The Spirit of Pentecost, Social Transcending Communities, and Renewing Embodied Life:

Indicators of a Pentecostal Theology of Grace

Abstract

Exuberant charismatic worship and spirituality characterise Pentecostal experience. Social and economic mobility, however, are also common fruits of Pentecostal experience. This article considers two historical and two contemporary cases in the Pentecostal movement. The early Pentecostal experiences at Pandita Ramabai’s (1858–1922) Mukti Mission and William J. Seymour’s (1870–1922) Azusa Street revivals fostered social transcending communities—communities that transcended social, class, and ethnic bigotries. By enacting the inclusive community of Pentecost, they indicted the racist and chauvinist societies that surrounded them. Vietnamese and Latin American Pentecostals demonstrate that the Pentecostal experience of grace renews embodied life. Participating in Pentecostal renewal transforms the material circumstances of peoples’ lives. Charismatic worship and spirituality do not sublimate the need for addressing bleak social and economic conditions. On the contrary, they are the incubators for the Holy Spirit to empower new patterns of life in and for this world. Sociological analyses, relying on a Weberian paradigm, often suggest that social mobility is a by-product of Pentecostalism (e.g., Miller and Yamamori’s “Pentecostal ethic”). The theological yield of this investigation of historical and contemporary cases in the Pentecostal movement is that the social and material experience of redemption among Pentecostals is intrinsic to the grace of the Spirit of Pentecost. The social and material features of Pentecostal experience, moreover, map to the ministry of the Spirit anointed Christ and the inclusive community of the Spirit of Pentecost.