An African Pentecostal Hermeneutics

A Distinctive Contribution to Hermeneutics

Marius Nel

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781532660887
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The face of African Christianity is becoming Pentecostal. African Pentecostalism is a diverse movement, but its collective interest in baptism in the Spirit and the result of Pentecost in daily living binds it together. Pentecostals read the Bible with the expectation that the Spirit who inspired the authors will again inspire them to hear it as God's word. They emphasize the experiential, at times at the cost of proper doctrine and practice. This book sketches an African hermeneutic that provides guidance to a diverse movement with many faces, and serves as corrective for doctrine and practice in the face of some excesses and abuses (especially in some parts of the neo-Pentecostal movement). African Pentecostalism's contribution to the hermeneutical debate is described before three points are discussed that define it: the centrality of the Holy Spirit in reading the Bible, the eschatological lens that Pentecostals use when they read the Bible, and the faith community as normative for the interpretation of the Bible.

Chapter 1

Bible Reading Practices of Pentecostals

Introduction

In research about members’ Bible reading practices, completed by the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM of SA)126 in 2016, it was found that 96 percent of respondents have a Bible: 72 percent read it in printed form and 24 percent on an electronic device.127 A total of 98 percent indicated that they read the Bible: 74 percent of them on a daily basis, 41 percent read more than one chapter a day, and 30 percent read a chapter a day. The implication is that 70 percent of participants spend time with the Bible on a regular basis, while 35 percent indicate that they read the Bible on a daily basis together.

While 33 percent of respondents use a commentary along with the Bible and 23 percent a devotional, no less than 47 percent read only the Bible. Approximately 33 percent indicate that they have read all of the New Testament and 35 percent that they have read all of the Old Testament while 30 percent indicate that they attend a weekly Bible study group and 30 percent indicate that they are not part of any formalized Bible study.

Of those involved in the research, 75 percent indicated that they are Spirit-filled and the same percentage indicate that they pray more than once during the day.

When asked about the historical situatedness of the Bible, only 30 percent believe it is important that the Bible is interpreted in terms of the context and culture of its time, 66 percent believe everything that the Bible says is true, and 67 percent believe that the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God. It seems that many members use the Bible in a biblicist-literalist or concordist way that differs from the way early Pentecostals read the Bible.128 To understand the discrepancy between Bible-reading practices of early and contemporary Pentecostals, it is necessary to discuss the history of hermeneutical development within the Pentecostal movement.

There are many researchers that identify Pentecostalism as a variant of fundamentalism129 in terms of its hermeneutics although fundamentalism is younger than the Pentecostal movement and was and is its most bitter opponent.130 In this view, Pentecostalism is an expression of conservative Christian protest against modern theological trends that deny inter alia the divinity of Christ and the authority of Scriptures to define doctrine and ethics for contemporary Christians,131 in conjunction with similar groups like the Association of Fundamental Baptist Churches, parts of the Presbyterian church, the Association of Independent Methodists, Conservative Grace Brethren Churches, and the Fellowship of Fundamental Bible Churches.132 The success of the Pentecostal movement in reaching two-thirds of the world (the Global South)133 and providing a spirituality acceptable to many postmoderns (or late-moderns) is then ascribed and linked to Pentecostalism as the resurgence of conservative fundamental faith around the world.134

Early Pentecostalism, however, should rather be comprehended in terms of the line of antecedents and movements from which it sprang and the hermeneutical angles they used, namely evangelical Protestantism, especially the Wesleyan Methodist variety (with its notion of a “second blessing,” a crisis experience subsequent to conversion called “sanctification”); the American Holiness movement135; the Reformed revivalism of Jonathan Edwards and the “Oberlin Perfectionism” of revivalists Charles Finney and Asa Mahan; the Keswick movement with Dwight L. Moody, Reuben A. Torrey and Andrew Murray; and the healing movement of Christoph Blumhardt, Dorothea Trudel, Charles Cullis, A. B. Simpson, Carrie Judd Montgomery, and Maria Woodworth-Etter.136 These movements share a view of themselves as being the product of God’s historical action in the same way as the nation of Israel viewed itself in the Hebrew Bible and the church of Acts thought of its origin and mission.137 Pentecostals also stress their continuity with the personal dynamic action of the saving and revealing God through the intervention of God’s Spirit in human history. Through a called and empowered priesthood (and prophethood) of individual believers—by way of personal discipleship—God establishes God’s kingdom on earth through the church. They see themselves as the continuation of the early church; God must be seen to have a people, the new “Israel.” The aim of the church was not to compile dogma, confessions, and lectionaries but rather to live and act the gospel of Jesus Christ.138

A further prerequisite for understanding the phenomenon of the early Pentecostal movement is that its hermeneutics be comprehended in terms of its early adherents who mainly came from the marginalized and socially and economically disadvantaged.139 Anderson asserts that most Pentecostal converts came from peasant roots and their religious heritage differed from that of evangelical-pietistic Protestantism.140 Their spirituality consisted of mystical, supernatural, and even animistic and magical notions common to those who live close to the soil, although the quite human element in spirituality was always eminent, leading many to dismiss charismatic Christianity as counterfeit.141 The answer to such criticism is not to reject the Spirit’s work but rather to sift through and discern what is of God and hold on to that (1 Thess 5:19–21), separating what is from God and what is from oneself.142 Pentecostal spirituality has several sensibilities, habitual attitudes, or predispositions that characterize its relationship with God. It is hardwired to perceive and respond to the influences of the Spirit, oriented to experience and attend actively to the Spirit’s guidance, and is characterized by a sense of conflict in the spiritual realm, indicated as spiritual warfare. Pentecostals perceive themselves as part of a movement, rather than a denomination, organization, or religious society, as participants in a work of the Spirit on earth. In their world, the supernatural and the “power” of God is important; they value restoration, renewal, and the democratic participation of all believers and mission.143 They see themselves as a fellowship of congregations seeking to follow God’s will, and their anti-organizational and anti-hierachical rhetoric led to their being even more decentralized and disorganized than Protestantism.144 They seek to remain open to the movement of the Spirit and want their churches to be flexible in responding to God’s call.

Asamoah-Gyadu’s typology of African spirituality is useful to ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• By Way of Introduction: Motivation for Study
• Chapter 1: Bible Reading Practices of Pentecostals
• Chapter 2: Defining A Pentecostal Hermeneutics for Africa
• Chapter 3: The Centrality of the Holy Spirit in Reading the Bible
• Chapter 4: The Eschatological Lens that Pentecostals Use When They Read the Bible
• Chapter 5: The Faith Community as Normative for the Interpretation of the Bible
• Bibliography