Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . INTERVIEW . J. Lee Grady . April 28, 2006

Read more of Kim Lawton's interview about Pentecostalism with J. Lee Grady, editor of CHARISMA magazine:

Q: How far has Pentecostalism come in the last hundred years?

Photo of J. Lee Grady

A: We started in a livery stable in a bad part of town in Los Angeles with mostly poor folks, and today it's represented by some of the nation's largest megachurches, so it's come a long way. We have people now who are in influential places in government, media, society. Lots of things have changed. It started as something that was on the other side of the tracks, so to speak, and today it has, in a sense, gone mainstream.

Q: And is that a good thing for the movement?

A: Well, yes, I think it is. It's great that the gospel is being spread throughout all of society. You know, for a long time Pentecostals were known as poor folks, and that's just really not the case anymore, because the gospel does empower people, and when they get a hold of what that means, in a sense they are empowered themselves. They move up in society, and they also have a vision for transforming society, and I think a lot of Pentecostals today realize that you can't transform society just from the bottom. You've got to go all the way up through the strata of society, so that is happening.

Q: Is there a difference between Pentecostals and Charismatics? How do you make that distinction?

A: Pentecostals, we would say, are those people who trace their roots back to the Azusa movement a hundred years ago. That would be denominations that started as a result of that revival, which would be the Church of God in Christ -- the nation's largest Pentecostal group; the Assemblies of God; the Church of God; the Foursquare Church; those kinds of movements. We call them the classical Pentecostal groups. Charismatics really came on the scene in the '60s and '70s when other denominations like Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and lots of Roman Catholics had the Pentecostal experience of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, and they experienced things like speaking in tongues, and so then that wave of people who were affected by that movement -- we call them Charismatics. There is a little bit of distinction because of the time in which they experienced that.

Q: Describe the diversity of today's Pentecostal/Charismatic movement.

A: When the Azusa Street revival happened, there were all kinds of folks there, and of course the leader of that small mission in Los Angeles was an African-American man named William Seymour. There were Hispanics there; there were, of course, lots of white folks there. And in a sense the diversity you saw during those first meetings has just mushroomed into where now you look around this country and you look at the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement, it is very diverse, and there's a lot of what I would call integration and a lot of mixed congregations today, but there's an explosion among African Americans and among Hispanics. A huge wave of immigrants have come to this country. Many of those people are Pentecostals. And then, of course, if you look around the world, most Pentecostals in the world do not live in the United States. They're in other countries -- very, very diverse, huge movements of people in India, Africa, all across Latin America and in Asia, so there's really not anyplace in the world where we don't see this movement happening.

Q: What impact does that have on the practice of Christianity here?

A: Today there are lots of people coming to America from Latin countries, from Africa, from Asia, actually coming here as missionaries, which is a fairly new phenomenon. You know, for years America was the country that sent missionaries to the world, and now we have people coming here from Nigeria, we have people coming from Venezuela, we have people coming from different nations in Asia to reach American folks. They're reaching their own people, immigrant populations, but they're also reaching just mainstream American folks. It's a very, very interesting phenomenon happening. And most of those immigrant-type churches and missionaries coming from other countries are considered Pentecostal or Charismatic.

Q: Why do they think Americans need missionary activity?

A: The Africans -- they've been hearing reports about the decadence of the American media. Or they hear things about how immoral certain segments of American society are, and so they are genuinely concerned. They want to bring their message of spiritual liberation and righteousness; they want to bring that to our country. A lot of Christians in other nations are concerned about the American church. In recent years, with different denominations sort of questioning biblical morality, some denominations actually going in the direction of things like same-sex marriage -- the African Pentecostals, for example, are horrified by that. And so they would view that as an opportunity to come here and sort of straighten us out, in a sense, and so that is definitely happening.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges that face the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement?

A: I think that some of our strong points also end up being our weak points. For example, we've always been known for our racial inclusion, and it is true that if you look at the Pentecostal movement, you find great diversity and you find a lot of blending, but at the same time we have still a long way to go. There are still a lot of racist attitudes among Christian groups in the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement that [have] got to be addressed. I'm encouraged that it is being addressed on many levels, but there are some folks who just have some pretty strong attitudes that are not going to change tomorrow. We've got our work cut out for us there. The Charismatic/Pentecostal movement has been known for releasing women in ministry. That was the truth back in Azusa, and from out of Azusa lots of women were sent out as missionaries; they became pastors, they started whole networks of churches. There were people like Amy Semple McPherson, who started the Foursquare Church back in the '20s, and great examples for women. And yet when you look at the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement today, you see that we're in some ways almost stepping a bit backward in that regard, and there's a need for us to, in a sense, reembrace the values that exploded in that initial movement in 1906. Those are definitely some points where we need some correction.

