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

The plurality of roots feeding both Pentecostalism and evangelicalism explains, at least in part, the diversity of both movements today. This is especially striking when the attempt is made to understand the trajectories of both movements in global perspective. Demographers and statisticians estimate that the pentecostal movement dubbed the "third force in Christendom" midway through the twentieth century (behind Catholicism and Protestantism) has now moved into the second slot with over 500 million adherents worldwide.11 The problem here, however, is who is counted? Certainly, there are the classical Pentecostals who are members or adherents of pentecostal denominations which emerged out of the Azusa Street revival in the 1910s and 1920s.

Neopentecostals, also known as charismatics, derived from and stayed in mainline denominations as well as Catholic and Orthodox communions even after receiving the "pentecostal" experience of the Spirit. Third-wave Pentecostals and charismatics are those affiliated with the signs and wonders movements of the 1980s. Besides these are the millions involved in the house-church movement in China (many of which manifest pentecostal type phenomena), the independent charismatic and pentecostal type churches of subSaharan Africa, and the pentecostal base communities of Latin America.12 The difficulty here is that many classical Pentecostals do not recognize non-classical Pentecostalism as representing pentecostal experience authentically, even though pentecostal and charismatic type phenomena are prevalent in many churches throughout the two-thirds world that claim neither to be Pentecostal in the classical pentecostal sense nor to be charismatic in the renewal sense. This problem is compounded by the presence of Jesus-only or Oneness (as they prefer to call themselves) Pentecostals. If included within the pentecostal orbit, the Oneness constitute, by some counts, up to 20-25 percent of global Pentecostalism (or, over 100 million). But since Pentecostals eschew papal authority, there is no individual or governing body to determine who has the right to define "Pentecostal." Both Trinitarian and Oneness Pentecostals have-at least in the past, if not still in some circles today-rejected not only the authenticity of the other's pentecostal experience, but also the right of the other to claim their faith as being Christian at all! We will return below to this intra-pentecostal dispute.