03 The Apostolic Revolution and the Ecclesiology of the AoGA

As a global coalescing of the various streams of voluntarist and revivalist Christianity, Pentecostalism emerged during the early decades of the twentieth century with a focus on universal baptism in the Spirit, and a concomitant Free Church ecclesiology emphasising congregational empowerment and local church autonomy. With a few exceptions,² this grass roots ecclesiology was common to pentecostal movements of all persuasions. However, in recent decades there has been a growing number of churches that have moved away from congregationalist structures, adopting ecclesiologies that focus both local church and inter-church authority in the hands of influential church leaders, who are sometimes given the label "Apostle." This new ecclesiology has been labelled as the Apostolic Revolution or Reformation.

Many Apostolic styled churches are independent charismatic mega-churches, although a few traditional pentecostal fellowships have made the transition from congregationalism to the more hierarchical structures. The Assemblies of God in Australia ("AGA") is one example of the latter and, as such, its story is promoted globally by advocates of the new structures.³ The fellowship has been given a global profile that belies its relative numeric insignificance,⁴ both as a consequence of these ecclesiological changes, and also due to the global influence of the AGA president, Brian Houston, who pastors Hillsong Church.

Our purpose in this paper is, firstly, to provide an overview of the ecclesiological transitions that have occurred in the AGA and, secondly, to attempt to discern what has been gained and lost in this process of change.

There is symbolic significance in the identification of pentecostal origins with the 1 January 1901 outpouring at Charles Fox Parham’s bible school in Topeka Kansas, as well as in the 1906 Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles, through the ministry of William J. Seymour. Yet despite these symbolic origins, global pentecostalism is not an American export. As Mark Hutchinson observes, the story of pentecostalism "is far from uni-linear, . . . it is not one thing spreading out, but many mutually-recognisable things coalescing."⁵ It brings together, through the shared experience and theology of the Baptism in the Spirit, the various streams of nineteenth century voluntarist Christianity, described by David Martin as the "unsponsored mobilizations of laissez-faire lay religion, running to and fro between Britain and North America."⁶ The nineteenth century had seen the democratisation of various streams of Protestant Christianity, and these voluntarist movements, such as (earlier) the Methodists and the Baptists and (later), the Brethren and the Churches of Christ, were characterised by a critique of traditional church structures, a hunger for revival and spiritual experience, a holiness orientation, and an egalitarian culture which facilitated the empowerment of the laity.⁷ They were also characterised by a level of fissiparity, resulting from the diversity of spiritual experience and individualistic tendencies, and this, along with the above-mentioned readiness to jettison traditional structures and theologies, generated repeated schism, and led to the proliferation of Christian denominations. Global pentecostalism was born into this voluntarist environment, with all its attendant strengths and weaknesses, and with the unifying and empowering benefit of a shared experience and theology of the Spirit.

The first pentecostal assembly in Australia was established on New Year’s Eve 1909, and led by fifty year old grandmother, Sarah Jane Lancaster (it is noteworthy that, prior to 1930, not only was Lancaster the informal leader of pentecostalism in this country, but over half of the assemblies established prior to 1930 were planted and led by women).⁸ Early Australian pentecostalism had little in the way of structure or doctrine that could identify it as a "church." What formed and sustained communities was a shared experience and theology of baptism in the Spirit. Baptism in the Spirit was symbolically representative of the pentecostal identity and worldview and, in this way, functioned at the level of cultural values by enriching self-understanding. The notion of Spirit-baptism as universally available, and universally empowering for people of all genders, all races, all classes, and all intelligences, was a vital symbol of unity. At the same time, since the Spirit was understood as a sign of the end-times, as facilitating personal holiness, and as empowering for mission, it also acted as a force for cultural and social change.

It can thus be said that baptism in the Spirit facilitated pentecostal ecclesiology, despite the fact that early assemblies were structured informally, and there were no ordained ministers. There was no formal connection between assemblies, and no agreed statement of doctrine, a fact that was to become a major issue when some pentecostal assemblies discovered that Lancaster did not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity,⁹ and was an annihilationist, rejecting traditional views of hell.¹⁰ Lancaster was open to fellowship with people of diverse opinions on these matters. Like many voluntarists, she believed that a shared experience of the Spirit was enough to constitute "the church," that the church was an "organism not an organisation,"¹¹ and that unity was possible without so-called divisive doctrine and restrictive structure.

