Mel Robeck

This week, Cecil "Mel" Robeck, visited Cleveland, lecturing in the D.Min. course at the Seminary, delivering the second annual Azusa Lecture (sponsored by the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center) and preaching in chapel. The lecture focused on the "People of Azusa", hi-lighting the diversity found at the revival as well as the extraordinary depth of the testimonies and commitment of these saints. Mel preached on worship in chapel on Thursday, taking his text from the book of Revelation.

I was privileged to be able to talk with Mel at length about his work in ecumenics and on Wednesday at an informal lunch with faculty he shared the story of his work in this area.

For some, it may seem unlikely that one could specialize in two areas as seemingly different as the Azusa Street revival and ecumenics, but Mel shared that his journey began in a very pentecostal way...with a vision of Jesus giving him the commission to work in ecumenical dialogue. That visionary experience and call has sustained him through the misunderstanding and criticism of his colleagues as well as his denominational leaders (AG).

By the way...Mel's picture has been listed on a webpage of the "Antichrist Family Photo Album"

New Lenses

I'm having my annual eye exam in a few weeks. Blessedly, I had my eyes "fixed" a few years ago, with lasiks surgery, so I do not have to go through the agony of getting new lenses, as I have had to do since I was twelve or so. Contacts were great for most of the time, but my allergies created problems, making them foggy and unclear. Glasses, of course, can be cleaned more easily but fogged up every time I came in from the cold, or became spotted in the rain. The lesson for us is our environment can "fog our vision".

A group of Duke Divinity School students, having just returned from S. Africa for a two month immersion, discussed their experience recently. Hear Methodist minister and professor Ken Carder's reflection on what they learned:

Excellence in ministry requires new lens through which we can view ourselves, the world, the church, and God. Friendship and solidarity with those who see the world from its underside, its suffering and oppression, is one of the best ways to discover or develop a new and clearer lens into the gospel.

New lenses, however, can create tension and discomfort. They enable us to see what we couldn’t see before. They may expose realities that we would prefer remain hidden, such as our own complicity in the suffering and oppression of our sisters and brothers, or the inadequacies of our own presumed advantages and privileges, the finiteness of our own theological systems and perspectives, or the limitations of our comfortable assumptions about excellent ministry that exclude those whom Jesus called “the least of these.” (Ken Carder, "Sustaining Pastoral Excellence" newsletter)

Mybe it's time for a lot of us to get some new glasses.

Spirit Movement vs "Churchly Christianity": The Montanist Controversy

"In testing such spirits and rejecting them, the spirits of the Fathers must themselves stand trial. The Montanists' renewal of prophecy suffered at the hands of a church preoccupied with closing the ranks, drawing clear lines of demarcation and safeguarding its heritage, an exercise in which apostolic was often synonymous with traditional. The condemnation of Montanism was a decisive point in the evolution of that kind of churchly Christianity which cherished office and order and had little room to 'welcome the charismata".
("Why Were the Montanists Contemned?" by David F. Wright)

Both Wright and Robert Bradshaw argue that Montanism, deemed a heresy by the Church and by most historians, was not tolerated because of its threat to the stability of the Church's growing hierarchy. Specifically, Bradshaw argues that it was Tertullian's view of a spiritual church within the visible church which posed the greatest threat.

This sad case study (from which the church has apparently not learned!) should be re-examined periodically, especially by movements as they "come of age". I invite you to be a part of this process and ask the tough questions!

Ray H. Hughes

Ray H. Hughes is the quintessential Classical Pentecostal Preacher. Visit this website which is a vast resource for Pentecostal historians but also a source of inspiration. I will never forget the many times I have heard Dr. Hughes preach. Beyond his preaching ability, however, Dr. Hughes has been an outstanding leader in Pentecostalism, known around the world. The newly released DVD series in which he is interviewed by David Roebuck reveals both the depth and breadth of his ministry. In those interviews, Hughes reflects on preaching in various venues around the world including Royal Albert Hall in London, Moscow, the World Pentecostal Fellowship in Jerusalem and the packed beyond capacity Hollywood Bowl when he was in his early 20s. Hughes further reflects on his relationships with Pentecostal leaders Donald Gee, Thomas Trask, Dr. Cho and others. In addition, it is revealed that Hughes was a true statesman representing Pentecostalism to Presidents Reagan, Carter and George H. W. Bush, often in meetings in which Billy Graham represented Evangelicalism.

I am privileged to know and work with Dr. Hughes. His office is two doors down from mine. He has eaten lunch (nearly always Mexican) with several of us on numerous occasions, sharing stories and insights. We have prayed together on many occasions. I owe a debt to Dr. Hughes, as he was the person responsible for our initial move to Cleveland, a move which led me to theological study. Later, he was president of the Seminary while I was a student, and president of the SGA.

If you had told me when I was worshiping God as he preached at NC Camp Meetings, when I was 18 years old, that I would one day be a colleague of Ray H. Hughes, I would not have dreamed it possible. My life has been blessed greatly through his ministry. Listen to him preach and yours will be too.

Reading and the Soul

Reading is the food, light, lamp, refuge, solace of the soul, the spice of all natural flavors. It feeds the hungry, gives light to the one sitting in darkness, offers bread to the one fleeing shipwreck or war, comforts the contrite heart.

- Peter of Celle
Quoted in Essential Monastic Wisdom, by Hugh Feiss

Hearing the Voice of God

In 1983, Corky, Hope and I moved to Cleveland, Tennessee. Specifically, we moved into Ellis Hall Men's Dormitory on the Lee College campus. Corky had accepted the position of dorm supervisor and was entering into his Bachelor of Arts program full-time. I had studied Fashion Merchandising and received a B.S. from Winthrop College in Rock Hill, SC in 1980 and we were married the next month. Hope was born in April 1982.

After moving to Cleveland in the Spring, we met a student from the Seminary with whom we became friends. Corky's sister, Judy, was visiting with us and this student invited Judy and I to attend class with him one day. That day would change my life. The teacher was Rickie D. Moore, first year professor of Old Testament and Hebrew. The class was "Jeremiah". As a lecturer, Rick is an artist. As a reader of the text, Rick is insightful and sees it in a prophetic way. All of his students can testify to this. That day, Rick lectured on Jeremiah 31, God as mother. In all of my years in the Pentecostal church I had never heard anything like that!

If he had lectured on any other texts, no doubt my intellectual curiosity would have been peaked. But that day, he lectured on what I now know to be a feminist reading of the text (probably influenced by Phyllis Trible's God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality). I could not, in my carefulness, doubt that God was speaking specifically to me.

That next Fall, I enrolled in Greek and Old Testament Intro. And in theological study, I found my calling and place.

Rick is following the leading of the Lord and moving into a new place of ministry in the Bible and Theology Department at Lee University.

I will be forever grateful to Rick for his prophetic voice in my life, and in the lives of hundreds of other women (and men). I will miss him as a colleague at the Seminary. But I will continue to listen when he speaks as it was his voice which helped me find my own.

Another View

Read this Washington Post Magazine article about Evangelist Mike Feree of Cleveland, Tennessee. Mike has been to speak in my Holiness-Pentecostal History classes a time or two. This article captures the other side of Pentecostal ministry, the one you don't see on TV.