Calling: A View from a Pentecostal Liberal Arts University
Robert A. Berg, Evangel University
You are a professor of business at Evangel University, the national liberal arts
institution of the Assemblies of God (the A/G), in Springfield, Missouri. A student sits
across the desk from you during a session for academic advising.
“So how have you been, Emily?”
“Well, the fact is… I don’t know if I’m going to be a business major anymore.”
“What?! Has one of my colleagues been recruiting you?”
“No. I feel that God is calling me into ministry.”
Choose the correct response to Emily from the following:
1. “There’s no money in that!”
2. “Let’s give it some time. Maybe the feeling will go away.”
3. “Well, then, we need to get you transferred to another school. Evangel is a liberal
arts university.”
4. “Ministry, huh? That would mean either a biblical studies or a missions studies
major. You had better make an appointment with an advisor in the Department of
Theology.”
5. “Hold on, now. Why not go to seminary after completing your business degree?”
6. “Emily, have you considered that the Holy Spirit may be calling you to be a
minister of God in the business world?”
The “correct” answer, of course, is debatable. Hopefully, none of my colleagues
would argue for either option #1 or #2. Option #3 expresses the perspective that most
1
Pentecostals held over the last century, but many of my associates at Evangel would
probably choose from among options #4 through #6.
Various circumstances contribute to the rationale for this paper. The centennial of the
Azusa Street revival in itself might lead us to examine how education has developed in
this young movement. In addition, this past year was the 50th anniversary of the founding
of Evangel College, now University, a fitting occasion for institutional self-evaluation;
this would be in keeping with “a slew”1 of books and articles that have recently
reassessed Christian liberal arts institutions in the United States. Further, Evangel
received a grant from Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation 2002,
funded by the Lilly Endowment. This funding has stimulated an unprecedented
evaluation and reinvigoration of the University’s mission to foster the integration of
Christian faith with learning and life. Coincident with the reception of this grant, a
decision of the General Presbytery of the A/G raised the required hours in biblical studies
and theology for all students from sixteen to eighteen. One specific change that was made
in light of these concurrent developments was the addition of a unit on “call” to the
course taken by all incoming students in their first term. This foundational concept has
thus become a focal point of conversation. Finally, recent plans of denominational
leadership to bring about some sort of amalgamation of the three educational institutions
in Springfield, Missouri - Evangel University, Central Bible College, and the A/G
Theological Seminary – have occasioned considerable discussion concerning the function
of a liberal arts university in the A/G.
1
This terminology is from a lead article in Christianity Today (June 2005), 30, entitled “A Higher Education,” by
Michael Hamilton.
2
This paper takes preliminary steps toward developing a Pentecostal understanding of
(1) “calling” and “ministry,” and (2) the “calling” of a Pentecostal liberal arts university.
A Pentecostal Understanding of “Calling”
Much has been written recently on the Christian view of “call,” “calling,” and
“vocation.”2 Since both individual authors and entire Christian traditions use these terms
in different ways, it is important that I define how I use these terms in this paper. “Call”
will refer to the passionate appeal of God to all humans to experience life as divinely
intended, in right relationship with God, others, and oneself. “Calling” is the subsequent
summons by God to all believers to a life of service that is realized in as many different
ways as there are people. “Vocation” is a near synonym of “calling,”3 referring to the job,
position, or other opportunity in which a believer fulfills his or her calling at any one
point in time. Thus there is only one call, but many callings or vocations.
Though it can be understood as a synonym for “call,” and though it has profoundly
religious connotations in certain Christian traditions, the word “vocation” has no such
significance in Pentecostal circles.4 For Pentecostals, as for most Americans,
“vocational” connotes “job related” training in contrast to strictly “academic” study. This
2
Among the books: Gary Badcock, The Way of Life: A Theology of Christian Vocation (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and
Stock Publishers, 2002), Os Guinness, The Call. Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life. (Waco: W
Publishing Group, 1998), John H. Haughey, Revisiting the Idea of Vocation (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2004), Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak. Listening for the Voice of Vocation (San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000), William Placher, ed., Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), R. Paul Stevens, The Other Six Days. Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical
Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).
3
The English word “vocation” comes from the Latin vocare, “to call.”
4
At least in our context, this terminology clouds rather than illumines the discussion. One might strive to salvage a
distinctive connotation in various ways, such as capitalizing the word Vocation to refer to divine calling and
distinguish it from the common use of “vocational,” or career related, per Martin Marty, “The Church and Christian
Higher Education in the New Millenium,” in Faithful Learning and the Christian Scholarly Vocation, edited by
Douglas V. Henry and Bob R. Agee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 60. A Christian university recently renamed
its theological division the “College of Theology and Church Vocations,” and then shortly thereafter renamed the
division “College of Theology and Ministry.” When asked about why “vocation” had been dropped, an
3
is how the term is used in contemporary writing about higher education, as well.5
Like the modern English word “call,” the Hebrew and Greek words translated as
“call” vary in connotation depending on usage. To call may mean to invite, to name, to
summon, to command, or to beseech; standard reference works cite examples of these
various usages in the Bible.6 This paper will focus solely on those instances which will
illuminate our understanding of what it means to speak of “the call of God.”
It will be convenient to use the book God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of
Life by Gene Veith7 as a point of departure for our discussion. God at Work is the main
text in the newly created unit on call in the freshman course at Evangel. Veith approaches
the topic from a Lutheran perspective and thus represents an essential Protestant
understanding with which all Christian thinkers must interact. Having used the book for a
few terms, we may reflect with some insight into how both faculty and students have
reacted to it.
First let us consider a few of the significant points of agreement and the insights that
have been profoundly helpful for our students. We are in wholehearted agreement that the
primary call is to right relationship with God. The brochure published by Project
Envision: Christian Service and Leadership, the name of the program funded by the Lilly
Endowment, states: “Our first and most basic call is to follow Christ and to become like
him.”8 Second, our students have been challenged to understand that God’s call is in the
administrator’s succinct e-mail response was: “The rationale: vocation is too archaic, students don’t like it. We
acquiesced.”
5
E.g., W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson, “Vocationalism in Higher Education: The Triumph of the Education
Gospel,” The Journal of Higher Education 76.1 (Jan/Feb 2005) 1-25.
6
E.g., Willem VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), qr’, 3. 971-974, and Colin Brown, ed. New International Dictionary of New Testament
Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), Call, I. 271-276.
7
Focal Point Series (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2002).
8
Project Envision brochure, Evangel University, 3.
4
“here and now” rather than in the indefinite future after their education and when they get
into the “real world.” Third, students are appreciative of Veith’s explication of the
Lutheran emphasis that we have “multiple vocations;” that is, we have what Luther called
“stations” in which we have certain responsibilities and privileges as workers and citizens
and as members of families and churches. These “vocations” can, and commonly do,
change with time.
