Catholics and Pentecostals – A Shared Mission in a Globalising World

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Introduction

Catholics and Pentecostals do not at first glance look like the most natural of bedfellows among the many options available to us in this post-denominational era. Catholics seems to have more in common with Anglicans (apart from those in Sydney) and the Orthodox churches, while Pentecostals might trace their lineage to the heritage of John Wesley through various mediations of revivalist movements into their present form of mega-churches. Catholics are bound, if not trapped, in tradition, while Pentecostals are almost footloose and fancy free in that regard; Catholics have a strong central hierarchical authority structure while Pentecostals move in a free-church tradition where authority is not centralised but dispersed within the local communities and their leaders. In many ways these two movements can be thought of as polar opposites in the set of competing denominations, almost mirror images of one another.

However, there is another sense in which they are linked when we consider the issue of the mission of the church in a globalising world. Both Catholicism and Pentecostalism are truly global phenomena. Since its inception the Catholic Church has taken its lead from the biblical injunction to “make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). As its name implies, the Catholic Church has been truly “catholic”, that is, it has found a home for itself in every nation, every race, every culture, and every continent on earth. Whatever its shortcomings in adapting to local conditions – and these shortcomings are many and acknowledged by Catholic missiologists – it has still managed to plant the seeds of the Gospel in communities around the globe. In this sense it is very different from many of those churches closest to it which are more closely linked to particular cultural or ethnic groups. When people speak of the Roman Catholic Church, the qualifier “Roman” does not express the same sense of limitation that the qualifier “Greek” has in relation to the Greek Orthodox Church.

Likewise Pentecostalism is a truly global phenomenon. Though its history is measured in decades rather than centuries, it is now a truly global movement – and I think the term movement it more appropriate here than church. In the course of a century Pentecostalism has erupted onto the world stage, spreading like a bushfire across a dry field, bringing energy and faith to communities around the world. While estimates vary and are disputed by some, it would appear that globally there are now 800 million Pentecostals globally making it one of the largest Christian movements at the present time. And the Australian figures would indicate that on any given Sunday, there are more Pentecostals in church than any other denomination apart from Catholics. And like Catholicism, Pentecostalism has been relatively successful in adapting to the local
context in a way which displays more flexibility than many evangelical churches. This is evident in Latin America where Pentecostal churches have adopted elements of popular religion which has strongly Catholic roots, something that evangelicals have much more difficulty in accepting.

I would like to suggest that in these two global phenomena we can find the basis for a shared mission in which Catholics and Pentecostals need one another in order to bring that mission to its completion. Because of what are often mirror opposite characteristics we need one another to keep the other honest and in a more precise sense “in balance”. We have much to learn from one another even while we may maintain our distinctive approaches to the one faith we profess.

The one mission, the missio Dei

As a starting point we should note that the mission we share is neither Catholic nor Pentecostal. The mission we share is the missio Dei, the mission of God, realised in history through the two inextricably linked missions of incarnate Word and life-giving Spirit. The triune God has irrevocably given Godself to us in human history through the coming of the Son in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and has further empowered us to continue that mission through the Spirit poured out at Pentecost. This link to the missio Dei is something we must never forget, for that mission is larger than all of us, larger than any denominational differences and indeed larger than our Christian identity as a whole. We live in that mission, we do not possess it; it possesses us.

Jesus himself speaks of that mission by evoking the symbol of the “kingdom of God”. References to the kingdom frame Jesus’ mission, from his first preaching after his baptism by John – “repent for the kingdom of God is close at hand” (Mark 1:15) – to his final meal with his disciples – “I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:24). Jesus’ kingdom message is preached and embodied in his parables, his healings and his table fellowship with sinners. We can think of the kingdom as a symbol of complete human flourishing, a flourishing that is only possible through the power of divine forgiveness and graciousness.

As a symbol of such human flourishing the kingdom stands in opposition to all the forces we experience which diminish that flourishing. These forces may be personal, cultural, social or vital. This diminishment in flourishing is of its nature an evil, a privation, sometimes moral, sometimes physical, and it is against these evils that Jesus’ mission stands. The great Protestant missiologist, David Bosch spoke of Jesus’ mission, his preaching of and action towards the Kingdom as launching “an all-out attack on evil in all its manifestations.”¹ And so we see Jesus overcoming the alienation of sin through the power of forgiveness; challenging dominant cultures of domination through his model of service; breaking down social divisions through his outreach to the socially marginalised and excluded; and restoring people to bodily vitality through his healings.

