Azusa, Rome, and Zion offers historical, theological, and spiritual reflections on major movements of the Holy Spirit in modern times. The author shows where the lived experience of these movements challenges received theological concepts and categories, and indicates how engagement with these challenges can contribute to Christian reconciliation and Christian unity. Of particular interest are the surprising ways in which what appear at first sight to be new obstacles and points of division can in fact lead into deeper grasp of God's purposes for the body of Christ. Two chapters indicate the immense potential being opened up by the ministry of Pope Francis. The title captures not just the place of Pentecostals, Catholics, and Jews, but a historical dynamic that reverses the original going out from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
As the charismatic movement penetrated the Protestant churches and then impacted the Catholic Church, great hopes for Christian unity were aroused among many. These hopes peaked with the great Kansas City conference of 1977 and the ""Pentecost over Europe"" gathering in Strasbourg, France, in 1982. After these high points, the Renewal's unity dynamic weakened at the same time as the ecumenical movement was losing momentum. Dr. Hocken argues that the charismatic movement was always a grace for unity, and that this can be seen from how it began and spread. Its deep orientation to unity finds its foundation in the ""end-times"" significance of baptism in the Spirit poured out on Christians from so many traditions that reinforces the ""one hope"" for the coming of the Lord. Many developments of the last twenty years indicate that the time is now ripe for an ecumenism of the Spirit within which the charismatic impulses of the Holy Spirit can purify and deepen the wider movement for Christian unity. Growing reconciliation between Evangelicals and Catholics suddenly seems less utopian as Pope Francis shows the servant face of a humbler Catholic Church.
Pentecostals are known for an experiential spirituality that emphasizes immediate encounters with God through the Holy Spirit. But how should such experience be understood? Is it, in fact, quite so immediate? Neumann argues that Pentecostal experience of God is mediated by the Spirit's work through Scripture, the Christian tradition, and the broader cultural context. Using the work of three contemporary Pentecostal theologians--Frank D. Macchia, Simon K. H. Chan, and Amos Yong--the book demonstrates that a mediated view of experience of God is forging a more mature Pentecostal theology. As further evidence of this maturation, Neumann engages these Pentecostal theologians in ecumenical dialogue with leading representatives from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant traditions.
Early Pentecostals proclaimed the restoration of the charismatic gifts as a sign of the imminent coming of Christ. This eschatology was later marginalized by the rise of fundamentalist dispensationalism. Today Pentecostal eschatology is being revised to include a more transformative view of the kingdom. This boook proposes a further revision of Pentecostal eschatology created to recover prophetic elements of early Pentecostalism that invite a responsible social engagement in the world, and to overcome fundamentalist assumptions which have crept into Pentecostal theology in its middle years. To this end, the eschatological thought of selected Pentecostal theologians is placed in dialogue with Jurgen Moltmann. This dialogue critiques fundamentalist tendencies within contemporary Pentecostalism by advocating a theology more open to history and creation, and a Pentecostal ethic both personal and social in scope.
The Glory and the Shame is a comprehensive portrayal of the worldwide twentieth-century charismatic movement in all its complexity. It is the work of a scholar who has experienced most of what he writes, and sets the work of the Holy Spirit in the context of Christian unity and the second coming. Peter Hocken’s overview is exciting, demanding, fearless: God’s surprises are emphasized; the link between Pentecost and the Second Coming is dominant; the pivotal role of Israel is brought sharply into focus; the responsibilities of the worldwide contemporary church are highlighted.
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