Veith’s presentation also provides us the opportunity to suggest how a Pentecostal
approach to calling might vary from the Lutheran approach. Something that immediately
stands out is that the Reformed tradition9 understands this primary call to be a follower of
Christ in a different way from the way Pentecostals do. Under the influence of the
Reformers, this primary call has come to be understood as God’s “effectual call” by
which God without fail brings to faith those he has sovereignly chosen to be saved; it
might even be said that “the religious concept [of call] has become almost synonymous
with election.”10 It is certainly true that the New Testament, and Paul in particular, often
uses terminology of calling to refer to the community of faith; “the called” becomes a
virtual synonym for believers. However, Arminians understand the term much as they do
“chosen” and “elect;” that is, God has chosen, elected, or called a people corporately, and
those who compose the community of faith can be called “the chosen,” “the elect,” or
“the called.” It has always been important for Pentecostals to believe that Jesus died for
all, and that God offers salvation to – he calls - every individual on the earth. A
Pentecostal theology of call would emphasize those passages in which the word more
9
I here use Reformed tradition to mean not only the Calvinist tradition, but the tradition of the major Reformers,
Luther and Calvin.
10
G.E. Mendenhall, IDB, I. 490. L. Coenen in NIDNTT, I. 275. Veith’s presentation of this view (116-120) is,
thankfully, muted.
5
closely means “invitation” or “summons,” such as in Jesus’ parables. In particular, the
parable of the wedding banquet clearly distinguishes between those who are “called” and
those who attend the feast; “many are called, but few are chosen.”11
The Reformers’ emphasis on the sovereignty of God also affects other aspects of
Veith’s presentation. Vocations, he writes, are not self-chosen. What this means is that
we have as little to say about what work we take on as we do about the family or nation
of our birth.12 God’s purposes, by definition, are fulfilled, as much in the life of the
unbeliever as in the life of the believer. Veith also reflects the nearly neurotic Lutheran
concern that nothing that any person does merits any favor with God. The work that we
do in our callings thus does not serve God, but the neighbor.13 It is possible that this
concern to keep the believer empty handed before God is why he eschews God’s direct
dealing with humans; God, rather, works through means, that is, through other people or
circumstances or our own limitations. Undoubtedly, Luther would condemn the
“theology of glory” portrayed on much Christian television and call the church to the
“theology of the cross.” Unfortunately, this seems to lead Veith to make light of
contemporary claims to dramatic works of the Holy Spirit in the lives of individuals;
twice he rejects the idea that we are “zapped” miraculously to equip for following our
callings.14
Finally, the crucial theme of the “priesthood of all believers” seems to be predicated
not on the giftedness of all believers but on the abject sinfulness of all believers. Luther’s
11
Matthew 22:14. Calvinists are as unconvincing in their treatment of this text as Arminians are in some of the
Pauline passages.
12
Veith, 50-54.
13
In spite of the fact that he ends up acknowledging that the parable of the sheep and the goats teaches that we do
serve Christ by what we do for the neighbor “after all,” 45.
14
Veith, 131,157.
6
original case was at least in part motivated by his absolute rejection of the value before
God of the life of the monk in a monastery; such a person did not have a “vocation”
because there was no occasion for such a monk to perform the essential act of a vocation,
the serving of neighbor. So while this may not be a denigration of the pastoral office,15 it
in effect brings the priest, the religious specialist, down to the level of the lay person.
In brief, the Pentecostal who reads God at Work is uncomfortable with the degree of
control that God exercises in human existence. It is true that Project Envision has funded
the use of Strengthsquest, a self-evaluation program by which all freshman students have
identified “strengths” in their personality that may help them in making choices about
fields of study and employment. But Pentecostals would not allow such a helpful
assessment instrument to override what they believe to be the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Evangel students, having heard sermons about how God calls “unlikely” people to tasks
they cannot do in themselves,16 remain open to being called to accomplish tasks for
which they are not naturally gifted. They are also resistant to the Reformed view that our
past choices, upon looking back, were “part of the overarching design of God.”17 As
Arminians,18 they reject a view that so emphasizes the extent to which God chooses to
exercise control of our lives.
Pentecostals, thus, focus more on the enabling power of the Holy Spirit to do
whatever God calls us to do. On the one hand, we need to learn from the broader
Christian tradition the sacredness of the mundane; God is present in all the common,
15
Ibid., 18.
The characters involved range from biblical figures such as Moses and Jeremiah to the student’s Uncle John or the
founder of her own church.
17
Veith, 54.
18
Most of these freshmen, of course, would not even know that they are “Arminian,” but their upbringing leads
them to read the Bible and interpret the events of life in a certain way.
16
7
“natural” events and circumstances of our lives. The Pentecostal emphasis on (at times,
unhealthy obsession with) the “supernatural” has often led us to undervalue or miss
completely the less spectacular divine presence.19 On the other hand, however,
Pentecostals will continue to treasure those occasions when God deals with us not
through the means of other people, but directly. Thus we say “God healed me” and “God
talked to me today” not, as Veith explains,20 meaning that I took my medicine or I heard
the sermon, but that I have had a life-changing, unmediated experience of God. Though
the spiritual life consists primarily of disciplined, unspectacular practices on a daily basis,
the Pentecostal approach to that daily life is marked indelibly by the occasion “zappings”
of the Holy Spirit, which, on our reading of scripture, also characterized the life of the
Apostles.
The primary call, then, is to all people to be in right relationship with God, with
others, and with oneself. “Whosoever” accepts and responds to this call in faith21
becomes a part of the church comprised of “the called.” “Call,” then, has first and
foremost a corporate significance. The Bible describes a God who is intent upon calling
out a people for his pleasure and to fulfill his purposes. “The Christian doctrine of
vocation – so central to the theology of the whole people of God – starts with being
called to Someone before we are called to do something.”22
It is fitting to quote the next few sentences from the Project Envision brochure.
19
This is related to Luther’s idea that vocation is the “mask of God;” Veith, 24.
Veith, 25-26. It is true that with Pentecostals, as with other Christians, doctors are often the means of physical
healing and preachers are often the means of illumination. But to be Pentecostal is to pray for, expect, and
experience the unmediated work of God through the Holy Spirit.
21
The language of “whosoever will” of the King James Version of numerous New Testament passages and
incorporated into Pentecostal hymns reflects an Arminian perspective.
22
Stevens, 72. He argues (71-105) that there is a “human vocation” prior to the “Christian vocation,” but it will
simplify matters given our present discussion if we hold that the Christian call envelopes and completes any more
basic “human call.”
