Prophet-Minded
The Australian Business Review Weekly ran a feature on Pentecostalism last week entitled “Prophet-Minded”.
I responded with a letter to the editor. I’m not sure if they’ll publish it. But here it is anyway.
Adele Ferguson’s article on the rise of the Pentecostal churches (May 26) could have benefited from the perspective of history. Renewal movements such as Pentecostalism are the stuff of church history. These movements always begin on the fringe of society. The successful ones eventually move into centre.Take the Quakers of 17th and 18th century Britain. They began as a “dangerous” protest movement against the established churches. Thousands of them were jailed for disrupting Sunday services. One of their leaders even rode naked through a town as a sign of God’s judgement. Just a generation later Quakers were domininating the British steel industry, founding Lloyds of London and Barclay’s Bank, and producing Rowntree’s and Cadbury’s chocolates. Not only that, they led British society in prison reform, industrial relations and women’s rights.
Dig around the history of most established churches and you’ll find a similar pattern in their emergence. Australian Pentecostals began on the fringe and now they are moving to the mainstream of our culture. They will make their contribution just as other churches have done.
History reassures those who are troubled by zealous faith. Once the prosperous Quakers moved into the mainstream their children and grandchildren became respectable and sedate. Things quietened down until eventually the Methodists and then the Salvation Army came along and the story continued.
Steve Addison