I also think that because we have gone mainstream, and we have become more known, and because Charismatics and Pentecostals have a lot of influence in Christian media today that we're also in danger of really blowing it with what I call our focus on self. The Pentecostal message is wonderful in the fact that we talk about what Jesus does for us, we talk about how he can bless us, we talk about how he ministers to our deepest needs, heals our hurts, you know, deals with our issues. But that message can sometimes be perverted to become a very selfish message, and so then you have lots of people running after the blessing rather than recognizing that the reason we get a blessing is so that we can be a blessing to other people. The Pentecostal message really is: I get empowered by the Holy Spirit so that I can go out and minister to others. That was the original message. But what you see in a lot of circles in our movement today is: I'm here to be blessed for myself. I think it would be a very serious point of concern for many people, many leaders in our movement that we get back to those original values.

Q: There was a stereotype at one time that the Pentecostal movement was an anti-intellectual movement. There was so much emphasis on the emotional and spiritual sides of faith that it was a detriment to the intellectual side. Is that still a concern?

A: Oh, absolutely, and there are actually Pentecostal leaders who have been trumpeting that and calling for a shift in that regard. I think there's always going to be the tension between what we call the word and the spirit, the intellect and the experience. In a sense, the body of Christ in the United States -- if you look at the evangelical Christian population, you have people who may lean a bit more on the side of the word or the intellect and those who maybe lean a little on the side of experience or emotions. What I believe can happen is we can come together, and there can be the strength of both, because I don't think that the Bible would tell us that we need one or the other. The Apostle Paul told his audience that he didn't come to them simply in persuasive words of wisdom, but he came in demonstration of the spirit and of power. That's a missing dimension in a lot of Christian churches in America, that dimension of the Holy Spirit's power and the miraculous, the supernatural, the things that we can't understand with our logical minds. But, of course, the Apostle Paul was also the greatest writer of that period, and he wrote lots of the Bible. He was an intellect, and he was a man of the spirit. He had both, and so I think we have to hold those things in tension. It is true that in the Pentecostal movement there has been an anti-intellectual spirit, but I think we have folks out there who are addressing that. I also think because we're a young movement, and we keep sort of reinventing this. New movements begin; the Pentecostal movement always spins off new movements, and those are always young. They have young leaders, and they need to be trained, and that's a process. It takes a while before those people recognize they need things like seminaries and Bible training schools, and so some of those things are a problem because of the dynamics of growth that we are experiencing.

Q: How big a problem have accountability issues, issues of financial and sexual conduct, been for the movement?

A: Obviously sexual scandal and financial scandals -- that's not limited to Pentecostal or Charismatic groups. However, we have had our fair share of those things, and they're very embarrassing to the movement. They also have been played up a lot because those involved in those things a lot of times were in the media. If you remember back in the '80s with the Jim Bakker scandal or the Jimmy Swaggart scandal, those things brought a huge blemish on the movement. The reason they were played up so much were those people had huge followings, and they were on television every day. I guess the question you're asking is, have we learned anything from those days? I'm not totally sure about that. There have been some things done to bring more accountability into our movement. But as I look across the diverse landscape of Charismatic/Pentecostal Christianity in America, I see lots of problem areas. I see a lot of young movements where there's an aversion to [having] accountability structures; there's a lot of one man show-type of situations that have sprung up. Whenever you have one person controlling a ministry, you are setting yourself up for failure, and we have not learned our lessons from that. But the problem is a lot of these people are independent; they're not beholden to other organizations. Many of them left the denominations that they first started in and started their own groups, and so who's going to police them? My role at CHARISMA is to challenge the readers of our magazine and our audience, the people who sit in the pews. We are those who have a role to play in holding people accountable, and you hold a person accountable with your feet -- by getting up and leaving if there's a problem in that church or in that ministry. What we've had in the past is a lot of folks who just march in lockstep behind a leader, and he might be making horrible mistakes, and somehow through manipulation or through a perverted sense of loyalty, people keep following that person. You know, that's tragic, and a lot of those people end up being wounded and hurt through those experiences. But the only way we're going to really hold these folks accountable is when the whole body of Christ demands that of our leaders.