20
8
Our second call is to serve other people. Each person has certain gifts,
talents, and abilities, which may find expression in any number of career paths
in business, service agencies, education, government or the church. These gifts
are not bestowed upon us merely for our own gratification or privilege. Having
them creates obligations to serve both the community of faith and the human
community at large.23
No matter what our work may be, “we can be some of the best workers because we
approach our jobs as a calling, as a partnership with God in direct service to Christ.”24 It
is important to establish this principle before asking the questions most on the minds of
students at Evangel: what should my major be, what sort of life work am I suited for,
what is God’s will for me? The Bible reveals the great bulk of God’s will and, were it
taken seriously, would have an immediate impact on students’ career choices. If they are
sincerely loving God with all their being and loving others as themselves,25 they will not
pursue jobs that are purely profit driven or that take advantage of others.26 The key point
is that the kind of person you are is infinitely more important than what your job is.
Paul’s exhortation to live “in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been
called”27 speaks to this secondary calling. Becoming a member of “the called” does not
mean that you need to change jobs because regardless of what the work is or where it
takes place, the believer can serve God as well there as anywhere else.28
23
Project Envision brochure, 2.
Jim Bradford, “Work that’s Worth it: Serving Jesus on the Job,” Pentecostal Evangel (July 24, 2005) 27. “Our
secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should
think, speak, live, and act entirely for him;” specific positions we fill are “callings” rather than the “calling,”
Guinness, 31.
25
The summary of the Law made by both Jesus (Matt 22:37-40) and Paul (Rom 13:8-10).
26
In the sense that this life of service and love is not optional for a believer, we would affirm Guinness’ claim (177)
that “once we have been called, we literally ‘have no choice.’”
27
Ephesians 4:1, NASV.
28
1 Corinthians 7:17-24.
24
9
Particularly in the Pentecostal context in which we encourage the individual’s
experience of and response to the direction of the Holy Spirit, we must address the
question of whether God calls individuals to specific missions, tasks, or offices.29
Common Pentecostal usage over the past century has indicated the belief that a special
“call” beyond that to salvation is given to certain believers to enter “full-time ministry,”
understood to consist of the offices of pastor, evangelist, or missionary.30 An advisor in
the scene at the beginning of the paper who held such a view would thus have responded
to Emily with one of options #3-5.
Several questions must be addressed: What is ministry and who is a minister? Is there
a special call to ministry, of what does it consist and how is it received? First, let us
briefly consider the concept of “ministry.” The meaning of the biblical word is clearly
that of service.31 Since Jesus defines his entire life and mission in terms of service (Mk.
10:45), and since our calling is to a Christ-like life (Rom. 8:29), a most basic
characteristic of the Christian is service, or ministry. Thus, all believers are ministers, and
have a ministry. Indeed, Ephesians 4:12 pointedly states that the people of God are those
who “do the ministry.” And Paul’s teaching on the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12
and Romans 12 makes a powerful case for the variety of “ministries” enabled by the one
Lord and the one Spirit. Rightly, then, many church bulletins have a line that reads:
“Ministers: All members of the church.” The A/G position paper, Theology of Ministry,
29
I am avoiding the use of “career” because it may connote a self-gratifying pursuit of success measured in nonChristian ways. Quentin Schultze notes that the word “career” originally meant “race” or “racetrack;” “like a horse
wearing blinders, the careerist perceives little more than the finish line and the rear ends of any horses up ahead,” in
Here I Am. Now What on Earth Should I be Doing? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 75.
30
A clergyman and educator in the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.) writes: “In my 40 years of being cognizant as
a part of the Pentecostal movement, I have never heard anyone speak of their “non-clergy” career as a calling – with
the exception of educators in institutions like Lee University.” Terry Cross, Answering the Call in the Spirit:
Reflections on a Theology of Vocation, Work, and Life. (Unpublished paper, 2002), 22.
31
The Greek word is diakonia.
10
thus argues that the “revolutionary concept of every-member gifting”- a truth that should
ring true especially for Pentecostals – “distinguishes our fellowship from a Christian
tradition that emphasizes the role of a “special priestly or clerical caste.”32 This
theoretical concept that all believers are ministers or that they have a ministry has
appeared at times in A/G literature, more so in recent times.33
The truth of the matter, however, is that both “ministry” and “minister” in traditional
Pentecostal usage has referred to “full-time” Christian work, in line with the view that
pastors, evangelists, and missionaries are uniquely given a special “call.” This is reflected
in the way a real estate agent who previously was a pastor is said to no longer be “in the
ministry.” This perspective was formalized and given the fellowship’s imprimatur in
1916 by the language of one of the A/G’s fundamental truths, entitled “The Ministry:” “A
divinely called and scripturally ordained ministry has been provided by our Lord…” One
of the criteria to receive credentials in the A/G, then, is the demonstration of “the reality
of his divine call.”34
There are compelling reasons why the A/G should revise this particular statement to
reflect a broadened understanding of both ministry and calling. First, just as all believers
are “ministers” according to Ephesians 4, all Christians have received the call that we
have described as the “primary call.” This is a crucial enough teaching that it should be
established firmly before any reference to a special or secondary calling. Especially in a
Pentecostal context, it should be clarified, as it is in the language of the A/G itself, that
32
“The Theology of Ministry,” a position paper adopted by General Presbytery of the A/G in 1993. Available at
ag.org/top/beliefs/position_papers/4192_theology_min.cfm.
33
E.g., John M. Palmer, “Ministry – everyone’s responsibility,” Pentecostal Evangel (January 12, 1986), 4-6; Bill
Martin, “Discovering and developing your ministry,” Pentecostal Evangel (August 26, 1984), 10-11; Ken
Riemenschneider, “You have a ministry,” Pentecostal Evangel (January 10, 1988), 16-17.
34
A/G position paper on ordination; available at ag.org/top/beliefs/position/0821_ordination.cfm.
11
the “laity can perform all the functions of ministry except those for which the State
requires an ordained minister.”35
Second, although the statement itself cites no scripture to support its belief that there
is a “scripturally ordained ministry,” teaching and preaching on the view often centers on
the dramatic “calls” of selected biblical characters such as Jeremiah and Paul. The
problem with this reasoning is that such callings are anything but normative; they are
important precisely because they are not the norm.36 The reason why both Luke and Paul
refer to the Damascus Road experience was to establish the uniquely authoritative basis
for Paul’s subsequent message. The fact is that although some pastors and missionaries
have dramatic experiences by which God calls them, most recall nothing like the sort of
overwhelming physical manifestations seen in Paul’s case; the steps which lead to
ordination are often as gradual and unspectacular as those that lead others to nursing or
teaching kindergarten.37
Third, the statement can be taken to imply that God issues “special calls” only to
missionaries, pastors and evangelists- that is, to those who “preach.” Indeed, it is
remarkable that the first person in the Bible said to be personally “called (by name)” and
“filled with the Spirit of God” to fulfill a task was Bezalel, who did not preach or teach;
rather, God filled him with knowledge and artistic skill to craft materials for the
35
Ibid.
