Is the Charismatic Movement Catholic or Protestant?
A Forum on Pentecostalism
Editorial Note: We believe that our readers will be interested in reading a transcript of a forum on Pentecostalism which was held recently in Brisbane, Australia. The hall of the Canberra Hotel was packed by clergymen and informed lay Christians to hear a panel of speakers from the U.S.A., New Zealand, and Australia discuss whether the charismatic movement belongs to the Catholic or Protestant stream of thought. For most of those present, it was a new approach to the challenge of neo-Pentecostalism. The panel consisted of a teacher from New Zealand (Mr. John Slade), a doctor from the
U.S.A. (Jack Zwemer), an evangelical Anglican and principal of a Bible College (Mr. Geoffrey Paxton), and the editor and his brother (Robert and John Brinsmead), who are Australians.
The Chairman – Mr. John Slade
The modern Pentecostal movement made its appearance early in this century in the United States. In 1900 a young Methodist minister, Charles Parham, joined with forty other persons in Kansas to seek for the Pentecostal baptism of the Spirit.
After several days of persistence in seeking the blessing, one by one was visited with an overwhelming experience which became known as the "baptism of the Spirit."
Speaking in tongues marked their experience.
Parham's ministry was attended with power from that time forward. W. J. Seymour led out in California, and the characteristic manifestations of the early Pentecostal meetings broke out simultaneously in many different religious communities.
In the years that followed the Pentecostals were not accepted by the established churches. In spite of opposition, however, they continued to grow until they numbered about eight million members by 1960.
Since 1960 there has been a most remarkable growth in the Pentecostal movement. In the past decade the denominational barriers which have kept Pentecostalism separated from the churches have been tumbling down. What Pentecostalism calls "baptism in the Spirit" has become popular among thousands in the conservative Protestant churches and also in the Catholic Church. With great enthusiasm the leading sponsors of the experience say that the Holy Spirit is breaking down the denominational barriers.
Men of talent, money and influence are joining the ranks of those who have received the "baptism." Interdenominational groups, such as The Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International, are very active in spreading what is being called today "the third force" or "the third arm" in Christendom.
Religious commentators also are beginning to recognize the charismatic movement as the third great force in the Christian world.
The current deep interest in the Pentecostal movement should lead us to follow the Apostle John's counsel to Christians: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." 1 John 4:1. We are challenged, therefore, to examine the basis and nature of this movement and measure it by the Word of God.
There are two streams of Christian thought – Catholic and Protestant. In which stream does Pentecostalism belong? What were the great issues of the Protestant Reformation? Does Pentecostalism affirm or deny the principles of Protestantism? Our first speaker this evening is Robert Brinsmead, who will discuss the role of grace in redemption.
Mr. Robert Brinsmead
The New Testament presents two aspects of God's redemptive activity:
Number 1 – God's work for us in Christ.
Number 2 – God's work in us by the Holy Spirit.
Number 1: God's work for us in Christ is the gospel. It is the declaration of what God has done in His Son for the human family. As Paul declares, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." 2 Cor. 5:19. He has taken us into His favor in the Person of His beloved Son. For in Christ our release is secured and our sins are forgiven (Eph. 1:6, 7, The N.T. from 26 Translations).
God's work for us in Christ may also be called Christ's work. "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." 1 Cor. 15:3. He "was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."
Rom. 4:25. It is important to notice that the gospel is the record of what God has done. It is not the record
of what God has done in us; neither is it the record of what God will do in us. The gospel is the record of what God has done outside of us. He did it in the Lord Jesus Christ. While we were yet sinners, when we were His enemies, while we were going from Him more and more, God did something for us in Christ
(see Rom. 5:6-10).
In Romans 5, Paul presents the contrast between Adam and Christ. Through the disobedience of Adam, the whole human race was constituted sinful in the sight of God. When the devil conquered Adam, he conquered the whole human family. God redeemed the human race by giving us another Head, a new Father to stand at the head of the human race (Isa. 9:6). And in Christ, God redeemed the human family.
He bought us with the precious blood of Christ. In Christ, He put our sins away on the cross. In Christ, He gave us a perfect righteousness (Rom. 5:18-19). Thus the gospel is the record of what God has done, not in us but outside of us, even in His Son Jesus Christ while we were yet sinners.
