The Precedence of Theology over Experience

16/4/2016

In the Beginning of Pentecostal Movement There Was a Theology(Chang-soung Lee).pdf

  

In the Beginning There Was a Theology:

The Precedence of Theology over Experience

in Pentecostal Movement

 

 

Chang-Soung, Lee

 

 

 

I. Introduction

 

Did Pentecostal Movement start with experience, or with theology? Some people have erroneously insisted that Pentecostalism started with experience, and then theology followed. And experience first or priority theory has been produced revisionism which has tried to break off the intrinsic relationship between the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues which is the nucleus of Pentecostalism. But, in fact, Pentecostalism began not with experience, but with Bible study for a theological theme. In other words, Pentecostalism started with theology, and then experience followed. Pentecostal Movement was born with the process: 1) theological Bible study (to give answer to the theological thematic question: “What is the Bible evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit?”), 2) extraction of a theological hypothesis from the theological bible study (speaking in tongues), 3) experience (speaking in tongues), the confirmation of the hypothesis and establishment of the principle through the experience. In the beginning of Pentecostal Movement, theology preceded experience. There was a theology in the beginning! True Pentecostal theology can be unfolded upon the right awareness of theology precedence or priority in Pentecostal movement.

As the first step, this writing will examine the wrong opinion which has insisted experience first theory, and the product of the opinion, revisionism. And then, it will confirm theology first theory. This work will be accomplished by analyzing the process through which Charles F. Parham started Pentecostal Movement and searching the views which grasp theology precedency correctly. As a result, experience priority and revisionism will be refuted.

 

 

II. False Opinion: Experience First

 

There are people who have intentionally asserted that Pentecostalsim started with tongue experience, and then, after experience it developed theology. It can be said that the origin of experience first opinion might be a New Testament theologian, G. Fee. Classical Pentecostals have insisted that Spirit Baptism accompanying speaking in tongues, the Pentecostal experience of Acts is the norm which believers today should follow. But an American, Gordon Fee regarding such experience of Acts as only a normative or normal thing, went out beyond the border of Classical Pentecostalism. And he wrote, “in general the Pentecostals’ experience has preceded their hermeneutics. In a sense, the Pentecost tends to exegete his experience.”

A pro-Pentecostalist, Dawk-Mahn Bae, a historical theologian, said that after observing speaking in tongues of Agnes Ozman, Parham became to recognize speaking in tongues as the definite evidence of the Spirit Baptism, and put the basis of Pentecostal theology through such process. He also said that she began to speak in tongues, and then, interpreting the speaking as the initial evidence of the Spirit Baptism, he produced the unique Pentecostal doctrine distinguished from Methodism and Holiness movement. And he definitely wrote that modern Pentecostal movement was not born naturally as a result of biblical and theological speculation, but the experience of speaking in tongues went first, and next biblical and theological debates followed.

Experience first insistence in Pentecostal movement has strongly presented itself especially in the stream which has taken W. J. Seymour as the father of Pentecostal movement. For example, W. Hollenweger who established Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies at Birmingham University traced the origin of Pentecostal movement only up to black Seymour, and put the movement under the influence of black oral culture. According to him the cause of rapid growth of Pentecostal movement was not a unique doctrine, but orality and narrativity of theology and witness. Such Hollenweger’s inclination came from his denying the fact that the founder of doctrinal basis, Parham was the father of Pentecostal movement.

A member of Swiss Reformed Church, Jean-Daniel Plüss had studied Azusa Revival, and insisted that in Pentecostalism experience occurred first, and then theology followed. He gave the present, the statement: “In the beginning there was an experience and a testimony, then came an explanation in the form of a theological construct,” to experience first theory. Quoting from Plüss, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, a Finish professor of Fuller Theological Seminary, put the distinctiveness of Pentecostalism on orality. Evaluating early North American Pentecostalism, Allan Anderson, who succeeded Hollenweger, asserted, “In its beginnings, Pentcostalism in the western world was an ecumenical movement of people claiming a common experience rather than a common doctrine.”