William Placher (Callings, 5) notes that it would be dangerous to draw any conclusions from the absence of any
biblical reference to “calls” to non-clergy positions: “The Bible, after all, focuses on the stories of people for whom
God had a special task, not the more ‘typical’ farmers or potters, husbands or wives, or parents, so it is hard to be
sure whether the biblical authors would have thought of their more ordinary roles in life as callings.” I would qualify
Placher’s statement further, because the Bible focuses not just on those called to “special tasks” but to key roles in
salvation history. Bezalel (see next paragraph) might have received a divine call to work on his mother-in-law’s
kitchen, but that would not have been recorded in scripture.
37
“Indeed, one might think from reading this early Pentecostal material that if one did not experience a vision,
voice, or some such encounter with God, his or her calling might be suspect.” Cross, 4.
36
12
tabernacle.38 In addition to the biblical record, we must account for the testimonies of
countless Pentecostals, including many students at Evangel, who attribute their pursuit of
a particular field to a calling of God, often from a young age.
Fourth, the narrow understanding of ministry seen in the statement is blatantly in
tension (if not clearly at odds) with the principle of the ministry of the entire body of
Christ, seen both in the New Testament and in recent years in manifestations across the
spectrum of Christianity.39 The current issue of Enrichment, a periodical sent to all A/G
credential holders, is a prime example. Enrichment describes itself as “a journal for
Pentecostal ministry,” and is published by the “Ministerial Enrichment” Office; here
references to “ministry” clearly are meant in the narrow sense of the term. What is so
intriguing is that the current issue is devoted to “equipping laity for life, ministry, and
leadership.” Ephesians 4 could be called the sermon text for the issue; no fewer than ten
times is that text cited to make the point that all believers do the ministry of the church.
“The laity are ministers of God in this world.”40 General Superintendent Thomas Trask,
citing Ephesians 4, states that a “pastor is not to do the entire ministry himself” but to
“mobilize and train laity to do the work of the ministry.”41 There is an increasing
realization that the church will fulfill its mission in the world only if all believers are
active ministers both in and out of the church community. The A/G, as an organization of
38
Exodus 31:1-11, 35:30-36:3. See C. H. Mackintosh, “Which Road?” Pentecostal Evangel (December 22, 1945), 7,
who makes much of the fact that Bezalel’s divine calling was necessarily to the sacred precincts of the tabernacle.
39
See, e.g., the article in the Roman Catholic periodical, Ministry and Liturgy, “Rites of Affirmation: To
Commission or Not to Commission,” (February 2005), 12-14: “The church of the 21st century is experiencing an
explosion of lay ministries. Theologically, the lay-cleric distinction is being superceded as ministry is increasingly
understood to be not a calling limited to the few but an expectation of all who are members of the Body of Christ.”
Quote from p. 12. The recent literature advocating and facilitating the “empowerment” of the laity is extensive. Two
of the most influential works are Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) and
Greg Ogden, The New Reformation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990).
40
Deborah M. Gill, “Called to Serve: Mobilizing and Training Volunteers,” Enrichment 11.1 (2006) 144.
41
Interview with Thomas E. Trask, “The Biblical Mandate: Ephesians 4:11-13,” Enrichment 11.1 (2006) 18.
13
clergy,42 will be challenged to incorporate this biblical principle more fully into how
decisions are made. The Decade of Harvest, a program to be implemented in the 1990’s
with optimistic growth goals, was not successful at least in part because clergy focused so
much on increasing numbers of “ministers” (narrow sense) and not enough on effectively
equipping the actual “ministers,” all the believers of the church.43
The point of this, to be clear, is not in any way to question that there is a calling to
pastoral or missionary work. God has gifted and called certain people to these critically
important positions. But we must get beyond thinking and speaking as if such positions
are a “higher calling” than that held by other believers. When my father was the A/G
Sectional Presbyter 44 in New York City for many years, I saw a number of successful
businessmen from key firms in Manhattan leave their positions to attend Bible College. I
do not question that some of them were called by God to do so. But in conversation,
some of them gave me the impression that they were leaving their positions in business
because that was how they could best serve God; following Christ meant abandoning the
sinful realm of business for the sacred realm of “the ministry.” But pastoring cannot be
God’s “highest calling” for everyone because God does not desire everyone to be pastors.
In some way, the A/G needs to clarify that staying in your position in a business may be
the best way to serve God – to be a minister.45 Yes, we should hold in high honor the
calling to service as a pastor or missionary. But we must enlarge the vision of our people.
42
That is, the credential holders that comprise (for all practical purposes) the General Council of the A/G conduct
business and make policy decisions.
43
See Steven M. Fettke, “Ministers According to God’s Purpose: The Role of Laity in Ministry,” 21st Annual
Society for Pentecostal Studies Papers 1991, 1-2: “One is left to assume that the majority of the work of the “Decade
of Harvest” will be done by professional ministers.” Also, Edith L. Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies
of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture (Urbana, Ill.: U. of Illinois Press, 1993), 266-267.
44
The clergyperson responsible for, among other things, administering credentialing exams.
45
As noted earlier, this is precisely Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 7. Similarly, we must rebuke the language that
depicts activity (such as singing) in the church context as “for the Lord,” but singing outside the church context is
apparently not “for the Lord.” What a believer does – wherever it may be – may or may not be “for the Lord.”
14
God calls believers to serve others in the setting not only of the church, but also in the
setting of the business office, the middle school, and the orchestra hall.46 Why not
publically acknowledge and affirm such callings in the church, whether or not we choose
to term such blessings “ordinations?” The A/G Vision for Transformation, which, among
other things, encourages local churches to grant “credentials” to those with a divine
calling on their lives, establishes an excellent context for this to occur.47
If this secondary calling is to serve others, how does a believer know whether it
should be in the setting of the business office, the middle school, the orchestra hall – or,
indeed, the church? A small booklet that is remarkably helpful to Evangel students is
Paul E. Little’s Affirming the Will of God.48 Little repeats much of what Christians have
advised over the years about how to discern what God would have us do in particular
circumstances.49 The standard elements include obedient submission to principles found
in scripture, the counsel of wise Christians who know you, evaluation of circumstances,
an honest assessment of one’s desires and abilities, and the leading of the Holy Spirit,
especially made clear in prayer. Pentecostals, not surprisingly, tend to emphasize this
fifth aspect, often citing Jesus’ promise to lead “into all truth” (John 16:13).50
46
“The demand by ecclesiastical bodies that a potential pastor have a specific ‘call to ministry’ as a prerequisite for
pastoral office, while the rest of the people of God need no such call to exercise their gifts in the church, is not
sustainable by the biblical witness.” Stevens, 153.
