.720 --> 00:34:37.260 As I say, every one of those figures shows 403 00:34:37.290 --> 00:34:43.170 that theological pilgrimage so that the healing movement was 404 00:34:43.200 --> 00:34:48.580 originally not so much a gift of the Spirit as it was so theological. 405 00:34:48.610 --> 00:34:54.130 Healing was part of the salvation that God provided for his people. 406 00:34:54.160 --> 00:34:56.040 And it contradicts a lot of the 407 00:34:56.070 --> 00:35:01.620 stereotypes of both Pentecostals and the holiness movement by 408 00:35:01.650 --> 00:35:07.100 asserting that their vision of salvation includes the body and this world. 409 00:35:07.130 --> 00:35:13.540 And it's not just a vision of salvation in heaven or beyond this world. 410 00:35:13.570 --> 00:35:15.980 I think this should be the center of 411 00:35:16.010 --> 00:35:21.920 theologizing in the Pentecostal and holiness traditions. 412 00:35:24.320 --> 00:35:29.320 Also in the Assemblies of God tradition 413 00:35:30.320 --> 00:35:36.500 they claim to be followers of William Durham's finished work theology that 414 00:35:36.530 --> 00:35:44.340 developed in Chicago after about a decade of Pentecostalism. 415 00:35:44.370 --> 00:35:46.580 The problem with that is, if you read the 416 00:35:46.610 --> 00:35:52.130 Articles of Religion or Fundamental Truths of the Assemblies of God until mid 20th 417 00:35:52.160 --> 00:35:58.500 century, their article on sanctification was called Entire Sanctification. 418 00:35:58.530 --> 00:36:01.780 This blows the mind of most Assemblies of God types. 419 00:36:01.810 --> 00:36:04.100 And as I understand it, what was going on 420 00:36:04.130 --> 00:36:09.210 was that the people in the Assemblies of God believed an entire sanctification. 421 00:36:09.240 --> 00:36:12.060 They just disagreed about how you got there. 422 00:36:12.090 --> 00:36:15.420 Some taught a second blessing in the Wesleyan tradition. 423 00:36:15.450 --> 00:36:19.340 Some taught that you got it in conversion. 424 00:36:19.370 --> 00:36:23.320 Now, the Articles of Religion of the assembly 425 00:36:23.350 --> 00:36:28.500 of God have been rewritten several times to make it more appropriate approximate to 426 00:36:28.530 --> 00:36:34.020 a sort of baptistic or evangelical doctrine of sanctification. 427 00:36:34.050 --> 00:36:39.420 Whereas actually I tend to follow a doctoral dissertation of Larry Farkis done 428 00:36:39.450 --> 00:36:42.380 at Southern Baptist Seminary in which he argued. 429 00:36:42.410 --> 00:36:50.170 He calls Durham's position zinzendorphian, that you get everything at conversion, 430 00:36:50.200 --> 00:36:53.620 but that you get entire sanctification at conversion. 431 00:36:53.650 --> 00:36:57.440 I think 95% or more of the Assemblies of 432 00:36:57.470 --> 00:37:02.740 God people who claim to be Durhamites don't understand Durham and therefore they 433 00:37:02.770 --> 00:37:09.240 misunderstand their relationship to the holiness movement. 434 00:37:09.360 --> 00:37:18.380 I've puzzled a long time as to why this duramite stream of the Pentecostal 435 00:37:18.410 --> 00:37:23.860 tradition dislikes the holiness movement so much. 436 00:37:23.890 --> 00:37:30.260 And as I reflect on this antipathy, 437 00:37:30.290 --> 00:37:35.300 I think it has two sources the Assemblies of God in the United States. 438 00:37:35.330 --> 00:37:42.780 And I'm going to use strong language lust to be evangelicals and lust 439 00:37:42.810 --> 00:37:47.130 to escape the disapprobrium that they experience widely. 440 00:37:47.160 --> 00:37:50.130 As for being Pentecostals by retooling 441 00:37:50.160 --> 00:37:55.880 themselves as evangelicals, they also, on the other side, tend to 442 00:37:55.910 --> 00:38:00.740 think of holiness movement almost entirely in terms of behavioral patterns. 