Early Pentecostals on Nonviolence and Social Justice

A Reader

Brian K. Pipkin, Jay Beaman, Pipkin, Beaman

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781498278911
  9781498278935
• eBook ISBN:
  9781498278928
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Christian Theology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book documents some of the pacifist and social justice convictions of early Pentecostals, many of whom were called traitors, slackers, cranks, and weak-minded people for extending Jesus' love beyond racial, ethnic, and national boundaries. They wrestled with citizenship and Jesus' prohibitions on killing. They rejected nation-worship, war profiteering, wage slavery, patriotic indoctrination, militarism, and Wall Street politics--and many suffered for it. They criticized governments and churches that, in wartime, endorsed the very thing forbidden in their sacred book and civil laws. They recognized the dangers of loving your country too much, even more than Jesus and his words, and viewed nation-loyalty as a distraction from a higher and more inclusive loyalty--devotion to God. These articles, once accessible only to academics, are now available to the public. These voices, often forgotten within today's mainstream Pentecostal history, offer an opportunity to revisit the passions of early Pentecostal leaders and to examine Pentecostalism in fresh ways.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• About the Authors
• Foreword
• Chapter 1: “The Gold, White and Blue”
• Chapter 2: “Imminent Events in the United States”
• Chapter 3: Should a Christian Fight?
• Chapter 4: “Victory”
• Chapter 5: “War! War! War!”
• Chapter 6: Blood Against Blood
• Chapter 7: “The Character of the Church”
• Chapter 8: “Should Christians Go To War?”
• Chapter 9: “The Present Situation”
• Chapter 10: “The European War”
• Chapter 11: “Present Day Conditions”
• Chapter 12: “Christian Preparedness”
• Chapter 13: “Is Christian Civilization Breaking Down?”
• Chapter 14: “Pentecostal Saints Opposed to War”
• Chapter 15: “What Will the Harvest Be?”
• Chapter 16: “Our Heavenly Citizenship”
• Chapter 17: “In the Last Days”
• Chapter 18: “The World War”
• Chapter 19: “Loyalty and Perseverance”
• Chapter 20: “The Christian and War: Is It Too Late?” [Part 1]
• Chapter 21: “The Christian and War: Christ Cleansing the Temple” [Part 2]
• Chapter 22: “The Spirit of the Age”
• Chapter 23: “The Awful World War”
• Chapter 24: “The Awful War Seems Near”
• Chapter 25: “War Notice”
• Chapter 26: “The Pentecostal Movement and the Conscription Law”
• Chapter 27: [Members Seeking Conscientious Objection]
• Chapter 28: “Days of Perplexity”
• Chapter 29: “The Patriotic Harlot”
• Chapter 30: “Christian Citizenship”
• Chapter 31: War and the Christian
• Chapter 32: “From the Pentecostal Viewpoint”
• Chapter 33: “War, the Bible, and the Christian” [Part 1]
• Chapter 34: “War, the Bible, and the Christian” [Part 2]
• Chapter 35: “War Behind the Smoke Screen”
• Chapter 36: “The Way to Disarm Is to DISARM”
• Chapter 37: “The Pulse of a Dying World”
• Chapter 38: Is War Christian?
• Chapter 39: “Conscientious Objection”
• Bibliography