47
Although, again, the use of ministry/minister in both the narrow and broader sense in the literature on the Vision
for Transformation, is confusing. See www.vft.ag.org.
48
Revised and updated by Marie H. Little (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2001).
49
Given the continuous interest in the subject, the supply of books never ends. New efforts do not break radically
new ground, but they do serve as a corrective to commonly held misperceptions. Fairly new are Gary T. Meadors,
Decision Making God’s Way (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003) and Frederick W. Schmidt, What God Wants for your life
(San Francisco: Harper, 2005). An older book valuable enough to be consulted for its insight is Garry Friesen with J.
Robin Maxson, Decision Making and the Will of God (Portland, Or.: Multnomah, 1980).
50
E.g., H. P. Jeter, “What is the Spirit’s Role in Guidance?” Paraclete 10.3 (1976), 15-21; Kenneth D. Barney,
“Guidance by the Spirit,” Paraclete 17.1 (1983), 1-4; Elmer E. Kirsch, “… the Lord told me…;” Paraclete 19.2
(1985), 28-30. This common understanding is rejected by Meadors (170); “The statement in John 16:13 that the
Spirit ‘will guide into all truth,” is not a general promise to any Christian but is addressed to the disciples who would
chronicle Jesus’ earthly ministry and God’s will for the church.”
15
Many students express appreciation for Little’s emphasis that God’s will is dynamic
rather than static, and that we should not be trying to figure out the divine “blueprint” to
be followed throughout life.51 It has always amazed me that people in the A/G can be so
adamantly anti-predestinarian in terms of an individual’s salvation, but so stubbornly
predestinarian in terms of God’s plan – his “perfect will” – for an individual. Both the
biblical narrative52 and their own experience of divinely arranged meetings with strangers
and protection from near accidents and the like probably encouraged the perception that,
if we were sensitive enough, our every move and word would be Spirit directed; this
approach presumed, of course, that God did indeed have a “perfect plan” for all the
details of our lives.
But occasionally one finds more nuanced perspectives in A/G literature. These voices
clarify what we have termed the “secondary calling” often quite sufficient guidance to the
believer. We ask for a dramatic directive to a distant land when a needy person stands
before us in our own setting. “An open door, a need, the ability to fill that need, plus the
inner urging of the Holy Spirit, may be all the ‘call’ that is necessary.”53 Rather than
waiting for “some special call,” believers should rather “use up all our opportunities for
service” in our present situation.54 This aligns with the best advice that Christians can
give regarding affirming God’s will.55 “What is profoundly important to grasp, then, is
51
Little, 5-9.
E.g., the guidance by the Spirit of Paul’s travels in Acts 16:6-10.
53
Jeter, 18.
54
Leonard Gittings, “Every Man in His Place,” Pentecostal Evangel (October 24, 1931), 8.
55
Little’s use of affirming rather than finding or discovering God’s will is helpful. Our callings are worked out as we
use our gifts and opportunities to serve others, not necessarily in whether we, e.g., choose the perfect mate to marry.
The Bible is not at all clear that God has a perfect will for whom you will marry (or even if you will marry), but
God’s will is perfectly clear about how you are to love and submit yourself to your mate.
52
16
that doing the will of God is not a matter of grand designs but of daily, common-place
investment in the lives of others.”56
Perhaps the most quoted statement in the literature is from Frederick Buechner: “The
place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger
meet.”57 The Christian calling, once again, is to service. I may not know whether God
wants me to change my major or what exactly to do this next summer, but I do know for
certain that he wants me to be “conformed to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ” (Rom.
8:29). Buechner’s formulation posits the intersection of need with our uniquely created
identities. It is only then that we can fulfill the secondary calling to service and attain the
fulfillment that people seek in so many other things.
The “Calling” of a Pentecostal Liberal Arts University
In the minds of many, the idea of a Pentecostal liberal arts university is an oxymoron.
This is true for some who are not Pentecostal because they perceive Pentecostals as being
inherently anti-intellectual, and possibly because they have been unimpressed by the
efforts at higher education made thus far by the young movement.58 On the other hand,
some Pentecostals see such an institution as oxymoronic because it is a denial of the
purely “spiritual” roots of the movement.
A brief review of the origins of Evangel University is appropriate at this point. The
participants of the Azusa Street revival a century ago could not have conceived of such
an institution in the 21st century primarily because they could not have conceived of
56
Schmidt, 179.
Wishful Thinking. A Seeker’s ABC. Revised and expanded (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 119.
58
Influential church historian Mark Noll argues that Pentecostalism, fundamentalism, dispensational
premillenialism, and the Higher Life movement, proved to be a “disaster for the life of the mind.” The Scandal of the
Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 24.
57
17
anything in the 21st century. All the signs, including the outpouring of the Spirit and the
San Francisco earthquake, made it undeniably evident that Jesus’ return was imminent.
The idea that a decade might pass, not to mention a century, could only come from
someone who could not see the signs.
This overriding conviction of the soon coming of Christ was evident at the first
General Council of the A/G in 1914. When the call went out for this gathering of
Pentecostal believers, one of the purposes cited was to consider a “general Bible Training
School with a literary department for our people.”59 And so even with their antiinstitutional roots added to the denial of the possibility of anything like a century before
Jesus came, those gathered in Hot Springs were encouraged “to attend faithfully to a
diligent search of the Scriptures, and if possible to attend some properly and scripturally
accredited Bible Training School.”60 These early Pentecostals were thus not “antieducation.”61 Experience showed that to hold their own in conversation with unbelievers
and in doctrinal disputes with fellow believers – including fellow Pentecostals – they had
to study.62 Instructors must be Spirit-baptized, of course, and the curriculum centered on
scripture. It is unclear precisely what “a literary department” would entail, but no doubt
any “literary” study would be tied directly to the goal of preparing students to be
effective witnesses.
59
Word and Witness (December 20, 1913), 1. The same issue recommended a “literary school which the Lord has
brought into the Pentecostal movement” where parents “will find a good and safe place for the children.”
60
General Council of the Assemblies of God Minutes, 1914-1917, 23-24.
61
People actually so “anti-education” as sometimes portrayed would hardly have chosen the most educated
individual, E.N. Bell, with an earned B.D. from the University of Chicago, to be the first General Superintendent of
the fellowship.