Such a false experience first theory is pairing with experience priority insistence. Keith Warrington, an UK Elim Pentecostalist in Regents Bible College, said that because these days core doctrines are not unified and different with one another in worldwide Pentecostal circles, a theological doctrine can not be the core of Pentecostalism. So, defining the relationship between Pentcostalism and experience with the phrase, “Experience: The sina qua non of Pentecostalism,” he made experience the necessary condition of Pentecostalism rather than doctrine. About the distinctive of Pentecostal theology, he argued that “although there are many differences in theological beliefs and practices, the emphasis on experience is central.” And he asserted that Pentecostal currents “are not creedal or theological movements.”

Pseudo experience first theory is necessarily confronted with the problem of criterion for discernment. A British Catholic Charismatic priest, Peter Hocken, with trying to insert discernment between experience and theological doctrine, drew a deceiving line: “experience → discernment → doctrine.” However, if we have an experience without the criterion, and then attempt to discern the experience, we shall be divided after diverse opinions for setting criterion. on the contrary, if we have an experience with a fixed theological criterion, we will not face difficulty for examining the genuineness of the experience.

Ah! Frank D. Macchia, a representative systematic theologian among Classical Pentecotalists, has been contaminated by experience first theory. He has a illusion that Pentecostal movement had its beginning with an experience of speaking in tongues, and after that experience until now, has striven to search theological meanings. For him, Pentecostal speaking in tongues was not begun from a theological doctrine, but from an experience. Probably, the doctrine which he mentioned means “Statement of Fundamental Truths” of Assemblies of God. He made such a mistake because he missed the fact that theology was at the start of Pentecostalism.

 

It is important to explore further the conviction that we have moved away from the proper place and immediacy of tongues as an experience by formalizing its connection with Spirit baptism in the form of a doctrine. Tongues did not begin as a doctrine among Pentecostals, but as an experience that was expected to accompany Spirit baptism for obvious reasons explained above. The link between tongues and Spirit baptism did not begin as a doctrine either, but as a testimony that implied an integral relationship between the experience of Spirit baptism and the symbolism of tongues. All that the doctrine did was to provide a formal statement of this relationship in a language that can be corporately agreed upon.

 

Experience first tendency is producing Revisionism compelling classical Pentecostalists to change their theological doctrine according to their changed experiences. on Catholic Sacramental theology of Karl Rahner and E Schillebeeckx, Frank D. Macchia took spiritual reality(Spirit Baptism) as something which was in the visible sign(speaking in tongues) and was experienced through the visible sign in the process of signification. However, for him, the physical evidence did not need to be speaking in tongues. Pentecostalists had taken out the liking pin for connecting the evidence to tongue from the Acts pattern. But Macchia rejected the connection as a fixed law. For Macchia, “evidence” was too scientific, so he did not use “evidence.” He took experience rather than theological doctrine as the beginning of Pentecostal movement. He threw away the theological term, “evidence” which had joined speaking in tongues to Spirit baptism firmly, and then took up only “sign.” His choice made the connection very weak, and at last he was swept away by the wave of Revisionism.

 

Spirit baptism is not just about tongues. We cannot lock Spirit baptism into a glossolalic straight-jacket so that the former becomes inconceivable apart from the latter. But viewed in the context of our discussion, Spirit baptism is fundamentally and integrally about what tongues symbolize. As such, the initial-evidence doctrine has value even though it requires theological reflection and revisioning.