Q: What are some positive ways the movement has used media? How instrumental has media been to the growth of the movement?

A: When I'm around your average, everyday Pentecostal/Charismatic, it's usually not somebody that you see on television. The average person in our movement is someone who's very excited about taking their faith on the job or taking their faith and making it real in their community. Communities all over this country are being changed by people who seriously want to see folks come to faith, but they also want to feed the homeless, they want to build shelters for battered women, they want to help drug addicts. They're doing all those kinds of things. When you look overseas and you look at other nations and you see mission work that's being done from this country, and there's still a whole lot of that, Pentecostals and Charismatics are very involved in that, and they're making huge strides today all over the world in building churches, training leaders, raising up different types of ministries all over this globe. So I'm very encouraged. Obviously, the problems that we talk about today, they're real, but I don't feel like those things overshadow the good that's being done.

Q: Have people, though, been quick to use the media? Hasn't there been a recognition that the media can be a good way to spread the message?

A: It's fascinating, really, when you look at the history of our movement, because when television first became a viable means to get the gospel out, there were a lot of Pentecostals who didn't believe in watching it. They thought it was evil. But that has so changed in the last few decades that now it is typically Charismatics and Pentecostals who for the most part dominate Christian media. I think part of that is because the message of empowerment, the Holy Spirit's empowerment -- one thing that does to a person is it gives them what the Bible calls boldness. There's this passion and this zeal that wants to get the message out. There's a zeal that wants to spill out into all society. That's why you have these Pentecostal and Charismatic ministers, when they are touched by God and they have these experiences, they want to tell people. And they're willing to raise the money that's necessary to get on television. They're ready to take the risks that are necessary because it is very expensive to do that kind of media outreach. I think if you were to do a study on it, you'd find that a lot of television broadcasting, a lot of Internet podcasting, a lot of the different things that are going on today through media, they are these folks, these Charismatics and Pentecostals who are going to find a way to get the message out.

Q: How significant is it to have people like John Ashcroft and Keith Butler clearly identified with the movement?

A: I think it's significant that we've had people now who have been in top positions of government in the United States who actually speak in tongues. Just 25 or 30 years ago that was considered strange. Somebody who did that maybe was considered kind of a fanatic, and nowadays there is a sense of recognition that this is a viable part of the evangelical Christian community. There's an acceptance on the part of other Christians for those people. It is, in a sense, a recognition that these people are genuine, sincere Christians, and they're not punished for having that persuasion. I mean, it's yet to be seen if we'll have someone who speaks in tongues in the White House at some point. But, you know, Keith Butler's situation is just one example of many folks out there who are in different levels of state government, governors, mayors across the nation who are Pentecostals, and it's really not actually that unique anymore, but I think there's more of an openness to talk about it in public than [there] used to be.

Q: Have you truly seen a shift in attitude, both inside broader Christianity and outside the church, a shift in perception so that Pentecostals are no longer on the fringe?

A: Well, it's kind of going both ways at the same time, actually, because usually when I'm out I find that most Christians, whether they're Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, when you get out in groups where people associate with each other, there's a genuine openness of Charismatics and Pentecostals, you know. We aren't making that big a deal out of what really are minor theological differences, because we all believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, he's Lord, and those are the essential truths. But then at the same time you have, for example, the Southern Baptist Convention recently ruling that their missionaries in the foreign field, if they speak in tongues they can't stay there, they have to come home. That was somewhat of a setback, and it was actually kind of, you know, a little bit offensive to Charismatics and Pentecostals for the largest Protestant denomination in America to rule such a thing. Because it's saying to us that a very valid, very precious spiritual experience that we've had, that we see in the Bible, that we're being told that's somehow antibiblical. I was raised Southern Baptist, and I actually had a Pentecostal experience in a Southern Baptist church. So for Southern Baptist leadership then to come out and say that experience isn't valid, you know, it's problematic in a lot of ways for me personally. Plus, I know a lot of Southern Baptist people who have had a very meaningful Pentecostal experience, and many of those people are still in the Southern Baptist church, and they felt like they could stay there. So you wonder: Where is that going? It hurts us that there should be a divide among Christians over such an issue like that, since we do see it in Scripture and it's kind of like, you know, can't we just get along with each other, and maybe we won't talk about that issue when we're together. But we would like to see a day, as I mentioned earlier, that those who believe in the word and those who believe in the spirit -- that we could really stand together.