62
Grant Wacker, Heaven Below. Early Pentecostals and American Culture. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 2001), argues that it was just such a balance of “primitivism” and “pragmatism” that was the achievement of
Pentecostalism. Though naturally adverse to Spirit-quenching academia, they realized that the job ahead of them
required some institutional training.
18
In the decades that followed, A/G education consisted of Bible schools, and had the
primary goal of training ministers for work “in the field.” What we now call “the liberal
arts” were associated with schools that had abandoned their original commitment to the
Christian faith and now advocated the anti-biblical teachings of figures such as Darwin
and Freud. It is not surprising, then, that the first proposals to create a college that was
not dedicated to Bible study and the preparation of ministers were met with suspicion and
alarm. The process by which this came about is a fascinating tale of social, religious, and
political forces,63 and we cannot adequately even summarize it here. But the arguments
made for and against the creation of such an institution tell us a great deal about the A/G.
A formal proposal to create a denominational college came as early as 1929. But on
this and subsequent occasions, steps were not taken beyond raising the idea. Over the
next decade, however, the A/G increased its administrative control over existing Bible
schools, demonstrating a concern that their young people be kept in the heritage of
Pentecostal belief and behavior. It is this concern to “keep them in the fold” that most
characterizes the early case for a new institution. Youth from A/G churches were going
into various fields and, with no A/G college available, they were attending schools that
were either non-pentecostal,64 where they tended to lose distinctive Pentecostal beliefs, or
non-Christian, where their very faith was put to great test by teachers antagonistic to
Christianity.65
63
Barry Hugh Corey, Pentecostalism and the Collegiate Institution. A Study in the Decision to Found Evangel
College. (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1993). An edited version was recently published to commemorate
Evangel’s 50th anniversary: From Opposition to Opening (Springfield, Mo.: Evangel University Press, 2005).
Citations are from the 1993 work.
64
Which usually meant anti-pentecostal.
65
This was the stated perception of Riggs and many of his colleagues; Corey, 44-46, 55-61.
19
The case against the new school largely reflected the fears mentioned in earlier
debates: pride in acquired knowledge and degrees rather than dependence on the Holy
Spirit,66 focus on higher education diverting attention from missions and evangelism, and
the same liberal drift that had brought older denominations to the apostate condition in
which they found themselves.
The evidence indicates that the leaders responsible for the original planning of the
new college did not know what they were doing;67 since none of them had experience in
higher education this is not surprising. Some of the very schools cited as a threat to A/G
youth were the models upon which the structure of the college was based.68 They
believed that they were losing A/G youth and that a “liberal arts college” would be an
effective means by which to “indoctrinate Pentecostal youth in the beliefs of the church
to protect them from the ‘worldliness and humanistic philosophies’ of American
society.”69 According to Ralph Riggs, the key advocate for the new institution, the A/G
would “grow by a collegiate environment led by ‘godly professors, daily chapel services,
evangelistic campaigns, high moral standards, and denominational influence and
control.’”70
In the best light, the founding of the new college was to provide an excellent
education for Pentecostal youth in an environment that would foster the development of
both the intellectual and the spiritual. The evidence indicates, in a somewhat dimmer
66
William W. Menzies, Anointed to Serve. The Story of The Assemblies of God. (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel
Publishing House, 1971), 141.
67
Information gathered from existing schools detailed such things as “laundry fees, number of music clubs, library
volumes, etc.” but not a proposed mission statement, admissions standards, budgeting or accounting structure, longrange goals or relationship to the A/G in terms of finances or control. Corey, 64-65.
68
These included Wheaton, Gordon, Taylor, and Westmont; Ibid., 60, 64-65.
69
Ibid., 106. The irony of proposing a “liberal arts college” to “indoctrinate” apparently was not perceived.
70
Ibid., 61, citing Riggs, “Personal notes …on the establishment of a liberal arts college [1944].” Of the five factors
listed, only the last would have been unique to the new A/G school.
20
light, that the motivations were largely reactionary, and that the emphasis in “Pentecostal
college” was more on the Pentecostal than it was on the college. The new school was
never a purely liberal arts institution.71 The idea of an institution devoted to the intrinsic
value of the liberal arts was totally foreign to the heritage of Pentecostalism.72
The popular and economically profitable majors in education, nursing, and
business were included in Evangel’s first-year curriculum, making the college
appear at first to be as much as (sic) a professional school as it was a classical
liberal arts college. Essentially, its planners were packaging a product to sell to
consumers which promised an institution where students could prepare for a
profession, protected from the hazards of society, with others of similar ilk.73
So, then, what is the calling of Evangel University? Our mission statement asserts
that we exist to provide educational opportunities for those in the A/G in a Pentecostal
environment. But what does this mean?74 At our 50th anniversary, then, we are left to
question what the distinctive contribution of a pentecostal liberal arts university might be.
How long will it be before there is an identifiable “model” of Pentecostal higher
education?75 Basic terminology that has been used for many years at Evangel, such as
“worldview,” “all truth is God’s truth,” and “the integration of faith and learning,” was
71
In contrast to Calvin College, for example, that can be said in the 1970’s to have changed from liberal arts
“monism” to liberal arts “centrism.” James D. Bratt and Ronald A. Wells, “Piety and Progress: A History of Calvin
College,” in Richard T. Hughes and William B. Adrian, Models for Christian Higher Education (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1997), 156.
72
By “intrinsic” I mean that the curriculum does not include “professional preparation.” Within a few years of the
founding of Evangel, Elton Trueblood made a strong case for a liberal arts curriculum – with “vocational” study as
well – as the most “useful” kind of education possible. “Our most insistent need is to learn to live” and so liberal
study has the “greatest potential utility which may reasonably be expected to help men to be and not merely to
have.” The Idea of a College (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959), 98.
73
Corey, 266.
74
A standard evangelical college with unusually animated worship services? Robert Ashcroft, Evangel’s second
President, declared that at the school, “(t)he Holy Spirit should enter into all of education.” “A Call to Christian
Service,” Pentecostal Evangel (July 14, 1957), 21.
75
Our infantile status is evident in a work such Hughes and Adrian, which surveys the unique contributions of the
Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Mennonite, Evangelical/Interdenominational, Wesleyan/Holiness, and
Baptist and Restorationist traditions.
21
drafted wholesale from the Reformed tradition.76 It may be time, however, for us to
consider more carefully what such language means in our context. Is not the Pentecostal
worldview different from the standard Reformed worldview?77 Since we have yet to think
clearly about what a Pentecostal worldview is, and how it might be nurtured at a liberal
arts university, we are particularly vulnerable to claims about what the Christian or
biblical worldview is.78
One major challenge for Evangel is how to nurture a sense of Pentecostal identity.