Ultimately, this mystical and entirely charismatic understanding of the church and church unity proved to be unsustainable. If the church is a (divinely ordained) human community, then its existence and mission requires that its Spirit constitution is facilitated through the various mechanisms of social organisation and cultural propagation.¹² In early Australian pentecostalism (as elsewhere), there became a growing awareness that the integrity of the pentecostal fourfold gospel, and the long-term sustainability of pentecostal communities, required the creation of community structures and systems to resolve doctrinal disputes, facilitate community organisation and leadership, coordinate inter-church relationships, and generate means of training and sending pastors and missionaries.

The result was the institutional developments that gave rise to various regional, state-wide and, ultimately, national pentecostal associations.¹³ Following the formation of various state-based fellowships during the 1920s, in 1937, thirty eight assemblies, with a constituency of a little over one thousand people, came together to form the United Fellowship of the Assemblies of God in Australia ("AGA"). The model of fellowship was similar to that adopted by most pentecostals and free churches globally. Emphasising the shared responsibility of spirit-filled believers for church life and ministry, government of churches was vested in the members of the assembly, who then delegated certain day-to-day responsibilities to church elders and pastors. This democratic structure extended to the fellowship level. The AGA was to be governed by a United Constitution and a Biennial Conference, with churches given conference representation in accordance with the size of their membership. Fellowship leaders were delegated with day-to-day management of conference decisions within constitutive limitations.

Space does not permit us to document all the achievements and failures of this newly constituted AGA movement. Suffice to say that the AGA worked with this democratic free-church structure until dramatic changes occurred during the 1970s and subsequent decades. The impetus for these changes was the charismatic renewal which began in the 1960s and continued through to the 1980s. At the time, the charismatic renewal was celebrated by the AGA as the "Spreading Flame of Pentecost,"¹⁴ as mainline churches of all persuasions began to experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit accompanied by tongues.¹⁵ Yet the influence of this renewal was two-way, with charismatic leaders having as much impact on pentecostalism as pentecostals were to have on charismatic movements.

While some pentecostal pastors and churches embraced the new movement, some were concerned, not by the impact of the Spirit upon mainline churches, but by the impact of the charismatic movement on the AGA and its doctrine. As early as 1969, the then leader of the AGA, Ralph Read, had begun to caution the fellowship about the ecumenical movement arising from the renewal, noting that "countless evangelicals, once famous in contending for the faith, are linking hands with modernists and liberals."¹⁶ The increasing divergence in AGA opinion came to a head at the movement’s 1977 Biennial conference. Read, the conservative, traditionalist superintendent, was voted out of his position, and replaced by Andrew Evans, whose prominence in the movement had followed the rapid growth of his church. Those churches that had incorporated the charismatic message and style had experienced a rapid influx, largely because many charismatics were either forced out, or drifted away from, their traditional churches. Those AGA churches that were prepared to change their ecclesiological culture and structure along with the rapid developments of charismatic renewal found their congregations flooded with newly invigorated charismatic Christians from a variety of denominational backgrounds.

In the decades to follow, the AGA was to experience remarkable growth. By 1977, the fellowship had grown to over 100 churches with a constituency of almost 10,000. By the turn of the twenty first century, the AGA had grown to almost 1,000 churches and had over 155,000 members.¹⁷

It is this aspect of the changes in the AGA that has taken on international prominence. Cartledge locates the beginning of this "apostolic revolution" in Australia with the leadership changes of the 1977 conference. He accredits this revolution with the empowering of the local church over against centralised bureaucracies.²¹ He also applauds the defeat of congregational, "deacon possessed" churches, which he claims are reluctant to embrace change, and thereby inhibit church growth.²² He endorses the requisite "anointing" of the leadership of the senior pastor, formalised in the establishment of "theocratic" church government, i.e. vesting church authority in God-appointed apostolic leaders. ²³ This authority is manifest in the local church, and also in regional, state and national AGA structures, with the mega-church "apostles" taking executive leadership in the movement. For Cartledge, these changes are responsible for the remarkable growth in the AGA during the two and half decades following the 1977 "revolution." Whether or not his conclusions are valid (and, as is hinted above, he dismisses the impact of the charismatic movement), it is the purpose of this paper to attempt to assess what has been gained and/or lost, in respect to AGA ecclesiology, in the process of these transitions.

