The Charismatic Movement: Ecumenism And Non-Evangelicals

Continuists argue that the spiritual gift of tongues still continue today. To understand this fully, we need to remind ourselves of the primary purpose of the spiritual gifts and the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues. Donald W. Burdick refutes the argument of the cessationists using I Corinthians 13:8. According to him, “we must notice, however, that this verse does not say that tongues were to cease at the end of the apostolic age.” However, he also concluded that healings, tongues, interpretation of tongues, prophecy, and other gifts which may have been objectively miraculous in nature fade not due to the sagging spiritual life of the church as claimed by the Pentecostals, but because they have fulfilled their purpose.

The greater part of evangelical Christians are no longer in North America. The majority world has just as much if not more missionary activity than North America. The North American Church needs to form partnerships not dictatorships. Finally, Borthwick weaves throughout the book the idea that the North American Church has something to learn from the majority world Church.

Christians have responded to the New Age and esoteric practitioner by avoidance, criticism, or by apologetic critique. Christians should seek more effective tools such as missional and incarnational apologetics. Some suggestions were mentioned in the Lausanne paper regarding an incarnational ministry approach to the New Age adherents and what it would involve.

Evangelicals, that is to say, have shaped a name for themselves, on the one hand, through their engagement in domestic policy, and on the other hand, via their building up of a great reputation in foreign policy. This chapter is divided into three sections, the first one, The Alteration of Evangelicals’ Perspective from Domestic to Foreign Cases, provides a compelling description of evangelicals’ impact on America’s role from inside to outside its borders. It aims at exploring the nature and the development of global interests of the evangelicals through the development of the Christian Right activities. We also try to examine how evangelicals’ faith have effected international affairs via actions and reflections on foreign issues especially

The Pentecostal’s spirit & spirit possession is directly linked and genetically kin to paganism by virtue of their Americanized version of African traditional religion and Voodoo religion. This Americanized form of paganism has shown its own true colors through several dead giveaways. These include the trait of “unintelligible speech” as practiced by Voodooist, Shakers, witch doctors, neo-pagans, shamans and Russian Molokans. With these extra-biblical tongues comes other extra-biblical and non-biblical traits plus other abnormalities. These include:

In the article Living in the Eighties, the main focus is the rise of religion into politics. Conservative theology and politics came together in the 1980s due to the reformation of the social landscape. The evangelical Christians shunned the community and kept to themselves, until Billy Graham’s revival. In this revival, controversy was brought forth of the evangelist movement. These controversies included gay rights, public schools, and abortion. Later, the evangelist hopped onto the politic train. The evangelist supported Carter as well as his background. Although, he lost their vote when he refused to emit prayer into the practices of school. During the election, Christian evangelist latched onto Ronald Reagan. However when divorce, remarriage, and abortion became of the issue, Reagan supporters became confused. All in all, this article shows how quickly evangelist transformed to meet the demands of media and norms.

The Holy Spirit can guide and we can use the Trinity as a model, but that has not prevented 2000 years of previous dissension. Harmon, understanding that the Trinitarian model is not enough, offers ten solutions for ecumenical unity. First and foremost, Harmon expects Christians to pray for unity and to pray for those who are in disunity (57-59). Secondly, Harmon believes Christians should embrace one denomination while being fully aware of others (61-65). Third and finally, our author encourages Christians to live out the Gospel with preaching and teaching as well as helping to bring God’s kingdom through social justice and environmental care (66-70).

The history of Pentecostalism indicates many of the religious and persuading growth that was brought to all and sundry attention. Recognizing the founders who Doctrines Pentecostalism movement, whom started a global growth with the evidence of speaking a language that a human being has not ever learned beforehand.

