The essays in this volume explore the role of emotions and affections in the Christian tradition, focusing also on the importance of pneumatology in Christianity.

Offers a generative and hospitable theological methodology rooted in the distinctives of pentecostal spirituality, enlivened by a Spirited imagination and opened toward critical, constructive, and conciliatory dialogue with the wider Christian tradition. This inter- and cross-disciplinary work is careful yet generous, drawing together of knowledge and wisdom from different domains-historical, philosophical, and theological-in ways recognizably pentecostal and effectively missional. The book begins with a description of the essence of pentecostal spirituality that holds true across the various pentecostalisms. Drawing largely on an innovative engagement with the insights of Rudolph Otto and an exploration of the dialectic between religious experience and theological development, this book contends for an identifiable but mysterious “something” that makes pentecostalism truly pentecostal-that is, something more than one might sum up in any set of peculiar practices, beliefs, or behaviors. The book also provides an overview of the intellectual history of English-speaking pentecostalism, specifying and assessing the movement's major philosophical underpinnings and socio-cultural motivations. Finally, funded by an explicitly pentecostal metaphysics, the book sets forth a significant and boldly original pneumatological theological methodology, shaped by discerning conversation with the works of Amos Yong, L. William Oliverio, Jr., Wolfgang Vondey, and Simo Frestadius, among others.

This volume brings 'America's theologian' and one of the fastest growing forms of Christianity into dialogue. Edwards is a fruitful source for Pentecostal investigation for historical and theological reasons. Edwards and Pentecostals descend from a common historical tradition-North American Evangelicalism. From revivalism and religious/charismatic experience to pneumatology they also share common theological interests. Though sharing a common history and core theological concerns, no critical conversation between Pentecostals and Edwards and their fields of scholarship has occurred. This is the first volume that provides Pentecostal readings of Edwards' theology that contribute to Pentecostal theology and Edwards scholarship. The contributing essays offer examination of affections and the Spirit, God and Salvation, Church and culture; and mission and witness.

This collection of fifteen sermons by one of the leading pentecostal theologians today provides insight into the form, style, and content of preaching in the pentecostal tradition while also being suggestive of normative homiletical theory and practice. The Kergymatic Spirit argues that Spirit-empowered preaching is apostolic not only with regard to being rooted in the scriptural traditions but also with regard to connecting the that of the early Christian message with the this of contemporary experience and discipleship. Hence, rather than only reflecting pentecostal preaching of the sort that happens in the pulpits of churches connected to the modern movement by that name, these sermons are presented as the participating in the form of gospel proclamation inspired and empowered by the divine Spirit poured out on all flesh on the Day of Pentecost by the risen Christ from the right hand of the Father. Whether read or heard (there are links to video and audio archives throughout), these homilies are illustrative of exegetical and expositional practice that connects the biblical text with Spirit-filled faithfulness in the twenty-first-century ecumenical church and world at large.

The Interpreting Spirit is both a consideration of the Spirit's role in the interpretation of Scripture and a celebration of renewal scholarship. It examines those who have focused on the Spirit's role in their hermeneutical considerations, recognizing common, uniting themes amidst the diversity of scholarly approach and opinion. Working on the principle that the Spirit communicates in ways that seek to unify and celebrate the other, Mather works diachronically from 1970, identifying and drawing together these common, uniting hallmarks into a collective understanding. Pivotal to Mather's argument is her emphasis that we do not just interpret Scripture, but that the Spirit through Scripture, and working in our lives in ways that lead us towards Scripture, interprets us. The Interpreting Spirit is the first comprehensive analysis of the conversation surrounding pneumatic interpretation that has been taking place, particularly among renewal scholars, since 1970. It seeks to answer the notoriously difficult question, ""What does the Spirit do in the process of biblical interpretation?"" Awarded 2021 Award of Excellence by The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship

In The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience, Simeon Zahl presents a fresh vision for Christian theology that foregrounds the relationship between theological ideas and the experiences of Christians. He argues that theology is always operating in a vibrant landscape of feeling and desiring, and shows that contemporary theology has often operated in problematic isolation from these experiential dynamics. He then argues that a theologically serious doctrine of the Holy Spirit not only authorizes but requires attention to Christian experience. Against this background, Zahl outlines a new methodological approach to Christian theology that attends to the emotional and experiential power of theological ideas. This methodology draws on recent interdisciplinary work on affect and emotion, which has shown that affects are powerful motivating realities that saturate all dimensions of human thinking and acting. In the process, Zahl also explains why contemporary theology has often been ambivalent about subjective experience, and demonstrates that current discourse about God's activity in the world is often artificially abstracted from experience and embodiment. At the heart of the book, Zahl proposes a new account of the theology of grace from this experiential and pneumatological perspective. Focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation and sanctification, he retrieves insights from Augustine, Luther, and Philip Melanchthon to present an affective and Augustinian vision of salvation as a pedagogy of desire. In articulating this vision, Zahl engages critically with recent emphasis on participation and theosis in Christian soteriology, and charts a new path forward for Protestant theology in a landscape hitherto dominated by the theological visions of Barth and Aquinas.

Twelve scholars from the biblical, historical, theological, and philosophical disciplines engage in a conversation on the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life. The essays are held together by an enduring focus and concern to explore the relationship between the work of the Holy Spirit and Christian formation, discipleship, personal and social transformation. The book points toward the integration of theory and practice, theology and spirituality, and the mutual interest in fostering dialogue across disciplines and ecclesial traditions.

What is the human soul? What does it do? How does it relate to the brain and body? What is happening in the soul when a person encounters the Holy Spirit? These are some of the questions addressed in The Spiritual Soul as it advances towards its overall goal of proposing a (re)new(ed) Pentecostal/Charismatic understanding of what constitutes a human being. In pursuing this overarching intention, Churchouse responds to the anthropology of two leading Pentecostal scholars, Amos Yong and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen—specifically their theological models concerning what a human is constituted / essentially “made up” of—to offer an enhanced Pentecostal model in preference to their monistic view. Drawing upon the sources of biblical studies, the philosophy of mind, and upon the pneumatology that flows from Pentecostal spirituality, Churchouse advances a renewed understanding of the human soul—one illumined by the spirit and the Spirit—to engender his distinctive Pentecostal model of human constitution.

A contribution to the field of theological aesthetics, this book explores the arts in and around the Pentecostal and charismatic renewal movements. It proposes a pneumatological model for creativity and the arts, and discusses different art forms from the perspective of that model. Pentecostals and other charismatic Christians have not sufficiently worked out matters of aesthetics, or teased out the great religious possibilities of engaging with the arts. With the flourishing of Pentecostal culture comes the potential for an equally flourishing artistic life. As this book demonstrates, renewal movements have participated in the arts but have not systematized their findings in ways that express their theological commitments—until now. The book examines how to approach art in ways that are communal, dialogical, and theologically cultivating.

"Do not be anxious about anything." When it comes to stress and worry, that's all we really need to say, right? Just repent of your anxiety, and everything will be fine. But emotional life is more complex than this. In The Logic of the Body, Matthew LaPine argues that Protestants must retrieve theological psychology in order to properly understand the emotional life of the human person. With classical and modern resources in tow, LaPine argues that one must not choose between viewing emotions exclusively as either cognitive and volitional on the one hand, or simply a feeling of bodily change on the other. The two "stories" can be reconciled through a robustly theological analysis. In a culture filled with worry and anxiety, The Logic of the Body offers a fresh path within the Reformed tradition.