It is readily apparent that the creation of the AGA fellowship, with its transition from unstructured voluntarism to denominational free-church ecclesiology, as well as its later move to more hierarchical structures, represents a form of institutional development which, in some quarters, is automatically rendered suspect. This negative reading of the process of institutionalisation can be found in both practitioners and scholars alike. Some pentecostals suspect institutional developments on the grounds that bureaucracy is necessarily opposed to the freedom of the Spirit.²⁴ At the level of academic theory there is, similarly, a tendency, utilising Max Weber’s categories of charismatic, traditional and bureaucratic authority and his descriptions of the institutionalisation, to assume that social groups necessarily move from the charismatic to the bureaucratic.²⁵ The inevitable consequence is understood to be the routinisation of the original charisma and, consequently, institutionalisation is understood to be a necessary evil. As Thomas O’Dea observes, "religion both needs most and suffers most from institutionalization."²⁶

Yet the idea of a "necessary evil" is ontologically problematic, and overlooks the fact that institutional forms provide an efficient means to achieve certain recurrent needs within the community.²⁷ Since institutionalisation is essential to human community, rather than critique institutionalisation per se, one might seek to identify what is gained and lost in particular instances of institutional development. Far from overriding the original charisma, it may be possible for institutional developments to encourage and enhance the charismatic orientation of the church. As Donald Gee was to argue in 1938:

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, speaking from his experience in the Roman Catholic / Pentecostal Dialogue, likewise argues that pentecostals "are ready to go beyond the all-too simplified dichotomy of ‘charisma versus institution’ to a more fruitful notion of a church "which is both charismatic and has structure."²⁹ For our purposes, the issue in respect to the "apostolic revolution" is not, then, institutionalisation per se but, rather, whether or not the specific nature and form of the structural and cultural developments that occurred can be said to protect and enhance the fellowship and mission of the Spirit of Christ in the church.

Before addressing this matter, there is another aspect of the public debate surrounding "apostles" in the church that needs to be addressed; that is, the competing claims by proponents and opponents for the support of the Scriptures. Thus, for example, Cartledge justifies the changes in AGA ecclesiology on biblical grounds, adopting what he describes as the "principles" of Ephesians 4:11-16, where he locates a fivefold understanding of church offices (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher). He goes on to explicate the various authorities and responsibilities of these offices. His particular concern is with apostles and prophets, which he argues have been neglected by the church. According to his reading of this passage, the apostle is "appointed by the Lord for leadership of the church at local, regional, national or international levels of influence and responsibility,"³⁰ and the prophet is the "mouthpiece of God."³¹ For Cartledge, these offices do not deny, but rather facilitate the priesthood and prophethood of all believers.

Either directly or indirectly, various commentators have been critical of the moves toward "apostolic" structures in pentecostal churches. In 2001 the general presbytery of the Assemblies in God in the United States of America (AGUSA) issued a statement on apostles and prophets.³² The reason for this statement was the increasing circulation of new models of church governance similar to that proposed by Cartledge, and propagated by church growth theorist, Peter Wagner, in his series of books on the so-called "New Apostolic Paradigm."³³ Although the reason for this statement was this developing apostolic context, the basis of argument taken by the AGUSA was essentially exegetical. They argued that, in the New Testament, the authoritative office of apostle is given only to "the twelve (and Paul)" and is, therefore unrepeatable. The witness of these original apostles continues through the word of Scripture.³⁴ They go on to suggest that when the term "apostle" is used in reference to other than this "bakers dozen" ³⁵ it only occurs in a missionary context. This reading of the New Testament usage of the term "apostle," which is in fact common to protestant exegetes,³⁶ leads the AGUSA to critique as "false apostles" those who wrongly take, or are given, the title "apostle," and those who assume that apostolic office gives any individual unique authority in the church, especially over and against the congregation. For the AGUSA, the advocates of the "apostolic revolution" are not only ignoring the Scriptures, but are forgetting the important notion of the priesthood of all believers that is central to pentecostalism and its universal conception of the baptism in the Spirit.³⁷

