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| September 2002 Issue of the Pneuma Informer |  |
The September 2002 Pneuma InformerIn this issue:
What's New at www.PneumaFoundation.org On-line Articles:
Also, be sure to check out the "What's New" section on the Pneuma Foundation homepage. New articles and other features are being added regularly. Have a website you would like linked to the Pneuma Foundation? Write Webmaster Dave Driggs with your suggestion. Or use the on-line form to submit your suggestion: links.jsp#link. Come visit soon. Write to Member Services with any comments or questions you have about the website or the Pneuma Informer. Reports from Around the World Traditional African American Churches Embrace "Neo-Pentecostalism" Traditional black churches are being touched by the Spirit, but the move is not being welcomed in all parts of the African American Christian community where it has sparked concern that historic involvement in social issues is being lost. Pentecostal historian Vinson Synan told The Baltimore Sun that a third of mainline black Baptist and Methodist churches—comprising some 5 million people—are estimated to have embraced "neo-Pentecostalism," which the newspaper described as "a powerful mix of Spirit-filled worship and a philosophy of black empowerment." Almost all African American megachurches—churches with more than 2,000 members—are part of the movement, epitomized by the national convention of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship that recently drew around 20,000 people to Baltimore. While "the spiritual phenomenon...is reviving congregations and creating megachurches," it has also "prompted a debate about the nature and mission of the black church," the Sun said. On one side are ministers who want to change social systems, and on the other, ministers who focus on transforming the person. "My fear is that somebody will get the wrong message and see church as celebrating rather than serving," said Vernon Dobson, longtime pastor of Union Baptist Church in West Baltimore. "Never shout any higher than you can serve. Shout all you want. But let it be measured by your service." Dobson added: "For all of our high-powered music and beautiful sanctuary, I wouldn't be surprised if I went away from here, and they got a little 'shake and bake' and wouldn't replace this other stuff. Because it's easier. 'Shake and bake' is much easier." Dennis V. Proctor Sr., pastor of Pennsylvania African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church in West Baltimore, told the newspaper that some churches had held out against the rise of neo-Pentecostalism, trying to "maintain their old tradition of staunch, rigid spirituality," but they were "dying on the vine." H. Walden Wilson II, pastor of 3,000-member Israel Baptist Church in East Baltimore, changed the church's worship style while maintaining traditional Baptist teaching. "Had I continued that old, conservative, traditional style of worship," he told the Sun, "...we would have died in the wilderness." Marion C. Bascom, retired pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church and a leader in the civil rights movement, said he did not see the black church "as creatively vigorous in the continuing of the civil rights struggle." He added: "The churches that are not the most vigorous are those who are a happy crowd." Proctor said that some civil rights-focused ministers were frustrated that "we are not making as many placards, we're not holding as many rallies. But on the other hand, we're having many more revivals and teaching sessions and seminars, trying to equip our people to be family, to have sanctity of family, have respect and reverence for the house of God and their people of God. And the balance is absolutely necessary." For Frank M. Reid III, pastor of Baltimore's Bethel AME Episcopal Church, the black church "lost its balance" when social action became the emphasis. "Now, what the principles of this movement have done is to help us regain the balance between spirituality and social action." Neo-Pentecostal churches run community development projects, housing and small business programs, and outreaches that offer alcohol and drug counseling and job training, the Sun reported. Source: Charisma News Service 8/26/2002. Used with permission. Muslims Come to Christ Everyday Online "'Achmed', an ex-Muslim and now Christian, meets Muslims from all over the world every day in Internet chatrooms," writes Mark Buchanan of Derek Prince Ministries. Achmed and his friends report that Muslims are very open to the Gospel, especially since the events of 11 September 2001. Achmed recently shared the Gospel with Muslims from Sweden, Kuwait and Canada in a chatroom; the man from Sweden decided to follow Jesus, and only a few days later, boarded a plane to visit Achmed and have fellowship with his new brother. Some 50 Muslims take part in the discussions every day, and have the opportunity to work through Derek Prince's Arabic Bible course. According to Buchanan, it can be realistically estimated that in future, up to 80 Muslims could get to know Jesus through these Internet forums