Number 2: Now we turn our attention to the second aspect of God's activity – God's work in us by the Holy Spirit. The relation between Number 1 and Number 2 must be clearly understood. Number 1 is the gospel; Number 2 is the fruit of believing in the gospel. To confuse them is the very essence of Roman thought; to see no connection between them is the essence of antinomian thought. Faith in
God's work for us (i.e., faith in Number 1) brings the Holy Spirit to us. The Scripture is clear that faith in what God has done for us in Jesus Christ brings the Holy Spirit to the believer in order that he may be filled and baptized in the Spirit (see Gal. 3:14; John 7:37-38).
The relationship that exists between Number 1 and Number 2 is very important. True Christian experience finds its joy, its fulfillment and its satisfaction in Number 1. This is because Number 1 is an infinite work. God's work for us in Christ is a complete work. Our acceptance with God is grounded upon it. Our right standing with God is based upon what He has done for us in Jesus. It is Christ's experience that has merit rather than our own. Isaiah 53:11 declares, "By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant
justify many." The word "knowledge" means experience. That is to say, "By His wounds, by His suffering, by His holy living, by His sacrificial dying and His triumphant resurrection, shall My righteous Servant justify many."
True Christian experience finds its joy in something outside of itself – the experience of Jesus. God mercifully took our history and imputed that to His Son; but He takes the history of Jesus' infinite life and reckons that to us through faith.
The words of Jesus in Luke 10:17-20 are very significant. They record how the disciples returned to Christ with great satisfaction after a successful mission of healing, preaching and casting out devils.
Jesus said to them, "Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not. . . but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." What wonderful instruction we find here! Jesus wastelling His disciples not to find their joy, fulfillment and satisfaction in what God was accomplishing in them, but He said, Rejoice rather in what has been done for you. Through My merit your names have been written in heaven. We must not seek to find our fulfillment, our satisfaction and our joy in Number 2 – the inward work. Love does not look inward, for love seeks not its own (1 Cor. 13:5). Nor does love rejoice in its own. To look inward for our fulfillment and our satisfaction leads to the greatest pride – the pride of grace. To make one's own experience the center of his concern is the very negation of the gospel. It is the worst form of spiritual perversion.
I want to use an illustration that may show the relationship between Christ's work for us and Christ's work in us. No doubt you have tried this simple balancing trick. (The speaker begins to balance a broom on his finger.) It is not hard to do if one simple principle is followed. What is the secret of balancing this broom on my finger? If my eye is focused on the top, I can balance it. My finger underneath is moving. It may be engaged in considerable movement, but I am scarcely conscious of it. Now, if I focus my attention on what my finger is doing, it is impossible to maintain the balance of the broom. So we must look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. It is by finding our satisfaction in Him, it is by beholding what He has done for us and what He is to us, that we maintain a successful Christian experience. But if His work in us becomes the center of our concern, we shall sink as quickly as Peter sank when he turned his eyes off the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is what happened to the early church. The history of the falling away is a most fascinating one. The early church lost the great truth of justification by faith as it became more and more concerned with the subjective aspect of faith. God's work in Christ became subordinated to God's work in man. Justification was subordinated to sanctification. Finally the medieval church taught that instead of a believer being acceptable in God's sight on the basis of what Christ had done, a man was acceptable to God by virtue of what the Holy Spirit had accomplished in his life. Thus, men looked to themselves and to their experience for their acceptance with God.
The great issue of the religious struggle in the sixteenth century was this: Is man justified in God's sight by what grace does in him, or by what grace did in Christ? On one side stood the medieval church; on the other side stood the Reformation. At least both lines of thought claimed something in common. The schoolmen taught that a man was justified, that is, accepted in the sight of God, by God's work of grace.
The Reformers also taught that a man was justified, or accepted in God's sight, by God's work of grace.
Thus far both streams of thought were the same. But what was the essential difference between the medieval and Reformation thought? The medieval church laid down its premise that a man is justified, or accepted, in God's sight by God's work of grace in him, in his life. In contrast, the Reformers laid down the great apostolic principle that a man is justified by God's work of grace, not in his experience, but in Christ.
One stream of thought is man-centered; the other is Christ-centered. One is subjective; the other is objective. One looks inward; the other looks outward. When we analyze all the religions of the world, we find they have one thing in common – man's experience is the center of concern. The gospel of Christ alone is different. It looks outward and upward.
In this light we ask these questions: In which stream of thought is Pentecostalism? In which stream of thought is the prevailing current of the Jesus Revolution? And what is the center of concern in your religious thinking?
