7 - TWC 7 ‘The Holy Spirit in Latin American Pentecostalism’

Reading Quiz on Theology in the Context of World Christianity

The broad agreement Tennent asserts between evangelicals and Pentecostals is demonstrated by

Pentecostal affirmation of the authority of Scripture, centrality and historicity of Jesus and his cross and resurrection for salvation, and personal call to repentance, conversion, and living a holy life.

When LA based preacher Aimee Semple MacPherson asked ‘Is Jesus Christ the Great I AM? or is he the Great I Was?’ she was underlining a Pentecostal commitment to

believing the full range of New Testament gifts and miraculous manifestations of the Spirit are available today.

Latin American Pentecostalism is highlighted by Tennent because

it is fast growing, and illustrates the fall of Christendom structures, which gives way to a new religious marketplace and a democratization of religious choice.

As theological emphases on Christ, grace and Scripture emerged from the Reformation, some traditions have developed in a cessationist direction, meaning

They deny certain miraculous gifts for today, while open to other work of the Spirit, confining the former to the Apostolic era.

Tennent sees Pentecostalism’s historical roots in Protestant Holiness movements connected to

Wesleyans and Reformed, pietist-inspired Higher Life seekers.

Pentecostalism’s confidence in the everyday supernatural, challenges accommodated Western theologies which

tacitly subscribe to an Enlightenment two-tiered universe where functional deism allows the Spirit to drop down to fill this place everynow and again on our invitation.

Latin America experienced the conjunction of secular rule and church governance described as Christendom, to the effect that

Christian adherence came through territory and birth rather than through repentance and personal conversion.

According to Tennent's deliberately non-mote-seeking perspective, Latin American Pentecostalism stands as the opposite of Christendom power because

it is nonhierarchical, it is found at the margins of society, is driven by dynamic evangelism calling for personal conversion and faith.

A confidence in the Spirit as accompanying ‘God the evangelist’ fits in with

Pentecostal success in poorest sectors of society, where elites have little access and where conversions are followed with committed church planting for communities of belonging.

By using ‘ecumenism’ and ‘ecumenical’ in relation to Pentecostalism, Tennent leans on one of three possible meanings:

a deep spiritual unity around the confession of Jesus, with a shared sense of belonging to him, and commitment to global witness.

It’s controversial for Tennent to suggest that Pentecostals further ecumenism because

Pentecostals in Latin America would never use that term as they identify it with going liberal, mainstream, or Catholic.

Pentecostals contribute most to global theology with their sense of the immediacy of God’s presence and power

reminding theologians that noetic principles must be balanced by ontic principles.