The AGUSA is not alone in this conclusion, and various pentecostal scholars have also taken up the issue. Mathew Clark, who writes to resist the implementation of the new apostolic paradigm in his own pentecostal movement in South Africa, argues on exegetical grounds for the missionary nature of apostles. While he therefore affirms the continuation of apostolic ministry, he argues that this ministry has little to do with ecclesial authority in the church but, rather, is a label applied to those in ground breaking, church planting ministries. He then goes on to categorise these modern apostles as "bishops" in the episcopalian sense of the term. For Clark, this implementation of hierarchical ecclesiology represents a move to oppressive structures that bind the people of God.³⁸

Laurence M. Van Kleek restates all of the above criticisms, and also observes that the notion of modern-day apostles is not new.³⁹ Earlier pentecostals, such as Donald Gee (cited earlier), had in fact denounced the establishment of apostolic and prophetic offices.⁴⁰ As result, during the 1930s and 40s the, AGA rejected the Apostolic Church because it sought to abolish congregational government and vest authority in apostles and prophets. This rejection was not only because of the danger of elevating the prophetic to the status of Scripture, but also because of the importance of the principle of the priesthood of all believers.⁴¹ No structure could legitimately be established that prevented the congregation from ownership and responsibility for the church, or that restricted the universal operation of the gifts of the Spirit, including prophecy.

While there is much that is important in these various criticisms, it can be argued that the debate is occurring at cross-purposes. Those advocating new "apostolic" structures are doing so largely for practical reasons. They are arguing on the basis of pragmatism and church growth technique, and references to the Ephesians principle and the offices of apostle and prophet are creative justifications for shifts that have already occurred within movements such as the AGA.⁴² It is not our purpose in this paper to debate biblical hermeneutics, but it is arguable that the AGUSA might similarly be criticised (or applauded) for allowing its experience of congregational government to colour its interpretation of the biblical text. The exegetical critiques of the AGUSA and other scholars are valuable, because they help to unmask the biblical and theological weaknesses of the "apostolic revolution’s" justification. Yet they do not respond to the primarily practical reasons for the AGA transitions.

One of the other problems of the debate thus far, at least insofar as it applies to the narrative of the AGA, is the focus on the term "apostle." In fact, Australian pastors have almost never referred to either themselves or others as apostles,⁴³ and the label "apostolic revolution" is retrospective, applied by Cartledge in the 1990s to events of previous decades.⁴⁴ Consequently, the various critiques of apostles and prophets fail to address the underlying issues that gave rise to the changes that occurred in the AGA. In the analysis that follows, this paper shall attempt to add to the ongoing debate by considering the logic behind the changes, and identifying potential strengths and weaknesses. It shall approach this analysis by considering two inter-related dimensions of the church, its social structures and ecclesial culture.⁴⁵

Whether or not we apply the label "apostolic," the changes that have occurred in the AGA represent an almost complete transition away from democratic and congregational structures. New and increased powers were given to senior pastors at the same time as local church autonomy was increased. This increased hierarchy at the local level was mirrored at the level of the AGA fellowship, where what remained of centralised authority was given over to mega-church pastors. It can be shown that these changes created organisational efficiencies in both churches and the movement as a whole and, thereby, provide a part of the explanation for the movement’s growth, and any analysis of the ecclesial changes in the AGA needs to begin by recognising this fact (see Chart 1).

Indeed, there is a tendency in some circles to dismiss church growth as being ecclesiologically irrelevant.⁴⁶ Yet, as Steven Land asserts, pentecostals have long understood themselves as being a "missionary fellowship" and therefore, as he goes on to say, "no static, abstract vision of the Christian life which will suffice. They are a goal-oriented teleological community on the way to the Kingdom."⁴⁷

These goals include the pursuit of church growth for the sake of Kingdom, and it is this driving factor which enables pentecostals to change their ecclesial structures for the sake of the effectiveness of its mission. According to Cartledge and the leaders of the AGA, the transition away from congregational structures released the movement from the restrictive controls of congregational bureaucracies which were reluctant to embrace change. He argues that changing the balance of power enabled "apostolic" styled pastors to control and change church structures and culture, in such a way that the movement was able to remain relevant in a rapidly changing culture. The results of these changes are evident, at least in terms of church growth. According to the National Church Life Survey, weekly attendance at pentecostal congregations is now second only to the Roman Catholic Church, eclipsing all other protestant affiliations.⁴⁸ In recent decades, at a time when other Australian churches have experienced stagnation or decline, and when the constituency of many denominations is ageing, Australian pentecostal churches have continued to grow rapidly, particularly among young people.⁴⁹ Of course, church growth is not the only, or even the most important, aspect of the church’s mission, an issue to which we shall return when we consider the cultural dimension of the AGA but, equally, growth is a fruit of "mission" which should not be undervalued.