One can find the same emphasis on overcoming evil in the following quote from Pope John Paul II:

The Kingdom is the concern of everyone: individuals, society, and the world. Working for the Kingdom means acknowledging and promoting God’s activity, which is present in human history and transforms it. Building the Kingdom means working for liberation from evil in all its forms. In a word, the Kingdom of God is the manifestation and the realization of God’s plan of salvation in all its fullness.² [emphasis added].

This mission is larger than any church. Indeed as mission it is “the concern of everyone” for the problem of evil is a human problem. And it is not a problem of us vs. them, for the Christian doctrine on original sin makes it clear that the problem lies within each one of us.³ However, it is a human problem beyond the
resources of human beings to overcome, because the problem itself undermines our resources and renders us incapable of finding the solution, what the tradition refers to as moral impotence. In Christian faith we say that the only lasting solution to the problem of evil is that manifest in the suffering love of Jesus, and it is only through the power of his Spirit that we can enter into this solution without either self-righteousness or self-negation.

Both Catholics and Pentecostals are called to share in, indeed to live within, this mission, each bringing to that mission their own perspectives, resources, strengths and weaknesses. That mission is global in scope. The problem of evil does not respect national boundaries; nor cultural markers; nor ethnic boarders. Now more than ever the problem of evil is global in its manifestations, not just that it is present in all aspects of human existence but in a more formal sense of globally organised, through global networks of crime, violence and terrorism. If we are to respond to this emerging dimension of the problem of evil we will need a commensurate response on the global scale and in this sense it is significant that both Catholics and Pentecostal are part of truly global phenomena.

What Catholics can learn from Pentecostals

This thread of continuity has not meant static repetition however. It is clear that there have been significant changes along the way and one can map these changes in terms of major epochs – the medieval Church, the counter-Reformation Church, the Vatican II Church and so on. Whether any or all of these changes represent genuine developments or serious departures from the Gospel is of course a matter for debate. One characteristic, however, of this whole process, has been the constant stress on a sense of continuity with the past. Protestant theologian Langdon Gilkey speaks of Catholicism’s respect for history and tradition as one of it defining characteristics.⁵

However, this respect for tradition is a double-edged sword. Many people who grew up as Catholics in the 50s and 60s lived in a world of traditions and practices which at the time we took for granted as representing “our sacred tradition”, only to find that many of them were relatively recent in origin and could be removed at the stroke of a pen, as happened at Vatican II. Catholics have found it a continual challenge to distinguish between Tradition (with a big T) and traditions (with a small t). This has impacted on a range of issues, such as priestly celibacy and the possibility of ordaining women, down to questions of Church architecture and music. The overall impression of those on the outside is that of a Church community which continually lives in the past and lives out of the past, a community which is cut off from contemporary concerns and perspectives. In many ways our respect for the past runs the risk of making us simply irrelevant to the present, and in particular the young people of the present generation.

It is refreshing then to encounter Pentecostal churches which have such a contemporary focus and which can respond to the present without carrying forward the burden of 2000 years of history, with one eye constantly looking over its shoulder. Theologically Pentecostals live with a freedom of the Spirit which Catholics seem unable to appreciate, or realise in their own communities. Here we have much to learn from our Pentecostal brothers and sisters.

Coupled with this burden of tradition is a sense of tiredness or perhaps a loss of heart or confidence, especially in relation to the overriding mission of the Church. I have written elsewhere that the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II had seriously failed in its mission to the world.⁶ This failure was most evident in its reactive stance to the modern world which it viewed with undiminished hostility. This defensiveness began with the Protestant churches of the Reformation, but extended to modern science, philosophy and political movements. There was a loss of confidence in the power of the Gospel to be personally, culturally, and socially transformative, and hence I would argue, a loss of confidence in the mission of the Church to the world. Again this is something where we have much to learn from our Pentecostal brothers and sisters. The spiritual energy and vibrancy of Pentecostalism is not a common occurrence within Catholicism and where it does emerge people often find that they no longer find a home within that tradition. That energy and vibrancy speaks to me of a deep confidence in the power of God to transform us personally, culturally and socially for the sake of building up the Kingdom.