443 00:38:00.770 --> 00:38:06.520 So that holiness means no wedding rings, 444 00:38:08.120 --> 00:38:13.170 no makeup, long skirts, black stockings, et cetera. 445 00:38:13.200 --> 00:38:15.130 And I'll be blunt. 446 00:38:15.160 --> 00:38:19.460 I think in the case of Edith, who may have spent her life struggling to get out from 447 00:38:19.490 --> 00:38:27.900 underneath these inhibiting holiness codes for her behavior has come to hate 448 00:38:27.930 --> 00:38:33.620 the holiness movement so much over those behavioral standards that she cannot abide 449 00:38:33.650 --> 00:38:42.860 the thought that holiness movement is the major source of the pentecostal movement. 450 00:38:42.890 --> 00:38:44.620 But anyway, 451 00:38:44.650 --> 00:38:53.740 I want to finally make just a few comments about what I consider to be misreadings of 452 00:38:53.770 --> 00:38:56.460 both the holiness and the Pentecostal tradition. 453 00:38:56.490 --> 00:39:01.380 I think one common cliche almost is that they are both 454 00:39:01.410 --> 00:39:05.300 numerological movements emphasizing the Holy Spirit. 455 00:39:05.330 --> 00:39:08.060 I think this vastly overstates that question. 456 00:39:08.090 --> 00:39:14.740 I think they are both in profound ways, christological in their orientation 457 00:39:14.770 --> 00:39:19.280 took me a long time to work my way out from under the inherited understandings of 458 00:39:19.310 --> 00:39:22.100 Wesley's theology as essentially numerological. 459 00:39:22.130 --> 00:39:25.640 And they began when I began to notice things like 460 00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:30.650 in the Plain account, wesley says that an entire sanctification 461 00:39:30.680 --> 00:39:36.540 is having the mind of Christ in you and walking in the way that Jesus walked. 462 00:39:36.570 --> 00:39:39.100 He says that over and over and over again. 463 00:39:39.130 --> 00:39:42.500 And the language of an encounter with the 464 00:39:42.530 --> 00:39:47.780 Spirit is, I think, almost totally foreign to Wesley's theology. 465 00:39:47.810 --> 00:39:50.210 And we need to do our work and to explore 466 00:39:50.240 --> 00:39:54.620 the theme of this conference with those kind of questions in mind. 467 00:39:54.650 --> 00:39:59.900 When Wesley began to articulate the meaning of entire centurion, he did it in 468 00:39:59.930 --> 00:40:06.260 his preferred expression of perfect love, and he moved immediately to the twofold 469 00:40:06.290 --> 00:40:12.020 commandment of Jesus the love of God and the love of neighbor to express his 470 00:40:12.050 --> 00:40:18.680 understanding of the nature of the height of Christian experience. 471 00:40:20.640 --> 00:40:28.640 But I think the case can be made similarly for Pentecostalism. 472 00:40:29.840 --> 00:40:32.540 I had no intention of arguing this, but my 473 00:40:32.570 --> 00:40:37.580 friends in Cleveland, Tennessee, the Church of God, Cleveland, say often in my 474 00:40:37.610 --> 00:40:44.340 book that I have demonstrated the Christocentric nature of Pentecostalism. 475 00:40:44.370 --> 00:40:49.620 I say I had no intention to argue that, but it was a product of my using Amy 476 00:40:49.650 --> 00:40:55.420 Semple Mcpherson's Foursquare gospel jesus is Savior, Baptizer, Healer, and Coming 477 00:40:55.450 --> 00:41:00.860 King as the center of my analysis of the theology of Pentecostalism. 478 00:41:00.890 --> 00:41:03.820 The point is that it is always Jesus as 479 00:41:03.850 --> 00:41:10.300 the actor enabled by the Holy Spirit, not the Holy Spirit as the actor. 480 00:41:10.330 --> 00:41:14.420 And I think those themes are often suppressed. 481 00:41:14.450 --> 00:41:19.360 And I'll never forget an experience that I had in an early society of Pentecostal 482 00:41:19.390 --> 00:41:23.820 studies meeting in Cleveland, Tennessee, where I was sitting in the college chapel 483 00:41:23.850 --> 00:41:29.170 listening to the Pentecostal choir sing profoundly moving experience. 