Q: What are the benchmarks you would like to see the movement strive for over the next 100 years?

A: What we are seeing right now in the developing world -- there is such incredible, explosive growth happening in many, many parts of the world, particularly Africa, parts of Asia, definitely India and Latin America. We are seeing explosive growth, and in that growth we're seeing what we would call New Testament expressions of Christianity. The same kinds of miracles that happened in the New Testament in the Book of Acts -- we see those happening in places like Bolivia and Nigeria and Indonesia. Where we're poised is that that wave of New Testament Christianity is destined to hit the shores of the United States. I believe in the next 10 years we're going to see that kind of phenomenon, we're going to start hearing about it more. We're going to start hearing about what we could call signs and wonders or miracles happening here. People in America used to think, seems like those things always happen in the mission field. Why don't they happen in the United States? I'm not really sure why that is, but I believe we are going to see that happening in the U.S.

Q: Like what? What kinds of things are you talking about?

A: People coming to church because, for example, like in India, a church got started because a girl who was dying of a heart problem got healed and everyone in the village came to hear about it and became Christians. They were Hindus before; they converted to Christianity, and now there's a church of 100 people in a Hindu village, a new church in a place where Christianity had never been preached before. That kind of thing is happening all over, and I've seen it with my own eyes. I actually spoke in a church that started because of a healing like that. Those kinds of stories -- we hear them and it's always in the context of overseas. But I believe we're going to hear about that here. I believe we will see supernatural healings. I believe that Americans are at a point where they're bankrupt spiritually, they're looking for answers. Some people are looking to the New Age, some people are just exploring all kinds of different avenues, spiritual solutions to their problems, to their diseases, to their addictions, to their loneliness, to their pain, to their depression, and the gospel has an answer for that. And it's not always just an intellectual answer. Sometimes somebody who's dealing with a really serious problem, they don't just need an intellectual answer, they need a physical problem to be fixed, whether it be a disease or it's a sick relative or something like that, and Christianity provides that. We've just never really been completely open to that before, but that's what the Pentecostal message is saying, is that Jesus hasn't changed since he was walking on this earth, and the things that he did he told his followers to do, and he said that we would actually do even greater works. And so the miracles of the New Testament are available to us, and it's not just something that happens when we go on a mission trip somewhere. It can happen in Peoria. You know, it can happen in Nashville, it can happen in Dallas. And I believe we are going to be seeing that.

Q: Any other benchmarks for the future?

A: I do believe that in the next 10 years the Pentecostal movement, the Charismatic movement is going to go to a whole other level of racial diversity, not just inclusion of blacks and Hispanics, but every kind of ethnic group that's coming to these shores. I believe we're going to see them as part of this rainbow of God's people that are out there preaching the gospel. And then also with the issue of gender, I believe that we're going to see a movement of women in this country, women that aren't just content to teach Sunday school, as important as that is, and certainly we need women doing that, but women who are taking the lead, women who are moving into positions of authority in churches, pastoring, starting churches. We're going to see that happen. And they're not women who are liberal or who don't believe the Bible. I'm talking about women who really proclaim the gospel with power, who are zealous, passionate about Jesus Christ, and we're going to see those women really -- I think they're going to be another wave of the Pentecostal movement in this country and around the world. We're going to see that happen.

Q: What are the biggest roadblocks the movement faces?

A: I think the biggest challenge we face is really a challenge that the whole Christian church faces in the United States, and that is the encroachment of society. Our culture is going in one direction, and yet Christians are really supposed to be going in another direction, and we're forced to swim upstream. That's the direction we're supposed to go. And yet our culture -- a lot of times, the intimidation of that, just the sheer force of that pushes us in an opposite direction, and so I think really the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement has got to rise up and make a decision, just as it was in Azusa 100 years ago. It was very much a counterculture movement. We've got to do that in the days ahead, and in a sense we've got to become again a revival movement, and revival is counterculture. Even though we may be mainstream, we might be known, we might be in the media, we've got to be sending a message that's going to challenge our culture rather than going along with what the culture is saying. What you see a lot of times in our movement, because we have become big and we have become important, is that sometimes we're sounding more and more like our culture, like the world. And that's got to change. That would be what I would say is the biggest roadblock.