What Pentecostals can learn from Catholics⁷

Pentecostalism is a far more recent phenomenon than Catholicism. It has generally been assumed that Pentecostalism began initially on 1 January 1901 at C.F. Parham’s bible school in Topeka Kansas and was popularised through the 1906 Azusa Street Los Angeles revival. To some it is essentially a North American movement that has traveled throughout the globe on the back of American missionary and capitalist expansionism. Yet the reality is more complex. As Mark Hutchinson observes, the story of Pentecostalism “is far from uni-linear, ... it is not one thing spreading out, but many mutually-recognizable things coalescing.”⁸ Pentecostals have tended to emphasise the fourfold message that Jesus saves, heals, baptizes in the Spirit and is coming again soon (the so-called fourfold or full gospel), but the nature of this proclamation differs greatly from church to church. It is generally accepted that Pentecostals are characterised by an experientialist orientation, a spirituality focused on the experience of God through the power of the Spirit.⁹

Like the Catholic Church, Pentecostalism is a truly global phenomenon. And it is the bringing together of the global identity of Pentecostalism (with its accompanying experiences and ideas), with a seemingly bewildering degree of indigenisation, that constitutes Pentecostalism as a truly globalised movement. Its global identity exists as the mutual interplay between shared experiences and concepts intersecting with local realities, generating diverse ecclesial and spiritual expressions that are, nevertheless, in mutual relationship.

One major thing that Pentecostals might learn from Catholics is the importance of embedding your story within a larger narrative. Pentecostals can learn from Catholic’s sense of history and tradition. It must locate itself within a tradition that stretches back to the earliest Christian communities. I have already mentioned its relationship to the Wesleyan tradition, but this too has its antecedents in various Christian movements, perhaps even the early monastic communities in the fourth and fifth centuries that sought to develop a more committed and enthused Christian life, out of the prevailing mediocrity of a Christianised Roman empire. Often emerging Christian churches present themselves as making some form of direct link with the communities of the early Church, jumping over centuries of Christian history as if they never existed. Such an approach, in seeking to distance itself from the failures of that history, also fails to honour its vast achievements. There are elements of continuity and Pentecostals can learn to honor the whole Christian past, not just the most recent and the most remote.

This is particularly the case in relation to the intellectual tradition which has been at its strongest within the Catholic Church. Again to refer to the work of Langdon Gilkey, another characteristic of Catholicism is its commitment to the intellectual reasonableness of faith. Yet much of this intellectual tradition is not Catholic in the narrow sense, but part of the whole Christian patrimony. This was brought home to me in reading the work of Stanley Hauerwas, a self-described high church Mennonite and Christian ethicist. Hauerwas was reclaiming the work of Thomas Aquinas, the great Catholic medieval theologian.¹⁰ When questioned as to why he was drawing on such a prominent Catholic thinker he defended his stance by claiming his right to draw on the whole Christian intellectual patrimony, and certainly that part which existed prior to the western schism of the Reformation.

My own experience has been that Pentecostals are far more at home in the intellectual horizon provided by the Catholic intellectual tradition than they are in various Reformed theological horizons. Both Catholics and Pentecostals have a respect for genuine religious experience and some confidence in human nature. It should be remembered that John Wesley rejected the Reformers insistence on the simul justus et peccator, that we are simultaneously justified and sinners.¹¹ He viewed it as undermining the Christian quest for holiness, and in this matter he concurred with the Catholic position. This area of common ground is an important starting point for dialogue on the Catholic intellectual tradition.

The Latin American experience

I would now like to consider something of the experience of Latin America in the past decades. For some time the Catholic Church in Latin America was politically aligned with non-democratic forces which supported oppressive military governments throughout the region. In the 60s and 70s a movement called Liberation Theology arose which challenged this alignment. Inspired by elements of Marxist philosophy, Liberation theology argued that fidelity to the Gospel meant working for liberation from oppressive social and economic conditions, primarily through working for social transformation. They developed a pastoral strategy of Base Christian Communities which were often led by laity to assist in the conscientising and empowering of the poor.¹² At times this led to some (only a few) liberation theologians to promote violence as a solution to political oppression. The key catch-phrase of liberation theology was the notion of the “preferential option for the poor”.

