Sons and Daughters, Young and Old

Toward a Pentecostal Theology of the Family

Authors

  • Amos Yong Regent University School of Divinity

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.v10i2.147

Keywords:

Pentecostal theology, theology of the family, Luke-Acts, eschatology

Abstract

Do Pentecostals have anything distinctive to contribute to Christian discussions on theology of the family or theology of children? After a brief survey of the literature, we will explore the possibility of developing a Pentecostal theology of the family from out of the Day of Pentecost narrative and the Luke-Acts “canon-within-the-canon” – both of which have long been central to Pentecostal spirituality and its theological imagination. Central to such a Lukan and Pentecostal consideration will be the family as an eschatological sign of the coming reign of God. The concluding section will return to sketch trajectories for a pentecostal theology of family in the twenty-first century with implications for a theology of parenting, for filial and sibling relationships, and for thinking about the intergenerational family, all in eschatological perspective.

Author Biography

  • Amos Yong, Regent University School of Divinity

    Amos Yong is J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology at Regent University School of Divinity in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA. His graduate education includes degrees in theology, history, and religious studies from Western Evangelical Seminary and Portland State University, Portland, OR, and Boston University, Boston, MA, and an undergraduate degree from Bethany University of the Assemblies of God. He has authored or edited over 15 volumes through 2011.

References

Alexander, E., The Women of Azusa Street (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2005).

Althouse, P., and R. Waddell (eds), Perspectives in Pentecostal Eschatologies: World Without End (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 2010).

Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, vol. III/4, The Doctrine of Creation (eds G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. A. T. Mackay, et al.; 1961; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, repr., 2010).

Billingsley, S., It’s a New Day: Race and Gender in the Modern Charismatic Movement (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2008).

Blumhofer, E., “The Role of Women in the Assemblies of God,” Assemblies of God Heritage (Winter 1987–1988).

Borgmann, P., The Way According to Luke: Hearing the Whole Story of Luke-Acts (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006).

Browning, D.S., Equality and the Family: A Fundamental, Practical Theology of Children, Mothers, and Fathers in Modern Societies (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007).

Bruce, F.F., The Hard Sayings of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983).

Brusco, E.E., “The Peace that Passes All Understanding: Violence, the Family and Fundamentalist Knowledge in Colombia,” in J. Brink and J. Mencher (eds), Mixed Blessings: Gender and Religious Fundamentalism Cross Culturally (New York and London: Routledge, 1997), 11–24.

Brusco, E.E., The Reformation of Machismo: Evangelical Conversion and Gender in Colombia (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1995).

Butler, A.D., Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007).

Cardinal Ouellet, M., Divine Likeness: Toward a Trinitarian Anthropology of the Family (trans. P. Milligan and L.M. Cicone; Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006).

das Dores Campos Machado, M., “Family, Sexuality, and Family Planning: A Comparative Study of Pentecostals and Charismatics in Rio de Janiero,” in B. Boudewijnse, A. Droogers, and F. Kamsteeg (eds), More than Opium: An Anthropological Approach to Latin American and Caribbean Pentecostal Praxis (Studies in Evangelicalism 14; Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 1998), 169–202.

Davis, Billie, “Perpetuating Pentecost through the Family,” in John Kie Vining (ed.), Nurturing Pentecostal Families: A Covenant to Nurture Our Families (Cleveland, TN: Family Ministries/Pathway Press, 1996), 87–97.

Dayton, D.D., Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1987), especially pp. 87-89;

Deddo, G.W., Karl Barth’s Theology of Relations: Trinitarian, Christological, and Human – Towards an Ethic of the Family (Issues in Systematic Theology 4; New York: Peter Lang, 1999).

Destro, A., and M. Pesce, “Fathers and Householders in the Jesus Movement: The Perspective of the Gospel of Luke,” Biblical Interpretation 11.2 (2003), 211–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156851503765661285

Ellingson, L.L., and P.J. Sotirin, Aunting: Cultural Practices that Sustain Family and Community Life (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009).

Everts, J.M., and R.S. Baird, “Phoebe Palmer and Her Pentecostal Protégées: Acts 2.17-18 and Pentecostal Woman Ministers,” in P. Alexander, J.D. May, and R.G. Reid (eds), Trajectories in the Book of Acts: Essays in Honor of John Wesley Wyckoff (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 146–59.

Faupel, D.W., The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).

Greeley, A., and M. Hout, The Truth about Conservative Christians: What They Think and What They Believe (Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2006).

Green, J.B., The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), p. 408.

Hardy III, C.E., “Church Mothers and Pentecostals in the Modern Age,” in A. Yong and E. Alexander (eds), Afro-Pentecostalism: Black Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in History and Culture (Religion, Race, and Ethnicity Series; New York: New York University Press, 2011), 83–93.

Hess, R.S., and M.D. Carroll R. (eds), Family in the Bible: Exploring Customs, Culture, and Context (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003).

Ittmann, K., Work, Gender, and Family in Victorian England (Washington Square, NY: New York University Press, 1995).

Jeffrey, D.L., “Naming the Father: The Teaching Authority of Jesus and Contemporary Debate,” in C. Bartholomew, C. Greene, and K. Möller (eds), After Pentecost: Language and Biblical Interpretation (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press, and Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 263–79.

Kärkkäinen, V.-M., Toward a Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on Ecclesiology, Soteriology, and Theology of Mission (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2002).

Kärkkäinen, V.-M., An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical, and Global Perspectives (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002).