Nonetheless, while the various changes to ecclesial structures can thus be justified on pragmatic grounds, there are certain issues that do arise. Perhaps the most important concern, often raised by critiques of the "apostolic revolution," relates to the seeming move away from a "grassroots" ecclesiology. Kärkkäinen notes that, while pentecostals do not agree amongst themselves about the specific nature of church structures, they have generally adopted a free-church approach, arguing that presbyterial/congregational models express better the mutuality demanded by church fellowship oriented to the Spirit.⁵⁰ This is because free-church ecclesiology begins with the spirit-filled individual believer in the context of the local assembly, recognises the local church as fully church, and only thereafter constructs its inter-church structures.⁵¹ As Miroslav Volf suggests, "the universal distribution of the charismata implies common responsibility for the life of the church,"⁵² and this "universal priesthood" is best protected by congregational models which require the election of officeholders by the entire church.⁵³

Volf’s assertion is, of course, open to debate. It may be surprising to critics of the apostolic paradigm to discover that, according to the NCLS in Australia, AGA "attenders are more likely to say that they have a growing sense of belonging"⁵⁴ to their local church than are Christians from any other denomination (in Australia). According to the NCLS, "belonging" is determined by levels of involvement in church, formal or informal roles, depth of church relationships, and satisfaction with the church’s program, all of which can be considered as dimensions of the priesthood of all believers. It is thus noteworthy that this strong sense of "belonging" has been accompanied by increased emphasis on leadership, and a movement away from congregational government. This suggests that it may be possible to conceive of the universal priesthood separately from questions of church government.

Yet this is not conclusive. The grassroots orientation of pentecostal ecclesiology is derived not only from pneumatology, but also from mission. As David Bosch observes, an ascending vision of the church derives from the realisation that the local church is the "primary agent of mission."⁵⁵ Christ’s presence is mediated in the church and through the church to the world, and this mission is local before it is global, so that "the universal church actually finds its true existence in the local churches."⁵⁶ Admittedly, the AGA has retained an emphasis on the local church, but the local church becomes "the pastors church," and this can only be understood as a move away from a grassroots orientation, since the mission of the church is not the pastors alone, but the responsibility of all Spirit-filled Christians.

It can thus be argued that the dominance of the senior pastor in churches, and the mega-church pastor in the fellowship as a whole, is antithetical to the grassroots and incarnational orientation of AGA ecclesiology. There is, self-evidently, a danger in terms of pastoral accountability (not merely moral or financial accountability, but accountability for the culture and mission of the church). We noted earlier Clark’s critique that the apostolic revolution is a form of episcopalianism, but this overlooks the fact that churches within these mainline traditions have developed various structures of democracy and accountability. Rather than "bottom-up" accountability to the congregation, episcopalian priests are responsible to regional and global councils of bishops, to the magisterium, and to the tradition of the church. The problem for the AGA is that its new structures contain neither "bottom-up" nor "top-down" accountability. The apostolic model leaves the senior pastor, especially the mega-church pastor, accountable to almost no-one, except "God."⁵⁷ As Robert Doran observes, revolutions generally "bring little more than shift of power and privilege and a changing of the guard."⁵⁸ It could be argued that this is true of the apostolic revolution in the AGA – from congregations to pastors. The senior pastor has become the unquestionable authority in the local church, and the mega-church pastor the unquestionable power in the AGA fellowship, something which is not always to the benefit of either congregations or smaller churches.

The tacit logic of this mega-church priority (i.e of Apostolic leadership) is that all churches should themselves be seeking to attain mega-church status. This not only ignores the relational community orientation of incarnational, grassroots, local churches, but it is an unrealistic expectation that has created casualties among the pastors of small churches. Commenting on the pressure placed on small churches to become large churches in his Congregational Church context in the United States, Lloyd Hall says:

