Journal: Trinity Journal
Volume: TRINJ 23:2 (Fall 2002)
Article: The Word and the Spirit or the Spirit and the Word: Exploring the Boundaries of Evangelicalism in Relationship to Modern Pentecostalism
Author: Amos Yong

TrinJ 23:2 (Fall 02) p. 235

The Word and the Spirit
or
the Spirit and the Word:
Exploring the Boundaries of Evangelicalism in Relationship to Modern Pentecostalism

Amos Yonga

In his recent book, Jon Stone observes that evangelicalism’s preoccupation with defining the movement’s boundaries is

especially intriguing, not simply because it troubles them, but because it consumes them. For evangelicals, it seems of first importance that the differences between themselves and non-evangelicals be clearly drawn in order to resolve this ever-increasing confusion over the boundaries of evangelicalism and the organizational problem that attend such confusion.1

But is the concern about boundaries all bad? Are the disagreements about boundaries something we should decry? Isn’t the question of boundaries the question about identity, and if so, an important and perhaps ongoing one?

This paper is an inquiry into the question of how evangelicals and Pentecostals negotiate questions of self-identity. Juxtaposing and comparing some of the pertinent historical and theological issues (first two sections) will intensify the complexity of the question of boundaries specifically with regard to what that means for us as evangelicals vis-à-vis Pentecostals and (vice-versa) for us as Pentecostals vis-à-vis evangelicals (third section).2 Now although comparisons and analyses proceed best when the terms to be

TrinJ 23:2 (Fall 02) p. 236

compared or analyzed are clearly defined, the problem before us, however, is precisely that of definition, of identities, of boundaries. I will therefore postpone the formal question of definition in the hopes that it may resolve itself (how pentecostally blessed I would count myself if that were to occur). In the meanwhile, the following questions should be kept in mind as we proceed: do evangelicals assume Pentecostals are evangelicals - why or why not? And, on the other side, do Pentecostals either consider themselves to be evangelicals or do Pentecostals assume evangelical and Pentecostal to be synonymous - again, why or why not?

I. The Boundaries in Historical Perspective

Perhaps one point of entry into the similarities and differences between evangelicals and Pentecostals is historical perspective. I propose to look at the origins, the roots, and the present and future trajectories of both movements to begin charting where the convergences and divergences of identities may lie.

To begin with, at one level, it is arguable that both evangelicalism a...