484 00:41:29.200 --> 00:41:31.460 And suddenly listening to that, I said, 485 00:41:31.490 --> 00:41:37.380 you know, this is a Jesus piety, not a Holy Spirit piety. 486 00:41:37.410 --> 00:41:39.690 But I think we need to think profoundly 487 00:41:39.720 --> 00:41:43.380 about those questions, because I think that leads to a lot of confusion if one 488 00:41:43.410 --> 00:41:50.440 doesn't qualify that numerological, I have two more statements, and then I'm done. 489 00:41:54.400 --> 00:41:56.120 Often 490 00:41:56.320 --> 00:42:00.520 there is a tendency to suggest that both Pentecostalism and 491 00:42:00.550 --> 00:42:04.720 the Wesleyan tradition stand in the tradition of mysticism. 492 00:42:05.040 --> 00:42:07.120 I was astounded as I got. 493 00:42:07.150 --> 00:42:14.480 Into Wesley to discover that Wesley did not like mysticism at all. 494 00:42:14.600 --> 00:42:21.130 And this is clear in his interaction with Luther, in that he 495 00:42:21.160 --> 00:42:25.690 was friendly to Luther after the Aldersgate experience, which was based on 496 00:42:25.720 --> 00:42:30.500 a reading of the Luther's preface in the Book of Romans. 497 00:42:30.530 --> 00:42:34.900 When he actually got around to reading Luther, he was horrified. 498 00:42:34.930 --> 00:42:37.820 He read the commentary on Galatians, he 499 00:42:37.850 --> 00:42:40.500 called it blasphemous, et cetera, et cetera. 500 00:42:40.530 --> 00:42:43.580 And he says that the commentary 501 00:42:43.610 --> 00:42:52.210 on Galatians is tinged with mysticism throughout, obviously a negative judgment. 502 00:42:52.240 --> 00:42:55.460 Now, I think he doesn't say exactly what he had in mind. 503 00:42:55.490 --> 00:43:01.020 I think he meant that a danger of mysticism. 504 00:43:01.050 --> 00:43:05.960 Every enemy that he had, he called Antonomian 505 00:43:06.120 --> 00:43:11.860 Calvinists were Antonomian against the law because of one saved, always saved. 506 00:43:11.890 --> 00:43:15.300 Lutherans were Antonomian because they 507 00:43:15.330 --> 00:43:19.820 separated law and gospel and faith and works and so on. 508 00:43:19.850 --> 00:43:25.940 Mysticism was Antonomian because it seemed to advocate it was possible to have union 509 00:43:25.970 --> 00:43:33.720 with God apart from law, fulfillment of the law, ethics and so on. 510 00:43:33.920 --> 00:43:36.740 So I think one should be somewhat nervous 511 00:43:36.770 --> 00:43:40.420 about that particular kind of articulation. 512 00:43:40.450 --> 00:43:42.860 And I think Wesley's response to 513 00:43:42.890 --> 00:43:48.080 experience was much more restrained and much more much different. 514 00:43:52.160 --> 00:43:57.060 So I've come to doubt whether both Pentecostalism and the Wesleyan tradition 515 00:43:57.090 --> 00:44:01.540 should be interpreted in terms of traditions of experience. 516 00:44:01.570 --> 00:44:03.960 I told James Peddler when he asked me to 517 00:44:03.990 --> 00:44:08.820 be here, I said, I'm not sure I'm the best keynote speaker for the way you've set up 518 00:44:08.850 --> 00:44:11.420 the questions in the theme of the conference. 519 00:44:11.450 --> 00:44:18.940 And I certainly reject the more extreme expressions of this. 520 00:44:18.970 --> 00:44:22.900 I'm a little friendlier to the more moderate, but I'm thinking of Harvey Cox, 521 00:44:22.930 --> 00:44:30.580 who likes to think of Pentecostalism as a primal religious experience. 522 00:44:30.610 --> 00:44:34.180 And in the case of interpretation of Korean Pentecostalism, which is so 523 00:44:34.210 --> 00:44:40.210 important for him, he tips toward the dependence of Korean Pentecostalism on 524 00:44:40.240 --> 00:44:45.060 shamanism and other things out of this kind of experiential interpretation. 525 00:44:45.090 --> 00:44:47.540 More moderate and much more sympathetic. 