Wherein I lament the failure to practice what good theology and biblical interpretation ought to have taught us: tongues-for-show only shows one thing: lunacy. Surely, by now, everybody’s seen or at least heard of the WashingtonPost.com political cartoon by equal-opportunity skewer-artist Pat Oliphant that was automatically posted to the WP’s…
All You Need to Know About the Assemblies of God…
Wherein I break my silence to introduce my latest freelance writing project for ChristianityToday.com (a small article) and attempt to exlain in a thousand words or less what the entire media elite have yet to figure out despite the powers of Lexis-Nexis. So last monday Ted Olsen at Christianity Today…
The General Council vote: issues and predictions
Tomorrow, the 52nd biennial business-meeting for the General Council of the Assemblies of God begins. On Thursday, our next General Superintendent will be selected. Here are my thoughts on matters over which I have no input or influence, and which are probably inappropriate for me to publicly opine over. Unfortunately,…
Resignation Speculation and the Leadership Change
On the resignation of the Assemblies of God’s current superintendent, Rev. Thomas Trask, and the chaos that is in its wake. Wherein I opine on matters explicitly not my business. I’d like to make it perfectly clear at the outset: I am not a credentialed Assemblies of God minister. I’m…
Tammy Faye Messner: March 7, 1942 – July 20, 2007
Tammy Faye Messner, the former wife of Jim Bakker of PTL fame, has passed away after struggling against colon and lung cancer for several years. On July 17, just three days before her death, Messner’s last message on her website announced that she had gained 5 pounds: up from her…
Carlton Pearson: The closest to God you’ll probably ever get
The Carlton Pearson curiosity continues. Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed the amount of search engine queries landing on this site have shot heavenward for Carlton Pearson. The searchers have typed: carlton pearson goes bad carlton pearson has cancer carlton pearson has lost his mind is carlton pearson gay?…
Thomas E. Trask: resignation effective — almost immediately
photo: escapedtowisconsin The Rev. E. Thomas Trask, General Superintendent of the General Council of the Assemblies of God, has announced his resignation. I will prepare a report with more details soon. Really. I will. Note: As promised, my long rambling cogitation is now available here. [tags]trask, tom-trask, thomas-trask, thomas-e-trask, general-superintendent,…
Sexual Conversion: Gender dysphoria, the UMC and the transgendered minister
I recently wrote about the relatively unremarked issue of gender dysphoria and believers opting for gender reassignment. I wrote that I had communicated with Assemblies of God leadership about this issue some years ago, and that I believed a position paper is in order — now, not at some later date…
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Ranking the Divine: The Holy Spirit and Search trends
I’ve often heard it said within Pentecostal circles that the Holy Spirit gets little recognition — even within our own Pentecostal and Charismatic circles. Of course, there’s some theological justification for this: According to Jesus’ promise in John 14:26, one of the Holy Spirit’s primary roles in the believer’s life is…
Top 20 Bloggers (PneumaBloggers, that is)
For some time I’ve wanted to provide some sort of real-world ranking system so that those of you who want to know who the “big fish” are can find them, and so those of you who have successfully worked your blog into the stratosphere would get a little praise for…
Yet more PneumaBloggedy Goodness: PneumaWidget, Power Reader and More!
In a mad dash of creative craziness, a few more things have popped up on the PneumaBlogs tool-set. So, for your blog-reading enjoyment, here’s a quick summary of everything not covered in my previous post (“PneumaBlogs, PneumaSphere, PneumaSearch“). FireFox Search Plug-in First off, fellow PneumaBlogger Christoph Fischer (“my cup of…
PneumaBlogs, PneumaSphere, PneumaSearch
In case you haven’t noticed, over the past several days I’ve been trying to bring my “Pneuma” pages up-to-snuff within the new design and to make them all a bit more usable. Just now I’ve added a third page to my collection: PneumaSearch. Yes, that’s right, I’ve gone crazy with…
Jesus Camp and BlogRodent on Word-FM
Last year, on October 3, I did a live interview with John Hall and Stephanie Fraschetti from Word-FM about the “Jesus Camp” documentary that was then the height of Evangelical fear-mongering (start here if you don’t know what I’m talking about: “Jesus Camp: Brainwashed in the Blood — or Is it…
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Imminent post on the Ted Haggard debacle
I have been silent on the outing of Ted Haggard, not because I have nothing to say, but I needed to know more of the story before writing anything. And I needed time for my heart to break. Now that most of the relevant data are in, I will do…
The Apostle: Give it to me, Lord
This is a review of The Apostle that I dashed off back in 1998, about half a year after that film was released. I wrote it for a discussion list that is now defunct. I thought, in light of the other recent movie I reviewed (Jesus Camp, it would be interesting…
Jesus Camp: One Edit Away From Propaganda?