Roger Stronstad’s book The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke opens wide the vast work of the Holy Spirit within Luke’s two-part book Luke/Acts and points out Luke’s intent to present the full activity of the Holy Spirit from beginning to end. In fact, Stronstad writes, “[The] concentration of references to the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of Luke demonstrates that the topic of the Spirit is historically and theologically of more interest to Luke than it is to the other evangelists” (Stronstad 39-40). Furthermore, Stronstad pushes against the notion that Luke was simply a historian, but rather a theologian. He states, “Modern research has emphasized that he was a theologian…His view of theology led him to write history” (Stronstad 9). Luke’s theology of the Holy Spirit is overwhelmingly evident in the way Stronstad presents the continuation of Holy Spirit’s activity from the Old Testament to the New Testament, the Holy Spirit’s purpose in completing God’s mission and the means in which the Spirit is received.

The charismatic gifts debate is an important topic today developed over time in three phases. The first phase began with the Pentecostalism in the first century. The second phase began in the 1960s with the charismatic movement. The third phase began in the 1980s in the Western world. Charismatic gifts are wisdom, knowledge, faith, gift of healing, performance of miracles, prophecy, ability to differentiate spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpretation of tongues. These gifts are stated in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. Christians believe that the Holy Spirit is working in each of us and gives us gifts to do the ministry that God has called us to. “But evangelical Christians are divided on the issue of whether charismatic gifts are for today and should be practiced today.” There are two sides to this debate. On one side is the continuationist view and on the other side is the cessationist view. The question being asked is “Were these gifts intended by God to be used throughout the entire church age until the Lord returns?” The continuationists asserts that these gifts are meant for Christians today along with all the other gifts in the New Testament and will continue to the end of the age. The

Pentecostalism is one of the most complex and curious denominations of Christianity. The Pentecostal Movement places an emphasis on a personal experience of God through the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The term “Pentecostal” is derived from the word Pentecost, which is Greek for the “Jewish Feast of Weeks.” The Jewish Feast of Weeks is a Christian holiday that celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus Christ. This event can be found described in the second chapter of the Book of Acts. Pentecostalism is one of the most interesting and intriguing denominations because of its history, organization, beliefs, practices, and structure of authority.

To understand the modern state of Christianity as evangelicals, it is necessary to realize that there have been important changes to the point in which we are today (Fahrsh, 2006). Several doubts among believers existed and this resulted in the existence of many movements. Some of these movements include liberalism, neo orthodoxy and evangelical movement.

There were three movements that helped to form the understanding of scriptural authority between the 18th and the 20th centuries. The first movement Evangelicalism paralleled Puritanism and the Pietist Movement and strongly influenced Protestantism. The Evangelical movement had five principles of faith that were to be adhered to by followers. First was that the “Bible was the supreme authority for faith and practice; second, they believe in the essential of new birth; an experience of conversion through grace. Thirdly, the centrality of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ; fourth, the need to evangelize the world and fifth they believe that the church is a community of believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit”. Together with the mission to evangelize

There are now approximately 170 various denominations that identify as Pentecostal. The Charismatic movement, or neo-Pentecostalism, was born in 1960 when Episcopal priest Dennis Bennett, during the Passion Sunday service, both spoke in tongues and announced that he had received baptism in the Holy Spirit. Although this event is associated with the official beginning of the Charismatic movement, it must be noted that many other Pentecostals and even mainline Christians are considered essential to the birth and spread of the movement. They include such names as David du Plessis, Smith Wigglesworth, Agnes Sanford, Kenneth McAll, Presbyterian pastor James Brown, and Lutheran minister Harald Bredesen. Those who embrace the beliefs and practices of the Charismatic movement do not generally align themselves with any particular mainline Christian denomination. However, Charismatics are found today in all the major Christian denominations, especially in the Pentecostal, Lutheran, Episcopalian, and Catholic Churches. The term Charisma means gift, so therefore Charismatics denote those that demonstrate one or many of the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Finney’s writing reflects a lot about revival; that it is a method for saving souls as well as changing people and, eventually, the society. Through revivalism, the church would introduce the millennial kingdom to the world. Finney acknowledges that revival brought good change radically and also that Christians ought to be effectively involved in transforming all areas of community.