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Article Excerpt
Abstract
As the Christian Church endeavours to be faithful to its evangelistic mission, increasingly intense problems arise in international contexts of cultural diversity and religious plurality. Pentecostals, noted for "aggressive evanglesim", are frequently at the forefront of such negative encounters. Walter J. Hollenweger offers Pentecostals a complementary paradigm of "dialogical evangelism" that is sensitive to this, situation without stilling the voice of evangelism. The present project overviews Hollenweger's "radical proposal" and traditional Pentecostal evangelism and its current trends before assessing their compatibility or contradictoriness, and exploring possible appropriation.
Introduction
Swiss theologian and scholar of Pentecostalism and intercultural theology, Walter J. Hollenweger is a prominent analyst and historian of the Pentecostal movement. (1) His prolific writings, including his magnum opus The Pentecostals, (2) have made him a major authority on the movement's history, spirituality and theology. The present article interacts with his thought on Pentecostal evangelism in its current global context of cultural diversity and religious plurality. It arises out of my own active involvement as a Pentecostal Christian in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, and an ever-increasing concomitant awareness of problematic and troubling issues at points where dialogue and evangelism intersect in the world today as the Church endeavours faithfully to fulfil its mission. Specifically, accusations of coerced conversions or unethical evangelism and resultant violent rejection of the Christian message are causes for concern. The track taken here is to overview Professor Hollenweger's exciting insights on "dialogical evangelism" and the character and nature of traditional Pentecostal evangelism and its current trends before assessing whether these are compatible or contradictory, and exploring possible appropriation for practical use.
A Pentecostal evangelism paradigm forthrightly addressing religious diversity
Professor Hollenweger insists Pentecostals need new appraisals of Pentecostalism's relations with pre-Christian cultures and religions, especially in the third world. He thinks non-Christian cultures and traditions have been creatively "taken and transformed" by Pentecostalism. However, he laments that Pentecostals have not acted more intentionally on W.J. Seymour's ecumenism. (3) Hollenweger further says that Pentecostals must come to grips, especially theologically and missiologically, with "bewildering pluralism" within the global movement. He argues that the first Christians were also not "theologically homogeneous", and that could be helpful for Christian thought and practice today. Hollenweger suggests non-Christians may have gifts of healing, and inclusion in the church is becoming vaguer as ethical lines are blurring. He insists that all Christianity and churches, including Pentecostals, are syncretistic in that they take "on board many customs and ideas from our pagan past". But he warns that Pentecostals/charismatics are losing or have lost their original ecumenical vision, though he expresses hope it may yet be restored. In this context, Hollenweger presents what I call his "radical proposal" for Pentecostalism, "dialogical evangelism", based on the encounter of Peter and Cornelius (Acts 10) as a biblical model for evangelism. Hollenweger contends that the Christian apostle and the devout pagan learned from each other as the Holy Spirit worked conviction of sin. (4)
In a significant study of Hollenweger, Lynne Price, in a chapter on Hollenweger's pneumatology, summarizes his prolific writing to introduce us to his overall thought. Price also notes his use of the Acts 10 account of Peter and Cornelius, which for him is as much about the conversion of Peter as it is about the conversion of Cornelius, to declare that the gospel is objective, and stands over against both evangelist and evangelized so that both may together learn of Christ. Otherwise, an evangelist is only a propagandist after all. (5) All Christians should share their experience of Christ with others but the question is how and how to do so without there being any internal contradiction of the message. For Hollenweger, such sharing must be "dialogical and situational", and for this the cross-cultural interreligious encounter of Peter and Cornelius is paradigmatic. (6)
Price further points out that, according to Hollenweger, the understanding and experience of the Spirit in the Old Testament and in non-Western churches indicate the Spirit's work in the world as well as the church. He deplores the weakness of Pentecostal/charismatic pneumatology due to its following the Western Roman Catholic and Protestant version of the filioque, thereby limiting the Spirit to Christ. For Hollenweger, the Spirit-led syncretism of the Old Testament and indigenous non-white churches of the third world today suggests the Spirit's presence in all cultures and religions. Even science (e.g., physics) with its principle of the interchangeability of energy and matter suggests the presence of Spirit in all creation as the vital force of all life, that is, as the Spirit of Life. Accordingly, spiritual discernment looks for the manifestation of the Spirit wherever the Spirit is working "for the common good" (1 Cor. 12:7), even among other religions and traditions, and...
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