America in the late nineteenth century was undergoing enormous societal shifts. Immigration and urbanization were changing the face of the country. New discoveries and new perspectives on old verities stretched its mind and stirred its soul. The recently concluded Civil War left America bloodied, its self-confidence bruised, and its capacity for controversy weakened. American churches responded to these upheavals in different ways with long-lasting consequences. The reaction of one small branch of American Protestantism rooted in the broader stream of Methodism opens a window into these troubled times. This book explores how the American holiness movement navigated the societal maelstrom and the role the Bible played in charting its course. The holiness movement’s response illustrates the interaction between the Bible and culture. It sheds light on the development of the movement’s younger cousin, Pentecostalism. It also adds texture to the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, an important struggle that marked the early decades of the twentieth century and continues to shape America today.

In Hermeneutics of Holiness , Naomi Koltun-Fromm examines the ancient nexus of holiness and sexuality and explores its roots in the biblical texts as well as its manifestations throughout ancient and late-ancient Judaism and early Syriac Christianity. In the process, she tells the story of how the biblical notions of "holy person" and "holy community" came to be defined by the sexual and marriage practices of various interpretive communities in late antiquity. Koltun-Fromm seeks to explain why sexuality, especially sexual restraint, became a primary demarcation of sacred community boundaries among Jews and Christians in fourth-century Persian-Mesopotamia. She charts three primary manifestations of holiness: holiness ascribed, holiness achieved, and holiness acquired through ritual purity. Hermeneutics of Holiness traces the development of these three concepts, from their origin in the biblical texts to the Second Temple literature (both Jewish and Christian) to the Syriac Christian and rabbinic literature of the fourth century. In so doing, this book establishes the importance of biblical interpretation for late ancient Jewish and Christian practices, the centrality of holiness as a category for self-definition, and the relationship of fourth-century asceticism to biblical texts and interpretive history.

Why another book about biblical interpretation (hermeneutics)? First, this is not just another book about hermeneutics. It deals specifically with hermeneutics as practiced y Pentecostals; rather, more accurately, as hermeneutics should be practiced by Pentecostals. The book presents a distinct Pentecostal hermeneutic that moves away from exclusive use of historical-grammatical methodology. The hermeneutic presented here employs an eclectic methodology and a quadratic strategy. Scripture, Spirit, trained leader, and community, in the proposed hermeneutic, are shown to work together to produce an interpretation that engages both creative imagination and authorial intent. The text offers pastors, professors, and laity alike a method and approach that will allow them to interpret Scripture from a clearly Pentecostal perspective. An important addition to the book is an outline for an undergraduate course instructing students in this distinct Pentecostal hermeneutic.

This book is a historical and theological look into the deliverance and exorcism ministry of John Wesley. It examines how Wesley understood the phenomenon of deliverance and his own practice of it in terms of ordinary and extraordinary gifts. The text looks at how Wesley understood deliverance in general in relation to salvation, and how he understood an aspect of deliverance that involved expulsion of demons. Further, the book assesses how contemporary Wesleyans and Christians in general can apply Wesley's theology and practice to deliverance ministry today. Practices like baptismal vows and the use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit are explored in the life of the believer today in terms of deliverance.

Emerging as a spiritual renewal movement in Antebellum America with ties to Methodism and the reform ethos of the era, it grew rapidly and spread internationally during the last three decades of the 19th century. Women including the increasingly well-known Phoebe Palmer were central actors in the Movement and from its origins Blacks were prominent in all aspects of the Movement. Although its most familiar expression is found in the Salvation Army, the movement established a thriving international network of periodicals, camp meetings, rescue missions, and congregations birthing new denominations such as the Church of God (Anderson), the Church of the Nazarene, and the Korea Evangelical Holiness Church while continuing to profoundly shape older Protestant denominations. In the process playing a crucial role emergence of Pentecostalism and even shaping the piety of popular evangelicalism. Historical Dictionary of the Holiness Movement, Third Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 500 cross-referenced entries on leaders, personalities, events, facts, movements, and beliefs of the Holiness Movement. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Holiness Movement.

In Theological Hermeneutics in the Classical Pentecostal Tradition, L. William Oliverio Jr. accounts for the development of Classical Pentecostal theological hermeneutics through four hermeneutical types and concludes with a philosophical basis for future Pentecostal theological hermeneutics within the contours of a hermeneutical realism.

This book examines 2 Cor 6:14--7:1 and argues that its theological message is communal holiness. It culminates in an attempt to posit a Pauline theology of corporate sanctification in the Corinthian correspondence. Paul's view of sanctification, it is argued, should be seen as multifaceted: relational, communal, ethical, and mission-oriented. Thus, a coherent picture of Pauline teaching on holiness in the Corinthian correspondence emerges from this book. For Paul, the focus of God's redemptive activity is, primarily, the community and not the individual. Paul's view on holiness has to do with communal holiness within the people of God, the goal of which is to make God known to the wider society. In sum, this book argues that the teaching on holiness should not be, and cannot be, satisfactorily explained in terms of the individual, but only as the individual stands in relation to the community of faith. Thus, the conclusion offers a corrective to some strands of modern interpretation that emphasize the individualistic, experiential aspects of Christian holiness, thus tending to reduce Christian holiness to morality.

This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. This timely look at the state of Christian higher education in America contains descriptive, historical narratives that explore how fourteen Christian colleges and universities are successfully integrating faith and learning on their campuses despite the challenges posed by the increasingly pluralistic nature of modern culture. Written by respected representatives from seven major faith traditions -- Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Mennonite, Evangelical, Wesleyan/Holiness, and Baptist/Restorationist -- these narratives are also preceded by introductory essays that define the worldview and theological heritage of each given tradition and ask what that tradition can contribute to the task of higher education.

The investigation centres on the role of the Spirit in Revelation, which the author considers is best defined as the Spirit of Prophecy. A survey of scholarship on the pneumatology of the Apocalypse is followed by a study of intertextual connections. The author’s own religious context within Pentecostalism then informs a possible hermeneutic that is faithful to the ethos of the movement. Biblical and literary studies are situated within the context of a Pentecostal community as attention is paid to the prophecy concerning the temple and the witnesses in Rev 11. This key passage is shown to form the theological as well as the literary centre of the Spirit’s role in Revelation.