 

 

III. The Fact: Theological Bible Study First

 

It can be said that at the first Jerusalem Pentecost, experience preceded, and then doctrine and theology followed. David Du Plessis, who was called Mr. Pentecost through letting WCC know Pentecostal movement, said that in the lives of Apostles the experience of Pentecostal Spirit baptism went first, after that experience Apostles developed the doctrine and theology, and they had experiences but no doctrine. Surely, the experience of speaking in tongues at the first Pentecost was what they could not anticipate. But, at least, the doctrine of Spirit baptism except speaking in tongues had existed before the first Pentecost. John the Baptist proclaimed that Jesus should baptize with the Spirit and Fire (Matt. 3:11), Jesus taught the coming of the Spirit to his disciples in detail (John 14, 16), and He commanded them to wait for receiving the Spirit baptism (Acts. 1:4-5). It is better to say that the Apostles had a doctrine of the Spirit baptism in some measure before Pentecostal experience than to say that they had no doctrine. Therefore, it will be reasonable to state that at the Apostolic Pentecost, on the one hand, experience preceded theology from the standpoint of speaking in tongues, but on the other hand, theology preceded experience from the standpoint of the Spirit baptism.

However, Modern Pentecostal Movement began not with experience but with the establishment of a theological hypothesis from a bible study for a theological subject and the proof of the hypothesis through experience. Pentecostal movement broke out through abstraction of theological principal inductively from reading the Bible which contained the witnesses and theology of Apostles who already experienced speaking in tongues attached to the Spirit baptism. Such precedence of theology can be traced well in the writings of Charles F. Parham, the Father of Modern Pentecostal Movement, and others. In October, 1900 he established Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas. There was just one textbook in the School. The text was the Bible.

 

On Oct. 15, 1900, we were led to open in Topeka, Kansas, a Bible School which became widely known sometime later as “the College of Bethel.” Its unique features and teachings became subjects of the daily papers throughout the land. Its only text-book was the Bible; its only object utter abandonment in obedience to the commandments of Jesus, however unconventional and impractical this might seem to the world today.

 

The aim of the school was to know the Bible in heart rather than head, and to obey literally all the commandments that Jesus gave. In other words, the aim was to interpret the Bible literally and to understand it through experience.

 

Our purpose in this Bible School was not to learn these things in our heads only but have each thing in the Scriptures wrought out in our hearts. And that every command that Jesus Christ gave should be literally obeyed.

 

Lilian Thistlethwaite, one of the students of the school, explained the method of the Bible study. After selection of a theological subject, they examined the verses of the Bible related to the subject, recited the verses in front of the class, and prayed for assurance of the message. Besides Bible study, Parham taught through lectures. He instructed 40 students about theological subjects: repentance, conversion, consecration, sanctification, divine healing, and the second coming. And the students took examinations in the subjects in December, 1900. A question was brought upon one subject. The question was, “What is the Bible evidence of the Baptism of the Spirit?” At that time, various movements such as Holiness movement took shouting and jumping etc. as the evidence of the Spirit baptism. But for Parham, they fell short of Acts 2. So he gave the students an assignment.

 

In December of 1900 we had had our examination upon the subject of repenteance, conversion, consecration, sanctification, healing and the soon coming of the Lord. We had reached in our studies a problem. What about the 2nd Chapter of Acts? . . . Having heard so many different religious bodies claim different proofs as the evidence of their having the Pentecostal baptism, I set the students at work studying out diligently what was the Bible evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

 

The students of Bethel Bible School wrestled with the Bible. They presented the results of their study to Parham who returned from a three days revival meeting. The answers of them were unanimous. They concluded that the Bible evidence of the Spirit baptism was speaking in tongues.

 

Leaving the school for three days at this task, I went to Kansas City for three days services. I returned to the school on the morning preceding Watch Night services in the year 1900. At about 10 o’clock in the morning I rang the bell calling all the students into the Chapel to get their report on the matter in hand. To my astonishment they all had the same story, that while there were different things occurred when the Pentecostal blessing fell, that the indisputable proof on each occasion was, that they spake with other tongues.

 

On the night of that day, about 75 people gathered together. About 22 o’clock 30 minutes, Agnes N. Ozman demanded Parham to lay his hands on her head. She wanted to receive the Spirit baptism and go abroad for mission. At first, he rejected to lay his hands on her because he himself had no experience of speaking in tongues. But he put himself under the Name, Jesus, and laying his hands on her head, began to pray. only after his few words, Ozman started to speak in Chinese.

