Tom

You have address my very observations.  I would like to add another obstacle, the social pressure to belong.

I found that there is a very strong social element in Pentecostalism. As you noted above there is an obstacle of Fundamentalism. When in the Pentecostal environment I noticed that anyone that accepted alternative views were chastised and rebuked. There was a strong orthodoxy. As an example I said in the last post that I gained the freedom to accept science as not contrary to faith through the writings of Dr. Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist out of JPL in Pasadena. Since he has become known he has had entire websites devoted to demonizing him.

Social pressures are very strong. They will cause us to disbelieve facts, rationalize discrepancies, and shut off part of our thinking just to avoid alienation. In my view it would be easier to convince a Catholic that the elements of the Mass are not truly the body and blood of Jesus than to convince a Pentecostal of scientific issues contrary to their teaching. (However, I came to my views and bucked the social pressure. So all is not lost.

Interesting stuff, there, Doc.

“Pentecostalism grows rapidly in my developing countries. In most of these, science plays a relatively minor role in the shaping of the culture or collective conscious.”

From that, one may reasonably construe that Pentecostalism has much in common with Islamic fundamentalism regarding the reasons for ease of acceptance in those venues. Sadly, neither form of fundamentalism requires much deep thinking, which is usually in short supply in those developing nations. I’m not trying to be mean, here, I’m just telling it like I see it. Since the rise of Islamic fundamentalism I have come to view Pentecostals and other Christian fundamentalists as the American mullahs. Whenever I read or listen to a Pentecostal on a tear about one theological point or another, I thank God that we are a nation of secular law, and not, in fact, a “Christian nation.” Leviticus, literally applied, has enough blood potential to satisfy any wild-eyed ayatollah and I shudder to think of a Department of Homeland Religion sending out swarms of religious police to enforce Leviticus literally. I also give thanks that we have some atheists willing to throw hissy fits over things like requiring the Pledge of Allegiance and the godless Red Hordes-instigated ‘under God’ within, and school prayer, and teaching Creation in school, and so on. We all have our place in God’s scheme, don’t you agree?

Parenthetically ... it’s the Xmas season, and here I sit, waiting for the wave of Christian outrage over some pitiful little Walmart clerk’s ‘Happy Holidays.’ I can feel the love ...

Which brings us to your point about biblical hermeneutics. Pentecostals claim to take the bible as the literal word of God, but in fact, they do not. They are very selectively literal in their appreciation of things biblical. Not only are they selectively literal, but they are often variably selectively literal. ‘situationally scriptural,’ I like to call it.

@John, who wrote: “In my view it would be easier to convince a Catholic that the elements of the Mass are not truly the body and blood of Jesus than to convince a Pentecostal of scientific issues contrary to their teaching.”

First, it’s elements of the Eucharist, not the Mass. Second, you mean they aren’t? But seriously ... if Pentecostals are not even willing to accept that Catholics are really Christians, how can we expect Pentecostals to accept transubstantiation as one of those Signs and Wonders. You know, like faith healing. Words of Knowledge. Predictive prophecy. They have no respect for the original Christian churches, yet they demand it for themselves. Doc’s right. That’s a dog that don’t hunt very well with this particular non-Pentecostal.

BTW ... FWIW, not all Catlicks subscribe to the notion of transubstantiation ... just like there are one or two Nazarenes who, not subscribing literally to the church manual, have been known to kick back during a Broncos game after Sunday services and surreptitiously slurp some suds, incredible as it may seem.

Ironically, a post-modern critique of the language of science may give Pentecostals a greater freedom to interface with science. The paradigm of evolution and dogma of materialism is often uncritically applied to many areas of study where there is no empirically or experiemental evidence. At many universities the Christians in the hard sciences (physics, engineering, chemistry)greatly outnumber those in the soft sciences(psychology,sociology,anthropology). I suspect this is because the hard sciences dabble less in speculation and rely more on experimental verification. Most texts on evolution mix the hard science of adaptation and genetic change with the soft science of human origins and trees of descent.But as post-modernists have wisely pointed out,the use of language is often the exercise of power. We need to ask whether the language of evolution has been employed by those seeking like Lucifer in Paradise Lost to declare man “Self-created” and thus completely autonomous. Hasn’t the paradigm of evolution been used to write the narrative of progressive secularization?

Pentecostals,freed from the pervasive paradigms of Darwinism,may find the language of the Spirit oddly compatible with quantam physics. What if the expanding and contracting of the universe is God breathing—his pneuma? What if on a subatomic level all that we call matter is really just energy and in this energy we move and have our being? What if pneuma and logos creates the energy that becomes matter? Some biologists have suggested that cosmic winds (ruach?) may have seeded the earth with the stuff for life. They may not be far from the kingdom. Metaphors and paradigms are inescapable, but some may be God-breathed.

@Mark, who wrote: “At many universities the Christians in the hard sciences (physics, engineering, chemistry)greatly outnumber those in the soft sciences(psychology,sociology,anthropology).”

What’s the basis for that statement, if you don’t mind?