“The university is the way a community insists that its forebears have not lived (or died)
in vain.”79 Early Pentecostalism was counter-cultural,80 but, then, so were many of the
older Christian groups that founded colleges that now are much more “at home” in their
cultural milieus.81 Since the values of the predominant American cultural milieu are
increasingly irreconcilable with Christian principles, students’ identification with the
“story” of our faith tradition is increasingly important.82
Leaders in American higher education are wringing their hands over the increasingly
pervasive consumerism of our society. For profit educational institutions are sprouting
76
Especially through The Idea of a Christian College by Arthur Holmes, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987),
used for many years in a course required of all new students. That these are the foundational elements in the
Reformed approach in particular, see Richard T. Hughes, How Christian Faith Can Sustain the Life of the Mind
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 67-71.
77
It certainly is true that the early Pentecostal worldview was quite different from the standard Reformed
worldview.
78
At a website called “worldview weekend,” I scored only tolerably on a biblical worldview test that had a
decidedly political bias. For example, one with a biblical worldview should “strongly disagree” with the following:
“The federal government should require students to pass a national test before graduating from high school.” I
would welcome suggestions for the biblical basis for this position.
79
Craig Dykstra, Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices (Louisville: Geneva Press, 1999),
135.
80
E.g., in its egalitarian, inter-racial, and pacificistic characteristics.
81
“Generally, however, most of these schools have become more accommodating to the culture as they have
matured into respectable academic institutions.” Hughes and Adrian, 449.
82
As students are confronted with and come to appreciate the claims of scripture on their lives, “they will become
less and less suited to life in contemporary America.” Steven Fowl, “The Role of Scripture in an Ecclesially Based
University,” in Michael L. Budde and John Wright, Conflicting Allegiances: The Church-Based University in a
Liberal Democratic Society (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), 175.
22
up. Students and their parents are picking universities like they shop for the best deals on
used cars on the internet.
Today’s students understand that college is important to their success in the
work force, but they do not recognize its role in preparing them as citizens,
community participants, and thoughtful people… they also seem to believe that
learning is mostly about individual development and simple information
transfer.83
This increasing market demand for more purely “vocational training” means that it
will be even more difficult for American higher education to address what most citizens
perceive as a genuine crisis, the loss of a moral compass. An obsession with
technological advances without reflective consideration of how such technology is
properly used results in what might be called “technicism.” “Technicism incorporates that
which is precise, but not that which is precious, that which is factual, but not that which is
truthful, that which is effective, but not that which is just, and that which is efficient, but
not that which is caring.”84 In the face of such challenges, what might Pentecostal higher
education have to commend itself?
I make two proposals for consideration. First, Pentecostal higher education can be
holistic. No university, Christian or otherwise, would have its public relations department
advertise that what it offers is solely “intellectual,” that students will only be subject to
cognitive input. But Pentecostal institutions have the capacity to truly address the whole
person. With a bit more time for maturing, they can become as academically challenging
as other Christian institutions. But it is in its appreciation for and attention to the affective
aspect of learning that Pentecostalism has most to offer. A recent work has argued that
83
Carol Geary Schneider, “Putting Liberal Education on the Radar Screen,” The Chronicle of Higher Education
(September 23, 2005), B20.
84
Byron Newberry, “The Challenge of Vocation in Engineering Education,” Christian Scholar’s Review XXXV.1
(Fall 2005), 57.
23
the Reformed tradition’s approach of the “integration of faith and learning” too narrowly
focuses on the cognitive aspect of faith.85 In a recent issue of Pneuma, six Pentecostal
educators responded enthusiastically, agreeing that Pentecostalism gives proper attention
to the affective realm of human existence. For example, Pentecostals have always been
people of testimony, desiring to know God experientially each day, and anxious to hear
what God is doing in the lives of brothers and sisters. We have been open to hear God
speak through the uneducated and the immature. “Maybe testimony and storytelling
embody dimensions of truth that are lost to the systematic theologian who insists that
truth can be reduced to what can be written down in outline form and verified by canons
of objective research and rigidly applied logic.”86 Pentecostals have always been drawn
to the stories of Jesus and have realized, whether or not they would so express it, that
“real meanings can be found in non-propositional language.”87
What we dealing with, though, is more than an issue of “right brained” versus “left
brained.” In a Pentecostal setting, “(v)isions and dreams would be honored as well as
highly technical scholarship.”88 Dreams are now understood to be a way in which the
subconscious “communicates” with the conscious, enabling associations not readily
accessible to the conscious mind alone. Glossolalia may be seen as the enabling of the
person to transcend the limitations of the rational; with Paul, we can pray with both the
85
Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen, Scholarship and Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation
(Oxford: University Press, 2004). That model “defines the ideal of Christian scholarship in relatively dispassionate
terms as the rational, objective examination of academic learning in the light of Christian faith.” (47)
86
Jerry Camery-Hoggatt, “The Word of God from Living Voices: Orality and Literacy in the Pentecostal Tradition,”
Pneuma 27.2 (2005) 253.
87
Gordon Anderson, “Pentecost, Scholarship, and Learning in a Postmodern World,” Pneuma 27.1 (2005) 120.
88
Cheryl Bridges Johns, “Athens, Berlin, and Azusa: A Pentecostal Reflection on Scholarship and Christian Faith,”
Pneuma 27.1 (2005) 146.
24
mind and with the spirit (1 Cor. 14:15).89 An analogy may be found in the result of recent
studies showing that the female brain has a larger corpus callosum, the bundle of nerves
that links the right and left hemisphere of the brain; such a brain is more holistic in its
perspective, more readily integrating portions of both hemispheres. Might the Pentecostal
experience and setting more readily foster integration in the education of the rational and
the affective, a developed corpus callosum of holistic learning? 90
The A/G stands firmly with the Protestant tradition in affirming the “priesthood of all
believers,” probably in a more radical manner than even Luther would have supported.
As I noted earlier,91 Luther’s perspective seems to have been predicated more on the
common sinfulness of all; no priest was any better than one of the laity. But our
expression of the principle is more positive than negative, being founded on a robust
affirmation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit at work in all members of the church.
“Giftedness is important to the church’s work and witness since the New Testament ties
ministry to the exercising of the spiritual gifts.”92
More distinctive yet, however, in relation to our own testimony, is the Pentecostal
belief in the prophethood of all believers.93 When God granted his Spirit to rest on
89
In her study of the A/G in the 1980’s, sociologist Margaret Poloma found that pentecostals “are able to
incorporate their belief in and experience of a personal and active God with a decidedly modern worldview in a
manner that actually enriches the spiritually impoverished one-dimensional man.” The Assemblies of God at the
Crossroads. Charisma and Institutional Dilemmas (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), 8.