Klein, R.W., “A Liberated Lifestyle: Slaves and Servants in Biblical Perspective,” Currents in Theology and Mission 9.4 (1982), 212–21.

Lambrecht, J., SJ, “The Relatives of Jesus in Mark,” Novum Testamentum 16.4 (1974), 241– 58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853674X00014

Land, S.J., Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).

Lawless, E.J., God’s Peculiar People: Women’s Voices and Folk Tradition in a Pentecostal Church (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1988).

McCarthy, D.M., Sex and Love in the Home: A Theology of the Household (London: SCM Press, 2nd edn, 2004).

McGee, G.B., Miracles, Missions, and American Pentecostalism (American Society of Missiology series 45; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010).

McQueen, L.R., Joel and the Spirit: The Cry of a Prophetic Hermeneutic (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995).

Mowery, R.L., “God the Father in Luke-Acts,” in Earl Richard (ed.), New Views on Luke and Acts (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), 124–32.

Neitz, M.J., “Family, State, and God: Ideologies of the Right-to-life Movement,” Sociological Analysis 42.3 (Fall 1981), 265–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3711038

Neyrey, SJ, J.H. “Honor and Shame: Loss of Wealth, Loss of Family, Loss of Honor – the Cultural Context of the Original Makarisms in Q,” in J.H. Neyrey and E.C. Stewart (eds), The Social World of the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 87–102.

Nolivos, Virginia Trevino and Eloy Nolivos, “Pentecostalism’s Theological Reconstruction of the Identity of the Latin American Family,” in Calvin L. Smith (ed.), Pentecostal Power: Expressions, Impact and Faith of Latin American Pentecostalism, Global Pentecostal & Charismatic Studies 6 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 205–26.

Nolivos, Virginia Trevino, “A Pentecostal Paradigm for the Latin American Family: An Instrument of Transformation,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 5.2 (2001): 223– 34.

– “A Pentecostal Paradigm for the Latin American Family: An Instrument of Transformation,” Cyberjournal for Pentecostal-Charismatic Research 11 (2002) [http:// www.pctii.org/cyberj/cyber11.html].

O’Neill, K.L., City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala (Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press, 2009).

Palmer, Phoebe, The Promise of the Father (Salem, OH: Schmul Publishers, 1859; repr., New York: Garland, 1985).

Post, S.G., More Lasting Unions: Christianity, the Family, and Society (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000).

Rubio, J.H., A Christian Theology of Marriage and Family (New York: Paulist Press, 2003).

Ryan, P. (ed.), The Model of “Church-as-Family”: Meeting the African Challenge – Proceedings of the Fourth Interdisciplinary Session of the Faculty of Theology and the Department of Religious Studies, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi (Nairobi: The Catholic University of Eastern Africa Publications, 1999).

Sheppard, G.T., “Pentecostalism and the Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism: Anatomy of an Uneasy Relationship,” PNEUMA: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 6.2 (1984), 5–34.

Shorter, A., et al., Theology of the Church as Family of God (Tangaza Occasional Papers 3; Nairobi and Limuru, Kenya: Paulines Publications Africa, 1997).

Soothill, J.E., Gender, Social Change and Spiritual Power: Charismatic Christianity in Ghana (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2007). http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004157897.i-264

Stackhouse, M.L. Covenant and Commitments: Faith, Family, and Economic Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997).

Thatcher, A., “Beginning Again with Jesus,” in A. Dillen and D. Pollefeyt (eds), Children’s Voices: Children’s Perspectives in Ethics, Theology and Religious Education (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 230; Leuven, Paris, and Walpole, MA: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2010), 37–61.

– Theology and Families (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007). http://dx.doi. org/10.1002/9780470776681

Thompson, M.M., The Promise of the Father: Jesus and God in the New Testament (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000).

Toulis, N.R., Believing Identity: Pentecostalism and the Mediation of Jamaican Ethnicity and Gender in England (Oxford and New York: Berg, 1997).

Trulear, H.D., “Ida B. Robinson: The Mother as Symbolic Presence,” in J.R. Goff and G. Wacker (eds), Portraits of a Generation: Early Pentecostal Leaders (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2002), 309–24.

Turner, M., Power from on High: The Spirit in Israel’s Restoration and Witness in Luke-Acts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).

van Henten, J. Willem, and A. Brenner (eds), Families and Family Relations as Represented in Early Judaisms and Early Christianities: Texts and Fictions (Studies in Theology and Religion 2; Leiden: Deo Publishing, 2000).

Wacker, G., “Living with Signs and Wonders: Parents and Children in Early Pentecostal Culture,” in K. Cooper and J. Gregory (eds), Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church – Papers Read at the 2003 Summer Meeting and the 2004 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (Studies in Church History 41; Woodbridge, UK, and Rochester, NY: Published for the Ecclesiastical History Society by the Boydell Press, 2005), 423–43.

Waters, B., The Family in Christian Social and Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

Watson, D.F., Honor among Christians: The Cultural Key to the Messianic Secret (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010).

Wilcox, M.M. Coming Out in Christianity: Religion, Identity, and Community (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003).

Yong, Amos, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005).

– Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (Burlington, VT, and Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2002, repr.: Eugene, OR.: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006).

– In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010).

– Who Is the Holy Spirit: A Walk with the Apostles (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2011).

– God is Spirit, God is Love: Love as the Gift of the Spirit (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012).

Published

2012-02-29

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Yong, A. (2012). Sons and Daughters, Young and Old: Toward a Pentecostal Theology of the Family. PentecoStudies, 10(2), 147–173. https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.v10i2.147