 

About 75 people beside the school which consisted of 40 students, had gathered for the watch night service. A mighty spiritual power filled the entire school. Sister Agnes N. Ozman, (now LaBerge) asked that hands might be laid upon her to receive the Holy Spirit as she hoped to go to foreign fields. At first I refused not having the experience myself. Then being further pressed to do it humbly in the name of Jesus, I laid my hand upon her head and prayed. I had scarcely repeated three dozen sentences when a glory fell upon her, a halo seemed to surround her head and face, and she began speaking in the Chinese language.

 

Three days later Parham at last received the Spirit baptism with speaking in tongues. As already mentioned, he had never spoken in tongues at that time when he got the conclusion of the theological Bible study and even when he laid his hands on her. It was March 3, 1901, after four days from the theological conclusion, when he had the experience. They who saw the restoration of the Pentecostal power took out beds from the upper room and waited for descending of the Spirit. Returning from a witness meeting in Free Methodist Church to the School, he heard very amazing sounds. When he entered the room, they were speaking in tongues in fullness of the Spirit. He knelt behind a table, gave thanks to God, and prayed for same blessing. Suddenly his tongue was twisted, and he began to speak in tongues.

 

Right then there came a slight twist in my throat, a glory fell over me and I began to worship God in the Sweedish tongue, which later changed to other languages and continued so until the morning.

 

Speaking in tongues had been in the holiness movement etc. before the work of Parham. But it was occurred in the work of Parham that after the theological hypothesis/principle, the Bible evidence was speaking in tongues, was established through Bible study for answering to the theological question, Pentecostal tongue experience was accompanied with the Spirit baptism as in the Bible. Firstly theological hypothesis was set up, and later experience proved the hypothesis, and then the hypothesis became the established theory, the theological foundation of Pentecostal movement. Pentecostal movement did not begin with experience, but it did begin with theological Bible study. There was a theology in the beginning of Pentecostal movement.

But Paul Lewis, who is teaching historical theology in Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, insisted, “Starting with Charles Parham even up unto the present, generally it was the beliefs that predicated the Pentecostal experience.” He did not accept the Bible study for answer to the theological question about the Spirit baptism and extraction of the hypothesis from the Bible as theological works, but simply made them “beliefs.” Probably, because Parham did not read the Bible through higher historical criticism which Lewis evaluated as neutral, he would downgrade the theological Bible study to belief. If so, he disregarded the theological Bible study of the Pentecostal father for satisfaction of his presupposition. Such a distorted belief first theory should be excluded too.

Even if Seymour could be taken as the starting point of Pentecostalism, the fact that theology preceded experience in Azusa revival still remain. He learned that the Bible evidence was tongue in Parham’s Houston Bible school and accepted the teaching. But at that time he did not experience speaking in tongues. Although Azusa revival began with Seymour’s theological teaching that the Bible evidence of the Spirit baptism was speaking in tongues, Seymour himself could not speak in tongues at the starting time.

Douglas J. Nelson wrote Ph.D thesis about Seymour. Trying to erase Parham’s influence on Pentecostalism, he took Seymour as the father of Pentecostalism. He did not mention that Seymour learned that speaking in tongues was the Bible evidence of the Spirit baptism from Parham. But Nelson could not conceal that Seymour had no experience of tongue at the starting time. He wrote, “Seymour himself had not so spoken but he believed in it.” April 9, 1906, the Spirit baptism with speaking in tongues began to fall on Bonnie Brae, but it was three days later from the falling that Seymour could speak in tongues at last. Theology preceded experience even in Azusa as in Topeka. Seymour manifested the process through his recollection as follows;

 

The Lord sent the means, and I came to take charge of a mission on Santa Fe Street, and one night they locked the door against me, and afterwards got Bro. Roberts, the president of the Holiness Association, to come down and settle the doctrine of the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, that it was simply sanctification. He came down and a good many holiness preachers with him, and they stated that sanctification was the baptism with the Holy Ghost. But yet they did not have the evidence at the second chapter of Acts, for when the disciples were all filled with the Holy Ghost, they spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave utterance. After the president heard me speak of what the true baptism of the Holy Ghost was, he said he wanted it too, and told me that when I had received it to let him know. So I received it and let him know. The beginning of the Pentecost started in a cottage prayer meeting at 214 Bonnie Brae.