That two unbelieving directors don’t understand Pentecostals — or Evangelicals — isn’t surprising. That they produced a film rife with ignorance and bias is also unsurprising. But that ordinary people who can normally tie their shoes and avoid bad movies like Gigli don’t see how insufferably biased this documentary is … well, that’s…
Jesus Camp and BlogRodent on MSNBC
At 2:40 PM (CST) on Tuesday, September 26, I “appeared” on MSNBC’s ‘Net review: The Most, with Alison Stewart. Alison’s producer spoke with Mark Moring, editor for the Christianity Today Movies channel, wondering if he’d be willing to answer a few questions about Jesus Camp on-air. Since I’d seen the…
Jesus Camp: Brainwashed in the Blood – or Is it Spin?
Jesus Camp , what an experience. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s investigation into the hidden world of one Pentecostal kids’ camp simultaneously delighted me, fascinated me, and embarrassed me. I love…
The A/G: Desperately Seeking Disciplers
Back at the first of the year, on January 3, I wrote a post wherein I teased out some trends from the most recent official A/G statistical report published in 2004. I concluded that: Not only are the new believers outstripping the net change in adherents, they seem to have…
Jesus Camp review coming soon, my reaction to the trailer
This week, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s indie documentary, “Jesus Camp”, is set to release, and already the blogosphere is all abuzz about it. I can’t wait. I will be catching a pre-release screening of the film through the auspices of Christianity Today International, my employer, and will write my reactions to it as soon as possible. Of course, I’ll share it with you.
More PneumaBloggers
Just a very quick note to say that I’ve updated the PneumaBlogs list in recent days to include some stellar new names, including:
Christoph Fischer ( My Cup of Coffee )
David Copeland ( Re…
Pentecostal Sin
Over on my post, “Charismatic Heresy,” inspired by the egregious charismatic excess highlighted by Charisma editor J. Lee Grady, reader Lynn asked some questions that deserve more attention than a comment reply merits. Lynn writes: I go to an A/G church, but have very Reformed views. It has been a struggle for years.…
Fatal Sincerity: Our complicit silence when heresy speaks
Some of these televangelists may be sincere people (I’m convinced many are not), but they are sincerely, fatally wrong. The shallow, selfish, emotional gospel preached in these circles is not going to stand up over the long haul in this culture. Good grief. In the NT, even the local church deacons had to understand and hold fast to the deep truths of the faith. Local church elders/pastors had to do the same, and be able to teach these truths to the building up of the local church. Today, even prominent “ministers” are so ignorant that they are completely clueless as to the mere fact of their ignorance, let alone its depth….
The A/G feed trough and a new Pentecostal journal. Whee!
There’s a new academic journal on the block, and it’s from one of the A/G’s premier seminaries (I say “one of” because we have other great seminaries not on American soil, such as Asia Pacific Theological Seminary and West Africa Advanced School of Theology). It’s called Encounter: Journal for Pentecostal…
Latest on Golden Murder
On Wednesday, February 15, WSAV News reported that Eric Brian Golden, the 35–year-old Southside Assembly of God youth pastor who killed his wife, was formally indicted on several charges in Chatham County, Georgia (in Savannah). According to the Chatham County Courhouse website, the case was filed on the 15th, and the next event will be a conference hearing on April 20. Hon. Perry Brannen, Jr., is the judge, and Golden is being defended by attorney John P. Sugrue.