The same can be said for pentecostal churches in Australia, which are predominately small to medium sized churches. Under the prevailing culture that elevates the mega-church as the model for success, churches that may be succeeding in creating intimate communities and in incarnating the gospel in their particular location can be judged or, more likely, judge themselves as failures, unless they manage to achieve continued and substantial church growth. In his survey of ten thousand ex-pastors in Australia, Rowland Croucher observed that among "pentecostals there was a significant drop out rate: more leave the ministry than stay."⁶⁰ There are various reasons for this high drop-out rate, including the fact that many of those ordained within an entrepreneurial movement such as the AGA are unsuited to the task of facilitating and managing church growth. But one of the aspects of this drop-out rate is the assumption that success in ministry equates with local church growth.⁶¹ It is an assumption that forgets that the church is grounded in the local mission of small churches everywhere, whose success is not measured only in terms of numeric growth (although, across the movement as a whole this is not unimportant), but in terms of community formation and obedience to the charge of incarnating Christ and His message of the kingdom in the local community.

All of this to say that, in terms of AGA social structures, while new hierarchical developments have facilitated church growth and allowed rapid response to the changing Australian context, they have also led to the disempowering of certain groups. Apart from the silencing of the laity, and the sidelining of small churches, this includes the continued marginalisation of women from positions of senior leadership. As we noted earlier, fifty percent of pentecostal congregations functioning prior to 1930 were established and led by women.⁶² Although the decline in women in church leadership occurred prior to the 1977 revolution, as pentecostalism appropriated many of the theological parameters of fundamentalist/evangelical theology, the structural changes of recent decades have done little to rectify the situation, despite the claim that the movement is seeking "cultural relevance." By 2001, only four percent of AGA senior pastors were women, and there were no women on the national executive, and across the executives of the various Australian states and territories, only one female representative.⁶³ Senior leadership in AGA churches, especially mega-churches, seems to be the almost exclusive domain of men.

The problem of the exclusion of all of these groups is not only the fact that Spirit-empowered women, laity and small churches were the very people responsible for the birth of pentecostalism, but also that the groups that have been marginalised are those that tend to emphasise the inter-subjective, relational dimensions of ecclesiology. Thus, for example, various recent studies have found support for the position that women and men differ in ministry styles. Edward Lehman suggests men are more likely to use power over their congregations than women, and prefer "rational structure in decision making."⁶⁴ According to Lehman, women, by contrast, were more likely to attempt to involve and empower their congregants to manage much of the church’s business and to prefer decision making by open-ended, unstructured, and inclusive discussions and dialogue, using "intuition" as much as rationality.⁶⁵ Similarly, the research of Barbara Finlay suggests that female ministers are more likely to seek ministry involvement in smaller churches and communities, which reflects "women’s basic desire for strong interpersonal relationships with their parishioners or clients."⁶⁶,⁶⁷ If this is the case, then their marginalisation from institutional structures and positions of authority is not only an issue of discrimination, but has an effect on the structures and values of churches, leading to the prioritising of practical over interpersonal and spiritual values.

At the cultural level, we have already noted that the AGA has achieved many benefits as a result of its focus on cultural relevance. In terms of the missional nature of the church, this includes an expansion in its understanding of the proclamation of the kingdom of God, to include social action and political engagement.

Having said this, it can also be argued that the pragmatic orientation of the church growth movement has restricted the AGA’s capacity to adequately develop its worldview in response to its changing situation. One of the problems for the AGA was that its search for relevance and pragmatic orientation, coinciding with the increased authority vested in mega-church pastors, ultimately led to a rejection of the value of systematic theology and critical thinking altogether. Of course, as Russell Spittler once commented, the phrase ‘Pentecostal studies’ has long been considered as oxymoronic.⁶⁸ Yet, while pentecostals have historically believed academic theology to be potentially dangerous and faith destroying, it is not true that the movement has had no interest in theology. Indeed, the formation of the AGA saw the movement take on sustained and vigorous theological reflection and debate. Fellowship publications and biennial conferences engaged in reflection upon baptism in the Spirit, debates about pacifism and war, questions about the theology of movements such as the Apostolic Church and British Israelism, and missionary concerns including the theology of baptism for polygamous natives. Indeed, while tending to suspect academic theology, Australian pentecostals (mirroring their cousins globally) had always been concerned about theology and the correct doctrine. This was to change dramatically in Australia after the 1977 revolution. On the one hand, a reduced focus on theology has created many benefits, as the movement has moved away from certain narrow-minded, dogmatic and legalistic tendencies. Without such theological openness, it would be unlikely that the AGA would have been capable of accommodating the influx of charismatic Christians, who came to the movement with diverse theological worldviews. On the other hand, a pragmatic orientation has resulted in the tendency to underplay the importance of theology and doctrine altogether. The AGA’s suspicion of theological reflection is apparent in the tendency to affirm spiritual experience above doctrine,⁶⁹ to alienate theological critics,⁷⁰ to insist upon positive thinking, and to structure the movement in such a way that theological discussion and debate has been silenced.