526 00:44:47.570 --> 00:44:54.000 I'm much more sympathetic to Walter Hollandeger's articulation of. 527 00:44:54.040 --> 00:44:59.240 He was concerned primarily out of his ten years or so working in the World Council 528 00:44:59.270 --> 00:45:07.840 of Churches with the condescension of the established churches 529 00:45:07.870 --> 00:45:15.020 to Pentecostalism, viewing it as an a theological experiential movement. 530 00:45:15.050 --> 00:45:20.540 And he was trying to defend Pentecostalism in that kind of context by 531 00:45:20.570 --> 00:45:26.300 affirming different styles of theologizing and so on. 532 00:45:26.330 --> 00:45:32.940 I had occasion to discuss with him on several times the question of the status 533 00:45:32.970 --> 00:45:38.920 of theology in the articulation of Pentecostalism, and he did not like my 534 00:45:38.950 --> 00:45:42.100 dissertation, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism. 535 00:45:42.130 --> 00:45:47.500 He had to admit that my four themes occurred regularly in Pentecostalism, but 536 00:45:47.530 --> 00:45:51.920 he did not want to say that they constituted theology. 537 00:45:55.160 --> 00:45:59.480 As I say, I'm sympathetic to Holland Vega's concern to find a way to articulate 538 00:45:59.510 --> 00:46:03.210 the significance of Pentecostalism in the large ecumenical movement. 539 00:46:03.240 --> 00:46:05.540 But I think he chose the wrong path. 540 00:46:05.570 --> 00:46:12.540 And I chose instead to try to articulate an implicit theology of Pentecostalism, to 541 00:46:12.570 --> 00:46:16.340 argue that it was as sophisticated as other traditions. 542 00:46:16.370 --> 00:46:19.380 It could be developed in academic theology 543 00:46:19.410 --> 00:46:24.580 and could be defended articulately, as we see. 544 00:46:24.610 --> 00:46:30.780 Sometimes it occurs to me we can't exactly compare Lutheranism after 545 00:46:30.810 --> 00:46:35.720 five centuries of life in the universities to Pentecostalism born in the Azusa 546 00:46:35.750 --> 00:46:41.820 Street, stable fairly, but after only a century, we have 547 00:46:41.850 --> 00:46:47.300 rather exciting, profound Pentecostal theology being articulated frank Mackey, 548 00:46:47.330 --> 00:46:55.180 Amos Young, and on and on down the list of figures, and profoundly so. 549 00:46:55.210 --> 00:46:57.200 So I think we should continue the 550 00:46:57.230 --> 00:47:01.680 trajectory of the theological interpretation of Pentecostalism and argue 551 00:47:01.710 --> 00:47:10.380 that it has a reading of New Testament and Christian theology that 552 00:47:10.410 --> 00:47:15.620 is as profound, as important as other readings. 553 00:47:15.650 --> 00:47:17.620 I sometimes think both the Wesleyan 554 00:47:17.650 --> 00:47:24.380 movement and the Pentecostal movement have a theological inferiority complex and want 555 00:47:24.410 --> 00:47:30.180 to bring their traditions into dialogue with the larger Christian tradition by 556 00:47:30.210 --> 00:47:35.210 appending Wesleyan or Pentecostal themes to somebody else's theology. 557 00:47:35.240 --> 00:47:37.740 So you have Reformed articulations, you 558 00:47:37.770 --> 00:47:41.300 have process theology articulations, you have whatever. 559 00:47:41.330 --> 00:47:43.940 And I think this may be the greatest 560 00:47:43.970 --> 00:47:49.620 temptation to both the Wesleyan and the Pentecostal tradition and a failure of 561 00:47:49.650 --> 00:47:52.980 confidence in their own sources, in their own tradition. 562 00:47:53.010 --> 00:47:58.180 So my own calling would be to pursue that 563 00:47:58.210 --> 00:48:04.680 line of the interpretation of Pentecostal and holiness wesleyan theologies on the 564 00:48:04.710 --> 00:48:10.260 basis of its own sources and as a significant tradition 565 00:48:10.290 --> 00:48:14.300 with much to contribute to the larger Christian tradition. 566 00:48:14.330 --> 00:48:15.880 So thank you very much.