each day. Source: Web Evangelism Bulletin Issue 56 (Sept 02) www.web-evangelism.com. Find Derek Prince Ministries online at: www.derekprince.com Liberia: fasting & prayer saves nation A missions leader for a West African country embroiled in a civil war for more than 10 years says fasting and prayer has saved the nation. James Cuffee, director of the 2,000-member Christ Evangelical Fellowship Ministries in Liberia, told Christian Aid Mission (CAM) that his country was spared further devastation by a united prayer gathering earlier this year when all the churches closed their doors for three days of fasting and prayer. On the first Sunday after the fast, 75,000 people gathered in a stadium of Monrovia—the capital—to pray, including President Charles Taylor, cabinet members and foreign diplomats. "As we were praying, the presence of the Lord came down and filled the stadium," Cuffee told CAM. "It touched the president, and he fell flat on his face on the platform and started crying out to God in a prayer of confession for himself and the nation. All the ministers on the platform joined in with weeping." At the close of his prayer, Taylor stood and said: "Today I am not the president of this nation. Jesus is the president. I've turned the country over to Jesus." Within days, soldiers were able to drive rebel forces, which had advanced to within 20 miles of Monrovia, back toward Guinea 200 miles to the north. Source: Charisma News Service 8/28/2002. Used with permission. Special Report on the European Pentecostal Theological Association By Geir Lie The 24th annual EPTA (European Pentecostal Theological Association) conference was held on the campus of Continental Theological Seminary, located in Sint-Pieters Leeuw, Belgium - just a few miles outside the city of Brussels. More than 60 individuals attended the conference. The conference theme, "Pentecostal Education in the 21st. century: Promises and Challenges", was initiated by special guest speaker Dr. Allan H. Anderson from Birmingham University. His paper, on "Pentecostal-Charismatic Spirituality and Theological Education in Europe from a Global Perspective", was, as he himself noted, "an extensively modified version of his keynote paper given at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma, March 2001, and published as "The Fury and Wonder ? Pentecostal-Charismatic Spirituality in Theological Education", Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 23:2, Fall 2001, 287-302. Two quotations from Dr. Anderson's excellent paper follows: A serious and extensive revision of Pentecostal history needs to be done, in which the enormous contributions of the as yet unnamed indigenous pioneers is properly recognized, so that US American classical Pentecostals in particular shed their often-heard assumption that Pentecostalism is a made-in-the-USA product that has been exported to the world.The next paper, on "Would Jesus have sent his disciples to Bible College today?" was presented by JEPTA (the Journal of the Evangelical Pentecostal Theological Association) editor Dr. Keith Warrington of Regents Theological College, UK. Additional papers included:
Excerpts from the Summer 2002 (Vol 5, No 3) issue of the Pneuma Review The Pneuma Review is a quarterly printed journal of ministry resources and theology for Pentecostal and charismatic ministries and leaders. For more information, please see the Pneuma Review How to Subscribe page. From "Workmen or Captives? Avoiding the Snare of Subjectivity" by Dave Harvey . . . A Context for Truth Most Christians are probably comfortable with the idea that the foundation of theology is the Bible. By itself, that statement leaves us free to interact with Scripture in a way that can seem fairly autonomous. It places the primary emphasis, appropriately, on an individual relationship with God through his Word. But do we as readily accept the testimony of Scripture itself that the foundation of the Bible is ... the Church? "If I am delayed," Paul wrote to Timothy, "you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15). Paradoxically, although truth is indeed the foundation of the church (Eph 2:20), the church is also a foundation for truth. The sense here is that truth must be anchored and applied within the local church. Without a church community to provide a practical context for the application of truth, truth would merely be a profound but impractical philosophy. A cool idea, and nothing more. But truth applied is truth that has meaning and that protects us from deception. Truth applied is truth preserved. That's why the church is such a brilliant idea! God could have just left us with a body of knowledge. Instead, he ordained a context where truth can be applied in this life as we prepare for the next. And what if we fail (or refuse) to become Paul's "good workmen," to reclaim the mind, and to cultivate biblical discernment? Funny you should ask ... This Present Darkness In September 1520, almost three years after launching the Reformation, Martin Luther fired another volley into the Roman Catholic camp. With sagacity destined to incite further controversy, he penned "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church," a booklet that drew scathing analogies between the Babylonian captivity of Israel and the rule of Rome in Luther's day. According to Luther, both Babylon and Rome had made forcible entries into the land, integrated themselves into the culture of God's people, polluted the theological well, and neutralized the faith of believers. If Luther were alive today, what might he entitle his next booklet? My guess is, "The Subjective Captivity of the Church." I define this captivity as the tendency to exalt experiences, feelings, impressions, or emotions over the Word of God. This captivity does not eliminate or reject God's Word, it simply relocates its authority to the periphery. Once disconnected from a source of ultimate authority, subjectivized Christians suffer gradual dislocation from sound doctrine, increasing loss of discernment, and choices that drift inevitably toward their own sinful drives. Far from being a necessary evil, emotions, affections, and desires are vital to the Christian life, for they supply our passion for God and help us to love God with "all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength." But we must never confuse vitality with authority. The strength of some sense or emotion must never become the sole determinant of our decisions or actions. Everything must bow to the Word of God. Consider the Christian executive who divorces his wife because he "lost that lovin' feelin'" yet rediscovers it in the arms of an attractive coworker. Or the sister from church who insists God confirmed her engagement to an unbeliever because she "sensed" God's pleasure in this relationship (her friends note with concern that she has had this same "sense" with respect to three other guys!). Or the couple that suddenly and mysteriously disappears from their local church of four years simply because they "felt impressed" to move on. All these share one tragic similarity - they have been imprisoned within a subjective view of the church. This "subjective captivity" of the church is the awful but predictable fruit of a Christian culture that is not diligent to correctly handle the Word of truth. Yet errors are rarely new, only recycled. This one goes back to a garden, a serpent, and a couple in the valley of decision. . . . * Read the rest of this article in the Summer 2002 issue of the Pneuma Review. From "The Secret Codes in Matthew: Examining Israel's Messiah" Part 6: Matthew 5:21-7:29, by Kevin M. Williams . . . Chapter Six Of the available English translations, the King James Version seems to get closer to the literal Greek as we enter chapter six. "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven (Matthew 6:1).This reads slightly differently in the NASB, "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men." The NIV renders this verse "Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men." Here, the Greek for "righteousness" is eleemosune, literally "alms." By translating this word here as "righteousness," the NASB and NIV translators/interpreters seem to have captured some of the Jewishness of this verse. This same word, eleemosune, is translated "alms" in verses 2, 3, and 4. Only in verse 1 have they chosen to translate it as "righteousness." The Hebrew equivalent for eleemosune is tzedaka, which means both "charity" and "righteousness." In the synagogues, giving alms is considered a righteous deed. With that said however, any liberty they have taken with the literal Greek would appear to be consistent with the intent of Yeshua's teaching. Already we have seen in chapter five that Yeshua was not anti-Torah, but rather was very concerned with its deeper spiritual principles. It was not merely keeping them in the physical realm that mattered, it was the intent of the heart that touched God Almighty. This same theme carries through in chapter six. Anyone can give alms (vv. 1-4). Anyone can pray (vv. 5-8), and anyone can fast (vv. 16-18). One might even say, "Look at the Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists - they give alms, they pray, and they fast. What makes their deeds any different from your own?" We live in a world run amok with slogans and campaigns. Have they leaked into our ministries? My mailbox would say yes. Every week I am bombarded with letters talking about all the great things being done for the poor (and asking for money). There is a barrage of newsletters about prayer, to pray and to be prayed for (and asking for money). I get email and posted mail encouraging me to join others in fasting (and asking for money). Are these men, women, and organizations doing good works? Without question. I imagine that was true in Matthew chapter six as well. But the fanfare trumpets (6:2) and street corners (6:5) have been replaced with television, slick four-color brochures, and interactive web sites. In every age and every season we need to examine our true motives and actions and ask ourselves, "Are we working from the flesh or from the heart?" . . . * Read the rest of this article in the Summer 2002 issue of the Pneuma Review. Prayer Requests
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