90
The need for such holistic education is recognized even outside the Christian context. A recent analysis of trends
in higher education describes “the public’s growing suspicion that the nation has lost its way and must now
rediscover the path of truth. For all its power and cogency, there is little that science and conventional academic
knowledge can do to light the path.” Daniel Yankelovich, “Ferment and Change: Higher Education in 2015,” The
Chronicle of Higher Education (November 25, 2005), B9. Steven J. Land has made the case for a distinctive
Pentecostal worldview that might transcend the dichotomy of reason and emotion. Pentecostal Spirituality. A
Passion for the Kingdom. JPTS 1. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 122. See also the intriguing
suggestions of Amos Yong in “Academic Glossolalia? Pentecostal Scholarship, Multidisciplinarity, and the ScienceReligion Conversation” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 14.1 (2005), esp. 65-69, 78-80.
91
Pages 6-7.
92
Byron Klaus, “A Theology of Ministry: Pentecostal Perspectives,” Paraclete 23.3 (1989), 3.
93
The concept, of course, is not uniquely Pentecostal since it is biblical (see Stevens, 169-173).
25
seventy elders to assist Moses, who had previously been uniquely endowed with the
Spirit, he declared, “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord
would put his Spirit on them” (Numbers 11:29b TNIV). Pentecostals believe that this
desire was fulfilled in Acts 2. The pouring out of God’s Spirit is “vocational, that is, it
baptizes and empowers the company or community of God’s people to witness as
prophets about the arrival of the Messiah and the new age which his arrival has
inaugurated.”94 Pentecostals emphasize that Luke-Acts portrays the giving of the Spirit to
be “vocational,” to enable believers to fulfill the mission of the church, especially to
prophesy, that is, to speak the word of God boldly.95 Note the difference between
Luther’s usage, in which a pastor has a vocation that uniquely is accompanied with the
task of bringing persons to faith, 96 and Pentecostal usage, in which all believers have
been vocationally empowered to bring persons to faith.
G. Raymond Carlson, a former General Superintendent of the A/G, observed that at
college a student is developing a “philosophy of life” and so a Pentecostal setting is
crucial.97 “More than the formal ties to a denomination, the policies of the board, or the
initiatives of the president, the extent to which students ever see any relationship between
God and what they study depends upon the faculty.”98 Another aspect of the holistic
nature of Pentecostal education, then, is the life modeled by faculty; they will be “holistic
models.” The fruit of the Spirit would be evident in their classroom instruction and their
interactions with students. The Holy Spirit would make them more rather than less open
94
Roger Stronstad, The Prophethood of All Believers. A Study in Luke’s Charismatic Theology. JPT Supplement
Series 16 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 70.
95
Ibid., 74. Luke’s focus is different from that of Paul, who links the giving of the Spirit to conversion.
96
Gustaf Wingren, Luther on Vocation, trans. Carl C. Rasmussen (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1957), 27.
Wingren is used extensively by Veith in God at Work.
97
“The Place of Education in the Pentecostal Ministry,” Pentecostal Evangel (December 20, 1964), 28.
98
Harry Lee Poe, Christianity in the Academy (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press, 2004), 49.
26
to unconventional ideas or methods. The fervency of the Spirit would spark a
commitment to excellence in their scholarly fields. And both their perception that truth is
holistic and the unity of purpose across the campus99 would foster a distinctive
opportunity for cross-disciplinary learning.100
Second, Pentecostal higher education can be mission-oriented. The early
Pentecostals were passionate because they believed in the utter urgency of their mission;
the soon coming of Christ demanded their wholehearted dedication to mission, to
evangelism. Though the intense expectation of the coming of Christ may have lessened
over the past century, the emphasis on mission has not. Indeed, one of the major
objections to the founding of a liberal arts college was the concern that it would represent
a diversion from the ongoing commitment to missions. The name chosen for the new
school, Evangel, related to “evangelism” and based on the Greek word meaning “gospel”
or “good news,” reflected the overall vision of the denominational leadership for the
college.101 The graduates of this new school may not become pastors and missionaries,
but they would hopefully be agents of the Great Commission in their respective fields.
A vibrant sense of mission is vital in a period when one recent analyst wrote: “I
suspect that many of Christian higher education’s schools suffer most, not from lack of
money or lack of management, but from a dismaying level of confusion over their exact
purpose.”102 The faculty, administration, and staff of Evangel cannot expect our students
to value God’s callings in their lives if we do not demonstrate clearly the value of our
99
The high degree of commitment of faculty to the mission of the University has been documented in recent surveys
done by independent entities.
100
Faculty also are more concerned about nurturing the callings in the lives of students than in competing for the
number of majors in academic departments.
101
Corey, 180.
102
Allen C. Guelzo, “Cracks in the Tower,” Books and Culture (July/August 2005), 29.
27
individual callings and our institutional calling. Socially and economically, our students
have an unprecedented and bewildering array of career opportunities ahead of them. Part
of our job is to help rule at least some of them out as inappropriate to the Christian call.
On the other hand, we must open up new possibilities that they had not even considered.
Anecdotal evidence from our own experience and from representatives at A/G World
Missions indicates that the short term missions trip is increasingly the context in which
young people feel a calling to missions work.103
We conclude by returning to our academic advisor and Emily. The advisor is thankful
that Emily has heeded the primary call and come to Christian faith. The question, of
course, is how Emily is to fulfill the secondary calling to serve others. I use “calling”
rather than “call” in approaching Emily’s situation to connote an ongoing state of
communication; that is, while “the (primary) call” does not change, “callings” – how
each believer finds that intersection between individual identity and the need of others may and probably will change. Emily’s choice of major or even her choice of specific
courses for the next term may seem to have cosmic implications. But far more important
is what sort of person she is. The advisor should question her about what gives her joy,
about what sort of service activities she is involved in already, about her interest in or her
family’s ability to pay for graduate school. I wouldn’t want to give any of the responses
from the opening scene before we discussed these and many other issues. And I truly
hope that the advisor would relish doing it as part of his calling.
103
See Haughey, 212. “Our role is not to tell students what their vocation is… (but) to guide by asking questions to
open up possibilities, by evoking metaphors to enrich imaginations, and by engendering courage in the students who
dare to consider ‘options’ not previously known and to reconceive of themselves as persons who are graced with the
image of God.” Michael G. Cartwright, “Moving Beyond Muddled Missions and Misleading Metaphors,” in Budde
and Wright, 198.
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