The stance of Liberation Theology caused much concern with the Vatican which accused it of overly politicising the Gospel and reducing the Gospel to a purely social and political agenda.¹³ It should be noted however that despite this criticism, elements of Liberation Theology have found their way into Vatican documents, especially in the teachings of Pope John Paul II.

The stance of Liberation Theology also caused concern in Washington which had a vested interest in maintaining strong governments in Latin America to protect their own regional interests. They noted in particular the Marxist influence in Liberation Theology. Through the CIA it is rumored that they funded evangelical and Pentecostal movements to set up shop in Latin America because these churches were viewed as more politically conservative than the radical liberation theologians.

How did the poor respond to this situation? It has been quipped that while Liberation Theology opted for the poor, the poor opted for Pentecostalism. While the Base Christian Communities and Liberation theology have struggled to maintain their relevance, Pentecostal churches have experienced explosive growth in Latin America, often incorporating elements of popular Catholic belief into their worship.

However far from putting a halt to social transformation, the emergence of Pentecostal churches has had a significant impact on people’s lives. Peter Berger notes:

What takes place here is nothing less than a cultural revolution, sharply deviant from traditional Latin American patterns. This new culture is certainly “ascetic”. It promotes personal discipline and honesty, proscribes alcohol and extra-marital sex, dismantles the compadre system (which is based on Catholic practice and, with its fiestas and other extravagant expenditures, discourages saving), and teaches ordinary people to create and run their own grassroot institutions. It is a culture that is radically opposed to classical machismo, and indeed is in many ways a women’s movement -- while most preachers are men, women are important missionaries and organizers. Even more important, women take on leadership roles within the family, “domesticating” their husbands (or, alternatively, kicking them out if they refuse to adhere to Protestant moral standards) and paying attention to the education of their children.¹⁴

This is in fact a way of empowering people out of their poverty, both individually and communally. But it is not based on the approach of liberation theology to work for social change directly. Rather it is the more indirect approach which begins with personal religious conversion and subsequent moral transformation. This moral transformation leads to new ways of thinking and behaving, not just individually but as a community.

This same logic of social transformation can be found in the encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est (God is love).¹⁵ In this letter Benedict speaks of the power of the Gospel to bring about social justice not through the direct involvement of the Church but through the moral and cultural transformation that the Gospel engenders. While the first part of this encyclical has been widely acknowledged as a beautiful and significant reflection on the nature of human love, the second part deals with the more difficult question of the relationship between Church and state, in the context of the Church’s charitable works and agencies. What we find in this document is a clear rejection of the Christendom model of Church-state relationship: “it is not the Church’s responsibility to make [its] teaching prevail in political life … the Church cannot and must not replace the state” (n.28). The Church’s task is to “inform consciences”, “stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice”, and foster “greater readiness to act accordingly” (n.28). The Church’s social teaching is based on “reason and natural law”, “rational argument” so that a “just society must be the achievement of politics, not the Church” (n.28). In fact “the direct duty to work for a just ordering of society … is proper to the lay faithful … called to take part in public life as a personal capacity” (n.29).

What we find here is I think a convergence between Pentecostal practice and Catholic teaching. Benedict is targeting those forms of liberation theology which advocate a direct involvement in politics. Rather the task is to “inform consciences”, “stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice”, and foster “greater readiness to act accordingly” and so promote citizens committed to “work for a just ordering of society”. This is what we can witness in the practice of Pentecostal churches working with the poor and marginalised in Latin America. The religious conversion they promote is leading to a renewed moral perspective which is transforming society as a leaven from within, not by direct confrontation.

Conclusion

I would like to conclude with a quote from Matthew’s Gospel:

Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. (Matthew 13:52)

Some Biblical scholars see this as a self-referential statement by the Gospel writer who viewed himself as a scribe drawing of the best of the old and adding what was most truly new in the mission of Jesus. I have often thought that same observation could be made about my ongoing relationship with the Pentecostal
church through my work with Alphacrucis College. Together we bring to our common task things old and new like the wise scribe, not in competition with one another but with a genuine appreciation and willingness to learn from one another.