word and the spirit or the spirit and the word: Exploring the boundaries of evangelicalism in relationship to modern Pentecostalism, The

Trinity Journal, Fall 2002 by Yong, Amos

In his recent book, Jon Stone observes that evangelicalism's preoccupation with defining the movement's boundaries is

especially intriguing, not simply because it troubles them, but because it consumes them. For evangelicals, it seems of first importance that the differences between themselves and non-- evangelicals be clearly drawn in order to resolve this everincreasing confusion over the boundaries of evangelicalism and the organizational problem that attend such confusion.1

But is the concern about boundaries all bad? Are the disagreements about boundaries something we should decry? Isn't the question of boundaries the question about identity, and if so, an important and perhaps ongoing one?

This paper is an inquiry into the question of how evangelicals and Pentecostals negotiate questions of self-identity. Juxtaposing and comparing some of the pertinent historical and theological issues (first two sections) will intensify the complexity of the question of boundaries specifically with regard to what that means for us as evangelicals vis-a-vis Pentecostals and (vice-versa) for us as Pentecostals vis-a-vis evangelicals (third section).2 Now although comparisons and analyses proceed best when the terms to be compared or analyzed are clearly defined, the problem before us, however, is precisely that of definition, of identities, of boundaries. I will therefore postpone the formal question of definition in the hopes that it may resolve itself (how pentecostally blessed I would count myself if that were to occur). In the meanwhile, the following questions should be kept in mind as we proceed: do evangelicals assume Pentecostals are evangelicals-why or why not? And, on the other side, do Pentecostals either consider themselves to be evangelicals or do Pentecostals assume evangelical and Pentecostal to be synonymous - again, why or why not?

1. THE BOUNDARIES IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Perhaps one point of entry into the similarities and differences between evangelicals and Pentecostals is historical perspective. I propose to look at the origins, the roots, and the present and future trajectories of both movements to begin charting where the convergences and divergences of identities may lie.

To begin with, at one level, it is arguable that both evangelicalism and Pentecostalism have origins in North America during the first half of the twentieth century. Pentecostalism is usually traced to two pivotal events in the first decade: Charles Fox Parham's (Methodist/Holiness) Bible School in Topeka, Kansas (1900-1901), when Agnes Ozman and the group of students studying under Parham "discovered" tongues as the "indisputable" sign of Spirit-baptism in the book of Acts; and the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles (1906-1908), led in part by the black Holiness preacher, William Seymour, when the revival "exploded" and expanded from there toward the forming of the earliest pentecostal denominations.3 Seymour's presence as well as the demographic makeup of early twentieth century Los Angeles provided a social context within which blacks, hispanics, a few Asians, and whites were not only drawn to Azusa Street, but found a hospitable environment that nurtured a spiritual camaraderie in their worshiping and praying together. One eyewitness account testified to the powerful experience of the "latter rain" or "new Pentecost" of the Spirit among the diversity of races represented at Azusa Street such that the color line was said to have been "washed away in the blood."4 For these, among other reasons, that Azusa Street participants and many of the earliest Pentecostals came from the lower classes of North American society is not an especially surprising fact.5 Unfortunately, however, whatever the spiritual dynamics involved, Pentecostalism could not sustain the racially integrated environment of Azusa Street. Within a decade, pentecostal denominational trajectories formed roughly along the racial lines characteristic of American society at that time. White Pentecostalism and black Pentecostalism each went their separate ways, only to be reintroduced to each other slowly after the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In fact, it has only been as recently as 1994 when the all-white Pentecostal Fellowship of North America (PFNA) was disbanded, and the multi-ethnic Pentecostal/ Charismatic Churches of North America (PCCNA) was formed. At that historic meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, white and black Pentecostals reconciled through confession and the conferral of forgiveness. Of course, by this time, white and black Pentecostalism were no longer resistance movements among the marginalized. Arguably, both trajectories of Pentecostalism had come by way of the charismatic renewal movement (since the late 1950s) and the "merging" with evangelicalism-among other roads-to attain a more centrist position in American society. But we get ahead of our story.

What about, then, the origins of evangelicalism? For the sake of comparison and contrast with Pentecostalism, my focus will be on North American evangelicalism. Even here, however, the historiography of evangelical origins is disputed. Does evangelicalism originate in the 1930s and 1940s, or does it emerge either out of early twentieth century fundamentalist resistance against the tide of liberalism, or (even earlier) out of mid-nineteenth century revivalism, perfectionism, and social reform movements? This may be a momentous question for evangelical identity.6 The issue centers upon the kinds of forces, events, and ideologies which contributed to the emergence of contemporary evangelicalism. To focus on the origins of evangelicalism from the 30s and 40s is to define evangelicalism vis-a-vis fundamentalism. Pivotal here is the founding of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942 which aspired to provide a centrist or via media platform between fundamentalism on the one side and liberalism on the other. In this case, evangelicalism is a primarily white middle class movement. To understand evangelicalism as the fundamentalist gospel is to define evangelicalism as opposing liberalism. To do so would be to emphasize the sectarian aspects of the early twentieth century response to modernism, signified most vividly in the publication of The Fundamentals (1910s) and perhaps the symbolic last stand of the Scopes Trial (1926). In this case, evangelicalism is primarily a lower class and predominantly sectarian phenomenon. To go even further back to the mid-nineteenth century in order to constitute evangelical origins is to define the movement in predominantly pietist, Holiness, and socio-political terms. Here, the evangelical identity is found in such individuals as the revivalist and abolitionist Finney, the feminist Phoebe Palmer, and the social activist General William Booth. And in this case, evangelicalism is characterized more so by the tension that plays out between an individual relationship with God through Jesus Christ and the social demands of the gospel.