An Apostolic Response to David Arthur Reed 3

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A negative presentation of Pietism is central to Reed's evaluation of
AP.  Pietism is portrayed as emphasizing personal faith and religious
experience to the neglect of Scripture, proper theology, and traditional
creeds.  The Apostolic revelations concerning water baptism, the name of
Jesus, and the "Oneness" of God are said to be confirmed by the
"Pietistic Hermeneutic" which gives priority to experience over
Scripture in establishing the truth of the Gospel message.  As a result
the reader is led to the conclusion that the faith of Apostolics is not
derived from Holy Scripture but from the ecstatic religious experiences
of American revivalists.
	While Pietism did spawn groups who emphasized religious experience and
a mystical piety to the neglect of Holy Scripture, such a
characterization is wrong of Pietism as a whole.  Classical Pietism did
not disparage the intellect but promoted the serious study of the Bible
establishing colleges and seminaries (Clouse 1978:78).  Biblical
theology as a discipline distinct from dogmatic theology arose as a
Pietistic victory of a simple Biblical faith over the Scholastic
systematic theology of Protestant Orthodoxy (Pannenberg 1976:381-382). 
Pietism revolted against the lifeless faith of Protestant Scholasticism
and its conception of theology as an objective science by stressing the
need for an inner experience of grace as a prerequisite for doing
theology.  The Pietist appealed both to Scripture and and to the
Reformers in their quest to reestablish the importance of experience for
the Christian faith.
	For the Pietist their was no salvation apart from the experience of
faith.  Although faith had its origin in the Word of God, the Word had
to be received within the heart.  The Christian faith, whose ultimate
source is God, is mediated through Christian experience.  This
experience was one of the heart, denoting the very center or core of
personality, and involved a total, experiential, and inward commitment
to Christ (Bloesch 1973:106). 
	 The Pietists found confirmation for this understanding in  Holy
Scripture.  Ezekiel proclaims that the Word of God is to be received in
the heart (Ezk. 3:10).  The Psalmist prays for the creation of a clean
heart (Ps. 51:10).  The wisdom of Proverbs encourages us to trust God
with all of our heart and not rely on our own understanding (Pv. 3:5). 
The New Testament also calls for a religion of the heart.  Jesus
commands those who believe in him to love God with all of their heart,
mind, soul, and strength (Mk. 12:30-33).  For Paul it is not enough to
confess faith in Christ, one must also believe in him with the heart
(Rm. 10:9).  Finally, John makes an explicit statement about how truth
is confirmed in the New Testament when he proclaims that "Christ has
made this true, and it is true in your own experience" (I John 2:8 NEB).
	A religion of the heart was also an essential part of the theology of
the Reformers.  Luther affirmed that "it is not enough that you say
Luther, Peter, Paul have said so but you must experience Christ himself
in your own conscience and feel that it is unquestionably God's Word,
though all the world opposes it"  (Koberle 1938:80).  For Calvin it was
not sufficient "to know Christ crucified and raised up from the dead,
unless you experience also the fruit of this...Christ therefore is
rightly known when we feel how powerful  his death and resurrection are,
and how efficacious they are in us"  (Calvin 1951:98).  Classical
Pietism sought to return to a balance between the Word of God and
Christian experience found in Scripture and revived by the Reformers. 
Pietism reaffirmed the great truths of the Reformation  and and accepted
the orthodox tradition emphasizing the role of Christian experience in
their reception (Tillich 1967:312).
	Pietism in America continued in the tradition of emphasizing the
religious experience within the milieu of Fundamentalism. 
Fundamentalism was a synthesis of Pietism and Protestant Scholasticism. 
The Fundamentalist possessed an ardent personal faith in and devotion to
Jesus Christ while attempting to encompass this faith with a precise
rationalistic expression (Bloesch 1973:102).  The authority of the Bible
was absolute and its Fundamentalist systematization was decimated
thoroughly through Bible Institutes, Bible Conferences, and home Bible
studies (Marsden 1980:62).  The Fundamentalist lived in a perennial
tension between the depth of personal heartfelt affection for Jesus
Christ and a rationalistic theology which glorified reason and its
ability to master and explicitly state the central tenets of the
Christian faith.  Fundamentalism sought to reaffirm and defend against
liberalism what were perceived as the essentials of Christianity; the
virgin birth, the atonement, the deity of Christ, the resurrection of
Christ, and the second coming of Christ.  Rather than inventing new
theologies they made themselves totally dependent upon traditional
interpretations of the Word of God (Tillich 1967:306).
	However, a few Fundamentalists noticed a discrepancy between their
faith and life in Christ and the theological formulations which were
inherited from previous generations to express it.  Their devotion to
the priority of Scripture and intense experience of Jesus Christ through
the baptism in the Holy Spirit created a consciousness of faith not
found in the ancient creeds.  Unencumbered by traditional dogmas they
readily gave a new expression to their faith.  These Christians were the
Apostolic Pentecostals!
	The emphasis placed upon religious experience by Pietism was a
correction of a serious distortion of the Christian faith characteristic
of Protestant Scholasticism and Western Christianity (Pommerville:
1985:63-78). The Scholastics sought to systematize the theology of the
Reformers and preserve it for future generations.  In the process
Christianity was intellectualized, theology turned into an abstract
science separated from  religious life, and the experiential dimension
of faith was lost.  Pietism served as a correction to this Western
distortion of faith, renewing the Biblical emphasis upon experience and
subordinating reason revelation.  An understanding of the Gospel could
not lead to faith, only faith accompanied by the personal experience of
Jesus Christ, could lead to understanding. 
	 Reed's  presentation of Pietism continues in the distortion of faith
characteristic of Protestant Scholasticism.  Theology is loosed from its
experiential and dynamic moorings and made into an abstract, speculative
system of belief divorced from the faith, life and ministry of the
Church.  Apostolic Pentecostalism seeks to return to the experiential
dynamic of the Christian faith and to formulate a theology which
expresses the experience of Jesus Christ in a living Christian
community.  Apostolics desire only to have their theology correspond
with their faith in and experience of Jesus Christ.
	Reed also fails to perceive the relationship between Fundamentalism and
AP.  Fundamentalism was the milieu in which AP was born and from which
it received its essential hermeneutic.  Apostolics would embrace no
doctrine which arose from a religious experience without a confirmation
from Holy Scripture.  The Apostolic faith arose not only in the midst of
dynamic worship and revival but in the midst of serious Bible study. 
Frank Ewart, whom Reed considers as having provided the theological
framework for AP, spent over a year in serious Bible study before
proclaiming his new revelations.  Apostolics always subjected their
religious experience to careful scrutiny using the Word of God.
	In our next post we will question Reed's definition of Apostolic
Pentecostalism as Jesus Centrism.