A funny thing happened on the way to Pentecost

Couple of thoughts as an Emergent Progressive who is still Ordained in the Assemblies of God, one of the largest Pentecostal denomination in America.  (I realize I may not be ordained for long but hey :-)

1.  I hear people mix Pentecostals & Charismatics all the time but in my experience, as someone who has preached all over the US, but they are really different.  I don't know one Charismatic who would claim Pentecostal.  They like to infiltrate Pentecostal churches & take over their worship cause they have more people and nicer bigger buildings but they stick with the name Charismatic.

2.  Most AG churches I have been around DO celebrate Pentecost Sunday, though I've never heard of a Charismatic one doing that.

3.  In its simplest form, to be Pentecostal is to focus on being filled with the Spirit.  Many AG churches don't even talk about tongues anymore.  To be Charismatic you are focused on ALL the gifts (which is the reason true Charismatics don't like Pentecostals cause they think they don't have as much FLASH by having it all.  I think Classical Pentecostals have been who they have been with a focus on the Holy Spirit & upward.  Charismatics have been more focused on the body & community of believers thru making sure everyone has gifts.

Finally there are many Evangelicals churches that take in parts of either of these.  Usually what is imported into a church which is not theologically technically Pentecostal or Charismatic is the Charismatic part.  You don't hear Pentecostalism spreading much outside its gates.  Charismatics though are in almost every denomination in some form.  Pentecostal denominations get bigger from this.  Charismatics seem to like to move from church to church where the is the most signs & wonders.

My problem with Charismatics is that I think they have contributed little to the kingdom in a healthy way.  My problem with Pentecostals is that they have put the Holy Spirit in a box.  Believe me when I speak in a Charismatic church you know you're gonna see some crazy stuff.  When I preach at Assemblies of God churches or others that are actually theologically Pentecostal you can't tell the difference from them & a dry evangelical church.  They got the Holy Spirit so boxed up NOTHING happens.

So one, the Charismatics, want no control.  Anything goes.  So people get hurt.  And Bo is right, the Prosperity gospel & the name it claim it stuff is all over.

The other, Pentecostals, want ALL control.  Nothing goes that doesn't fit in the box.  People don't really get to experience the Holy Spirit at all.  In Pentecostal churches I've never personally seen any prosperity gospel.  Just like the Methodist church could say they are not what John Wesley started, so could the AG.  Most AG churches you would have NO idea that they were Pentecostal or Charismatic.

I've been in Pentecostal & Charismatic churches in both South America & Africa & China & Thailand.  Only in South America (Argentina) did it seem like they were one & the same.  Which meant both ANYTHING GOES & THEY WANT ALL THE CONTROL.  Actually that probably makes them in the worst case scenario.  Now I don't have any experience with the Black Pentecostal churches but for all the 100's & 100's I've spoken in.  They are flat dead.  NOTHING is going on in them.

All that to say.  The Pentecostal church is either dead or or close.  The Charismatics are all about seeing a burning bush every church service or personal prophecy or prosperity.  Going to church is about seeing signs & wonders so think of the pressure on the pastors to produce or otherwise GOD DIDN'T SHOW UP!

So I think Pentecostals don't help anyone cause God is in a box & Charismatics hurt people with fake things & personal prophecy, which i have personally seen really hurt people many times.  I don't find any reason to be in the AG anymore cause its not contributing to the Kingdom.  I don't want to be in the charismatic churches cause all I feel they are doing is wreaking havoc in the church.

But one thing in all these countries ..... Pentecostals & Charismatics are worse than here.  More dead in Pentecostal circles and more crazy in Charismatic ones.  I was in a charismatic church in Buenos Aires & the front looked like a rugby scrum.  Made Benny Hinn look conservative & gentle.  It was insane.

I hold on to the world Pentecostal because I want to still build my faith around the Holy Spirit, but I'm not theologically aligned or would agree with much of their theology.  I'm not sure if it can totally be redeemed or not but for now I'm trying at least.  At least it was a feast & its when he Spirit first came.  Charismatics don't have a feast or anything.  To me probably neither word is redeemable but I'm trying with the former.

I'm a Pentecostal (well, according to my twitter profile, I consider myself a progressive Pentecostal) and I fully agree with your 3 "funny things" and 2 "hesitations". However, as for your hesitations, those are my criticisms. The prosperity gospel, I believe, in time will have a negative impact on the future of pentecostalism. It makes me angry every time my and I hear a preacher preach on it, a book comes out the church raves over, and when poor people give all that they have. It's manipulative, an abuse of power, and demonic. 