The community of Seymour pointed out the Bethel Bible School of Parham as the beginning of Azusa Street revival in the same page which contained the retrospect of Seymour. And the community introduced the history of the beginning from the Bible study under the theological subject, the Spirit baptism to the experience of the baptism accompanied by speaking in tongues. The community including Seymour recognised very well that Pentecostal movement started with theology, not with experience.

John Thomas Nichol who recorded the history of Pentecostal movement in the 1960’s recognized very well the precedence of the Bible study over experience. He said, “Late in December, 1900, Parham had to go to Kansas City. Before departing, he instructed each of his students to study the Bible individually and to see if there were some sort of special witness to the fact that a person has been baptized with the Holy Spirit.” According to Nichol, when Parham asked after his returning, they answered that when the Spirit baptized believers in the Apostolic age, one outer manifestation occurred, and the manifestation was speaking in tongues. And Nichol reported that after Parham’s laying of his hands, Agnes Ozman received the Spirit and could speak in tongues.

The precedency of theological Bible study over experience in Parham’s Bethel community was mentioned by Vinson Synan who in the 1970’s wrote a history of Charismatic movements in the Holiness and Pentecostal tradition. He wrote, “By December 1900, Parham had led his students through a study of the major tenets of the holiness movement, including sanctification and divine healing. When they arrived at the second chapter of Acts they studied the events that transpired on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, including speaking in tongues.” According to him, “At this juncture, Parham had to leave the school for three days on a speaking engagement. Before leaving, he asked his students to study their Bibles in an effort to find the scriptural evidence for the reception of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Upon returning he asked the students to state the conclusion of their study, and to his astonishment they all answered unanimously that the evidence was speaking with other tongues.” He reported, “Apparently convinced that this conclusion was a proper interpretation of the Scriptures, Parham and his students conducted a watch night service on December 31, 1900 . . . In this service, a student named Agnes N. Ozman requested Parham to lay hands on her head and pray for her to be baptized with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues. . . Miss Ozman reportedly began speaking in the Chinese language.” And he added the general evaluation, “This event is commonly regarded as the beginning of the modern Pentecostal movement in America.”

James R. Goff, Jr. wrote a biography of Parham and received his PhD in 1987. Namely, he was the first historical expert on Parham. He also recognized the precedency of theological Bible study. Goff mentioned the process from the Acts 2 Bible study of Parham’s Bethel Bible school to Ozman’s experience of tongue quoting Parham’s writings directly.

William W. Menzies saw the crucial importance of the role of theological study in the first stage of Pentecostal movement. He had taught in Assemblies of God Theological Seminary for a long time, and rightly evaluated the speaking in tongues of Agnes Ozman. According to him, even though there had been many cases of speaking in tongues before her tongue, “What was unique about the experience of Miss Ozman . . . is that her experience occurred within a conscious theological understanding that baptism in the Spirit . . . is marked by the accompanying sign of speaking in other tongues.” In addition to the evaluation, he said, “It is significant that this revival began in the context of Bible study and that its theological identity was given form here.” He perceived well that Pentecostal movement started with theology, and later experience was defined by an already established theological criterion.

The hermeneutics of William W. Menzies was very similar to that of Parham. Menzies’ hermeneutical concern was summarized in his “Pentecostal Theology: An Essay in Hermeneutics.” His hermeneutical process had tree steps: 1) the inductive level, 2) the deductive level, 3) the verification level. The inductive step was the exegesis of a text. The last verification step was experience level. he argued that “If a biblical truth is to be promulgated, then it ought to be demonstrable in life.” In other words, for him, though experience could not provide content for theology, but experience could prove or verify a theological truth. His hermeneutics exactly reflected Parham’s hermeneutics which began with theological Bible study, and then set up hypothesis, lastly verified the hypothesis through experience called “evidence.” He was aware of the point clearly as follows;

 

It was the inductive study of the Bible that led the students at Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, in 1900-01 to expect a baptism in the Spirit with the accompanying sign of speaking in tongues. When they in fact experienced precisely what they thought the Bible was teaching, they were then able to affirm the continuity between biblical concept and experiential reality. Their whole understanding of the apostolic church was transformed. They discovered a synthesis of truth at the inductive level, at the deductive level, and at the verificational level!