Bernard Lonergan, in his discussion of individual, group and general bias, suggests that the latter derives from the capitulation to philosophical "common sense" (i.e. pragmatism), and leads to a long cycle of decline.⁷¹ He is here describing decline in society as a whole, but his analysis is equally applicable to a particular society such as the AGA. Komonchak notes that "it is almost of the essence of common sense to be uncritical, unaware of its own limitations. It is impatient if not intolerant of ideas and policies that require it to look beyond the immediate and the practical."⁷² It is possible to suggest that, despite its growth, the AGA is in danger of this sort of pragmatic bias and, potentially, attendant decline.

Lonergan suggests that the solution to general bias is to be found in the cosmopolis, the artisans, writers, scholars, philosophers and theologians who are responsible for developing and critiquing the cultural values that sustain and enhance social structures.⁷³ This is not to say that the theoretical should replace the practical (and spiritual). Rather, the responsibility of the cosmopolis is to ensure the integrity of the cultural values that sustain society.⁷⁴ Social structures arise out of and serve the meanings and values of culture, and cosmopolitan collaboration ensures the integrity of that culture by critically engaging community practice. The problem for the AGA is that its new structures, focusing as they do almost exclusively on the senior pastor, currently mitigate against such cosmopolitan collaboration. It can thus be argued that the fellowship needs to find ways to ensure that it is open to the prophetic challenge of a diversity of Spirit-empowered individuals capable of critiquing and developing its culture.

It is this consequence of the move away from congregational and democratic structures that is most concerning; its narrowing of the control of church culture into the hands of senior pastors and, in particular, mega-church pastors, focused as they are on the pragmatics of church growth. Robert Doran observes that culture has two dimensions: "the everyday level of meanings and values informing a given way of life, and the reflexive or superstructural level arising from scientific, philosophic, and scholarly objectifications."⁷⁵ He also argues that the modern scepticism that predominates in Western society today has led to the undermining of the importance of this superstructural dimension of culture, with the result being the dominance of materialistic, anti-intellectual, and nihilistic social structures.⁷⁶ It might be plausible to make similar critiques of the emerging AGA. That is, that the scepticism of systematic theology and the undermining of the value of theory and critical reflexivity resulting from the pragmatic focus on church growth, has led to a tendency toward materialistic, anti-intellectual, and, if not nihilistic, at least inwardly turned, ecclesial structures.

It is possible to identify a number of examples of the problematic impact of this pragmatic orientation for AGA culture, especially insofar as this has shaped the movement’s doctrine and broader understanding of Christian faith. Examples might include the unquestioned appropriation of the prosperity gospel (e.g. the core values published on the AGA website include the suggestion that we seek "increasing affluence so that we can have an increasing measure of influence."⁷⁷) and the subtle but significant changes to the movement’s eschatology and pneumatology (including moves away from the traditional doctrine of baptism in the Holy Spirit⁷⁸), all of which has occurred without critical reflection.

The story of the AGA is testimony to the unimaginable possibilities for communities that prioritise the mission of God’s Spirit. It is also testimony to the challenges that arise in the context of rapid growth and change. The AGA has undergone substantial transition, from loose-knit voluntarist communities, to the implementation of congregationalist, free-church structures, to the so called apostolic revolution. All of these changes have been motivated by the mission of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God to a rapidly developing Australian (and global) society. They have enabled the AGA to harness the substantial growth that has occurred within pentecostalism during the course of the twentieth century. They have also resulted in various challenges, including moves away from ideals and values that have been considered significant to previous generations of pentecostal communities. Whether or not the gains achieved can be considered to outweigh the losses is a question for wider debate. Pentecostal movements facing similar developments to those experienced in the AGA will need to determine if it is possible to appropriate the advantages of apostolic-type changes, while at the same time ensuring that the ideals of a grassroots ecclesiology (including notions such as the priesthood of all believers) are protected.