And oh the zeal. For most charismatics, every Sunday is Pentecostal Sunday! Ha ha! I think this kind of spirit of zeal is what gives Pentecostals their flavor. But! A belief that the more spiritually bold one is the more faith that one has, and the more something spiritual will happen and the more meaningful is so much wrong as it is just ridiculous. There is a difference between zeal and weird. I call the weird folks in my stream charismaniacs. 

My hope is that the prosperity gospel and the weirdness, the abuse of power and persuasion, will soon disappear and the general public will know Pentecostals as those who believe in the "super"-natural of which helps bring the disenfranchised, the poor, the outcasts of society into complete whole-ness. I do believe it will happen. And that's why I believe Pentecostalism is the future of the church. Just a new kind of pentecostalism.

Its something I am concerned with too. A couple years ago when I was in Ecuador, the family I was living with were Pentecostal...mostly. There were some pretty crazy/neat stories with just their family. One son was freed from alcoholism and then went to the rainforest to pray, eventually hearing a calling to be a pastor. That was pretty baffling for me to understand (coming from an enlightenment intellectual tradition). But while I don't have Lindbeck or MacIntyre in my mind, I do have Cassirer who makes a similar argument. 

My Spanish skills were in development (well, still are) while I was there, so I didn't understand everything that was being said, so I can't say if it was prosperity gospel or not. But, there did seem to be more of an emphasis on freedom (but I don't mean anything like the equation: money = power = independence = freedom) and things like that, praying/singing the psalms, laments, anointing, and plain ol' praises. Possibly this was mostly because it was a very small church in a small city, attended mostly by poor, indigenous, farmers. With that group, who, politically have been very powerful in the last number of years, the promise of prosperity seems to be viewed as very suspect. But, freedom from addiction, which allows you to make your living more or less in peace, that's good news. That's also in a place where a community dynamic is very strong as well.

But then, there is the issue of language...and probably half or more of the people attending that church cannot read or write. My host mom, for example, could only write her name. She had a Bible, but had her husband (when he was around- he often works away from the community) or daughter or granddaughter read to her. Other women from the community took a literacy class put on by one of the teachers from the school, and there were many. I think this is probably at play as well: they do not have much control over the language. 

"I am deeply suspicious that with the rise of global capitalism, deregulated markets and multi-national corporations’ economic and environmental policies … the prosperity ‘blessing’ might be a one-generation phenomenon with a vicious cynical backlash waiting behind it.".... well Bo I bet there are some other christian traditions that have a theology that keeps them from questioning global capitalism...I just can't think of any lol

As one who lives in the South (South Africa) and has travelled/and lived quite extensively in the rest of Southern Africa - Pentecostilsm is the predominant believe system in poorer communities, while a watered down, consumer conservative Charismatic system is the craze in your more educated and wealthier areas.

I am a recovering Charismatic who has changed the way in which he believes, but am deeply concerned at this belief system and its inability to tackle systemic issues in the South, while continuing to build there own empires of sheltered unaware people. The every Sunday is Pentecost is what I was apart of for many years, but it became increasingly problematic how this led to escapist hedonism.

I look forward to the day where one can hold to the miraculous (not supernatural - Bo!), use ones brain, be open to various interpretations and be a people willing to love and speak & live prophetically within the system for issues such as Race, Poverty, Aids etc.

Interesting post Bo. The claim that you are skeptical about the South being the future of the church seems out of place in the context of your post on Pentecost and pentecostals. The South is much more than pentecostals. So, perhaps you meant that pentecostals are not the future simply because of its growth in the South. Even so, the global South still seems like the future if only because it is the majority of the world's population.

In my 10 years or so as a Christian, I've been quick to run from Charismatic weirdness. Even though I had my conversion experience in an AoG church, I found my home with Plymouth Brethren shortly after (talk about ends of the spectrum, huh?). After a few recent years identifying as a fairly typical Evangelical, I've found myself thirsting for intimacy and encounter with God. Seminary at a C&MA school has challenged me to go after genuine Pentecost 'stuff' while staying grounded/balanced in the love and compassion of Jesus (thus forsaking weirdness & authoritarianism that often accompanies this thing.

And usually I'm one who uses the notion of "balance" as an excuse not to stretch my faith at times, but in this realm I find that balance very necessary.

I come from a charismatic background, too. For my old charismatic church, EVERY Sunday was Pentecost Sunday! In fact, one Sunday the pastor sang a song to an old widow as if her dead husband was singing it to her. That's when I knew, "I gotta get the f*ck outta here!"

Bo,

I am concerned about the future of the global church in this regard as well. Pentecostalism in a North American context (like all other Christian groups) resonates with some and discourages others. I walked away from Pentecostalism very discouraged. It has taken many years to recover an appreciation for various elements (mostly motivated by the reality that all groups have serious problems). Maybe the future of global Christianity is not Pentecostalism, but something post-Pentecostal.