 

On the side of the precedence of theological theory, it has validity in a certain extent that Donald W. Dayton, although he has been not a Pentecostalist, insisted that Pentecostalism was not a simple experiential event, but a distinctive theological development. Of course, his theological bias: Pentecostalism should not stick itself on speaking in tongues, should be corrected. But he studied the theological transition of the concept of the Spirit baptism from holiness to empowerment just before Pentecostal beginning in detail. For Dayton, Pentecostal movement is not experiential, but theological.

Another outsider, Douglas Jacobsen who has taught Church history and theology in Messiah College based on Anabaptism, Pietism, and Wesleyan traditions penetrated the nucleus of Pentecostalism more accurately than any outsiders or even insiders. Jacobsen regarded early Pentecostal leaders as “thinkers.” According to him, they were “creative thinkers” who could know “how to turn a theological phrase.” And their works were not abstract speculations, but theological reflections grounded in real life. In his eyes, although experience was a crucial for early pentecostal movement, but theological truth guided experience. “Experience alone did not make one a pentecostal. It was experience interpreted in a pentecostal way that made one a pentecostal.” For Jacobsen, even though Parham himself had not yet received the Spirit baptism with speaking in tongues, he made the theological doctrine a centerpiece of the curriculum at Bethel Bible school, he encouraged his students to seek the baptism, and he “interpreted his students’ experience as direct proof of the truth of his theology.” Jacobsen said excessively and dangerously that Parham’s “theology had a more causal impact, even to the point of . . . creating the experience.” Eventually, Jacobsen wrote that at Parham’s Bible school “theology preceded experience.” The phrase can be taken as the standard for theology precedence theory.

 

 

IV. Conclusion

Pentecostal movement began with theology, and then experience followed. It started with the process: 1) theological question, what is the Bible evidence of the Spirit baptism? 2) extraction of theological hypothesis, 3) prayer in the guidance of the hypothesis, 4) confirmation of the hypothesis through experience of the evidence. Pentecostal movement is theological movement which began with theology, and then was confirmed by experience. Theology precedence should be set firmly in Pentecostal movement and theology.

Of course, it can not be denied that experience is an important element of Pentecostal movement and theology. But it should be stoped to say that experience preceded theology in Pentecostal movement, so experience is the most important thing or more important than theology. Therefore, experience first theory is wrong and should be rejected. Revisionism, which is based on wrong experience first theory and is trying to detach speaking in tongues from the Spirit baptism or to weaken the relationship between the baptism and tongue, should be corrected or rejected also. Theology is more important than experience in Pentecostal movement. In the beginning of Pentecostal movement, there was theological Bible study, so theology preceded experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

 

배덕만.『성령을 받으라: 오순절운동의 역사와 신학』대전: 대장간, 2012.

 

Anderson, Allan. An Introduction to Pentecostalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Anderson, Robert Mapes. Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Archer, Kenneth J. “Early Pentecostal Biblical Interpretation: Blurring the Boundaries.” A paper presented to the 29th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies (March, 2000).

Chan, Simon K. H. “The Language Game of Glossolalia, or Making Sense of the ‘Initial Evidence’.” Ed. Wonsuk Ma & Robert P. Menzies. Pentecostalism in Context: Essays in Honor of William W. Menzies. JPTSup. 11. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997, 80-95.

Dayton, Donald W. Theological Roots of Pentecostalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Francis Asbury Press, 1987.

Fee, Gordon Donald. “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent: A Major Problem in Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” in ed. R. Spittler, Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1976, 118-132.

