This past week I have been spending time – courtesy of my friend and current second vice-president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Michael Wilkinson – on the campus of Trinity Western University (TWU) and with its Associated Consortium of Theological Schools (ACTS), including the Canadian Pentecostal Seminary (CPS), lecturing on global renewal theology. So be sure, when the apostles were told that the outpouring of the Spirit was to empower them to bear witness to the gospel to the ends of the earth, they were thinking certainly of Rome rather than of Vancouver, British Columbia, much less Langley, BC, and even Abbottsford, BC (where I preached last Sunday, at Christian Life Community Church – for the sermon see here). Yet equally to be sure, the winds of the Spirit have blown north, as one scholarly volume is aptly titled so that Pentecost and the renewing work of the Spirit has also – indeed, even! – occurred above the US border (Americans from the US may find hard to believe)!
Yet the renewal movement in Western Canada certainly has its own distinct flavor. British Columbian renewalists see commonalities stretching up and down the Pacific Northwest (PNW) rather than eastward across the vast Canadian expanse, meaning that there may be more in common to PNW renewalism than there is a more homogeneous Canadian pentecostalism stretching from the central to the Maritime region in the far Eastern shore. But what are some of the characteristics of pentecostal and charismatic renewal Christianity in this area that is quite secular but also very cosmopolitan and multicultural?
While there is much to talk about, one feature that stands out is how renewalism can flourish as a minority tradition. By this, I am referring to the demographically minute segment of the population that is pentecostal, charismatic, and evangelical Christianity in a pluralistic (Western) Canada. Yet even with these constraints, some renewalists are forging new conversations and pathways. The CPS, for instance, realizes that graduate theological education in the (Western) Canadian context can only succeed when intentional and strategic collaboration across evangelical and even ecumenical and traditional lines are forged. ACTS thus includes pentecostal, evangelical, Baptistic, Mennonite, Reformed, and even Roman Catholic partnerships. The future of renewal within this matrix is less an us-versus-them phenomenon but a matrix of more-or-less charismatically oriented or at least informed traditions in which each member or tradition of the theological community (body) has specific gifts that edify the whole for the common good (1 Cor. 12:12ff.).
So renewal and revival may not be exploding across Western Canada like it is numerically in other parts of the world. However, sometimes being a part of a minority tradition teaches us some important lessons and opens up possibilities that we might not otherwise consider when our numbers are stronger and we are part of or have access to the dominant social order. So while renewal Christianity in (Western) Canada may lack some of the pizzazz of what is occurring in the global South (or even south of their border), I would not underestimate its potential to demonstrate leadership in certain venues going forward. That is surely a mark of the Spirit, of whom we “do not know where it comes from or where it goes” (John 3:8).
Interruptions of the Spirit & the Future of Mission 2
Monday, April 15th, 2013 by Amos YongThe title of our plenary was inspired by Jo, who wanted to foreground how the mission of the gospel oftentimes irrupts in and through our lives, for those of us willing to embrace and live into such, through the unexpected and unanticipated work of the Holy Spirit. While Jo did the “pentecostal thing” of testifying to the Spirit’s intruding work in her life, I did the “theologian thing” by reflecting on the “interrupting Spirit” of Pentecost in Acts 2: a phenomenology of interruption (2:5-13), the unbounded scope of the Spirit’s interruption (2:17-18), the personal identity of the interrupting Spirit as the Spirit of Christ (2:22-24), the diachronic identity of the Spirit from David Israel to Jesus (2:25-31), the radical interruptions of crucifixion and resurrection (2:32-36), the eschatological interruptions across space and time (2:37-39), and the interruptions of our status quo (2:40-47). Those interested in the details of this will need to wait for my extended commentary on Acts 2 (with Vince Le) that will appear in the World Bible Commentary later this year edited by Michael McClymond.
What I found, however, was that my thoughts on the ways in which the Spirit disturbs our conventional ways of life was consistent with the major thrusts of the conference. David Fitch of Northern Seminary, one of the primary organizers of the conference, summarized it well in some ad hoc remarks by saying that Missio Alliance was about finding a missional way between those who take a my-way-or-highway approach on the right and those who adopt an accommodationist stance toward culture on the left. Hence this was not about attempting to find a via media for its own sake, but in order to preserve the missional task of the church in a post-Christendom world.
My own thoughts on the interrupting Spirit from Acts 2 resonate with this missional vision. The work of the Spirit in Acts unfolds the mission of God for our times, if nothing else. Yet it does so precisely by establishing a people of God, indeed a fellowship of the Spirit, that lives into the footsteps of Jesus, himself the paradigmatic exemplar (in the Gospel of Luke) of what it means to lead a Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered, and Spirit-interrupted life. Jesus proclaimed and embodied the coming reign of God and those upon whom he pours out of his Spirit (Acts 2:33) are invited to participate in that proclamation and embodiment – which means simply living according to the apostolic instantiation of Jesus’ Jubilee message. Doing so will bring about the missional “results” of apostolic obedience: “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47, NRSV). Focus on the work of the Spirit as inspiring a missional people will cut through the most difficult theological, political, and real-life issues of our time since it has to do with living out the redemptive witness of God in a hurting world. Yet doing so also requires that we be open to the interrupting work of the Spirit? We are ready for such disruption and commotion?
Tags: Acts, fitch, Jesus, mission, Spirit, willard, word bible commentary
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