Goff, James R. Jr. Fields Unto Harvest: Charles F. Parham and The Missionary Origins of Pentecostalism. Fayetteville, London: The University of Arkansas Press, 1988.

Hocken, Peter. “The Significance and Potential of Pentecostalism.” in New Heaven? New Earth? Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers, 1976, 15-67.

Hollenweger, Walter J. Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997.

Jacobsen, Douglas. Thinking in the Spirit: Theologies of the Early Pentecostal Movement. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003.

Plüss, Jean-Daniel. “Azusa and Other Myths: The Long and Winding Road from Experience to Stated Belief and Back Again.” Pneuma 15:2 (1993), 189-201.

Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. Toward a Pneumatologycal Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on Ecclesiology, Soteriology, and Theology of Mission. Lanham, New York, Oxford: University Press of America, Inc., 2002.

King, James Gordon Jr. “Fundamentalism and Pentecostal Charismology: A Paradigm for Understanding the Development of Pentecostal Theology.” A Paper Delivered at the 1991 Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies.

Land, Steven J. Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom. New York & London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003.

Lewis, Paul. “Towards a Pentecostal Epistemology.” Church & Spirit 2:1 (May, 2000), 95-125.

Macchia, Frank D. “Tongues as a Sign: Towards a Sacramental Understanding of Pentecostal Experience.” Pneuma 15:1 (Spring, 1993), 61-76.

. “Groans Too Deep for Words: Towards A Theology of Tongues as Initial Evidence.” AJPS 1:2 (1998), 149-173.

Menzies, William W. “The Methodology of Pentecostal Theology: An Essay on Hermeneutics.” Paul Elbert ed. Essays on Apostolic Themes: Studies in Honor of Howard M. Ervin. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1985, 1-14.

. Spirit and Power: Foundations of Pentecostal Experience. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000, 27-54.

Nelson, Douglas J. “For Such a Time as This: The Story of Bishop William J. Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival.” Ph.D Dissertation, University of Birmingham, England, 1981.

Nichol, John Thomas. Pentecostalism. New York, Evanson, and London: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1966.

Parham, Charles F. Apostolic Faith (Baxter) 2 (July, 1926).

. The Sermons of Charles F. Parham. New York, NY: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985.

Parham, Sarah E. The Life of Charles F. Parham. New York, NY: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985.

Plessis, David Du. A Man Called Mr. Pentecost. Plainfield, NJ: Logos, 1977.

Seymour, William J. The Apostolic Faith 1:1 (September, 1906), 1.

Synan, Vinson. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997.

Warrington, Keith. “Experience: The sina qua non of Pentecostalism.” Presented at the 36th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies (2007).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract

 

 

In the Beginning There Was a Theology:

The Precedence of Theology over Experience in Pentecostal Movement

 

Chang-Soung Lee

 

Experience first theory is not correct. The theory has persisted in that Pentecostal Movement started with experience, and then theological explanation followed. But, in fact, it began with theology, and next experience followed. Pentecostal Movement was born with the process: 1) theological Bible study (to give answer to the theological thematic question: “What is the Bible evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit?”), 2) extraction of a theological hypothesis from the theological bible study (speaking in tongues), 3) experience (speaking in tongues), the confirmation of the hypothesis and establishment of the principle through the experience. In the beginning of Pentecostal Movement, theology preceeded experience. In other words, there was a theology in the beginning!

As the first step, this writing will examine the wrong opinion which has insisted experience first theory, and the product of the opinion, revisionism. And then, it will confirm theology first theory. This work will be accomplished by analyzing the process through which Charles F. Parham started Pentecostal Movement and searching the views which grasp theology priority correctly. As a result, experience precedence and revisionism will be refuted.

 

 

 

Keywords: Pentecostal Movement, precedence of theology, experience, Bible Study, Baptism in the Spirit, Speaking in tongues

 

 

 

 

In the Beginning of Pentecostal Movement There Was a Theology(Chang-soung Lee).pdf

0.19MB