The Chairman
Another important feature that distinguished the two great branches of thought in the Reformation is the question, Is a born-again Christian a sinner or a saint? Mr. Geoffrey Paxton, what is the nature of a Christian man?
Mr. Geoffrey Paxton
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is my responsibility over the next few minutes to outline the basic difference between the Roman Catholic concept of the Christian man and that of the Reformers in the sixteenth century.
First of all, at the time of the sixteenth century the Church of Rome believed that a man was acceptable before God because of an inherent righteousness. That is to say, a man's acceptance before God was on the basis of a righteousness within man – an inherent, intrinsic righteousness within the believer. This is the first difference. In contrast to this, the Reformers taught that a man is accepted before God, not on the basis of an inherent, intrinsic righteousness in the believer, but rather on the basis of a righteousness which is outside the believer and alien to the believer – namely, the righteousness which is in heaven in Jesus Christ before God's throne. I repeat, this is the first great difference acceptance by virtue of a righteousness within the believer versus acceptance by virtue of a righteousness outside of the believer in Christ.
The second important principle in regard to the Christian man is this: In the Council of Trent (a very famous Roman Catholic Council in the sixteenth century) there are five causes listed by the Roman Catholic Church for a man's acceptance with God. A man is accepted by God, said the Roman Catholic Church, on a fivefold basis. For instance, the instrumental cause is said to be baptism. Baptism is the instrument by which a man becomes accepted with God. But it is interesting to see the context that the
Roman Catholic Church gave the death, or the passion, of Jesus Christ. It listed Christ's passion among those five causes – namely, the meritorious cause of a man's acceptance before God. The believer is accepted because of an intrinsic righteousness, says Rome; and this inherent righteousness takes place because Jesus died. That is to say, because of the death of Jesus, man is able to receive a righteousness through baptism.
Of course, the Reformers where horrified at this. They were horrified that the death of Jesus stood in no closer relationship to a man's acceptance with God than being a meritorious cause. Rome said, Because
Jesus died, baptism could take place and a righteousness be infused into man. Why, “That is monstrous!” declared the Reformers. And here is the second basic difference. The death of Christ does not make salvation possible in the sense that it provides the basis for an intrinsic righteousness; but the death of Christ, said the Reformers, is that by which man is accepted. That is to say, Christ's death is not a meritorious cause, but it is our salvation. Jesus is our Savior by nature of what He is and by nature of what He did. So the second difference is the place of the death of Jesus.
The third important contrast between the Roman church and the Reformers is this: The Roman church taught that baptism was that event in which and through which a righteousness was infused into, or poured into, the believer. And this was able to take place because Jesus opened the door, so to speak, with His death. But from baptism on, it was the responsibility of the believer to ensure that he maintained his acceptance with God. If he fell through a moral error, or even through an intellectual error, he had to make good use of the means of grace which God had provided in order to come back into God's favor. In other words, the third great difference is this: The Roman Catholic Church presupposes the inherent ability of man to maintain his own salvation and, indeed, to do good works which merit God's acceptance. The Reformers said, Not so! God has granted to us an ability, said the Reformers, but this ability is always to work and to live as an object of the divine grace. It is never an ability which enables us to perform good works which will make God happy with us and therefore continue to give us salvation or give us salvation afresh. No, man is not inwardly able to perform good works which make God happy, said the Reformers. The good work has been performed for us, and any work God does in us and through us is the result of that good work done for use. Whatever man does, he always does as an object of divine favor, and never as a subject to bring about God's favor. Therefore, there is a fourth point of difference:
Implicit in the Roman Catholic teaching is the doctrine of perfectionism. If a man is able to go on because of the good start God has given him, if he is able to maintain his salvation and to do things which will make God happy, this must presuppose that while he is doing that and making God happy, there is nothing in man which makes God unhappy, i.e., he is perfect. And this is implicit in the Roman teaching.
On the other hand, the Reformers said, No! No! The Christian man is not perfect. He is still a sinner by nature. He was a sinner at his conversion, and he will retain that corrupt nature until he dies. Luther had a very, very famous saying: "At the one time righteous and a sinner, at the one time just and unjust, at the one time saved and lost."
Let us summarize these four points of difference:
Roman Catholic Protestant Reformation
A righteousness in man.
A righteousness outside of man.
The death of Christ making possible salvation on the basis of an inward righteousness.
The death and resurrection of Christ being our salvation.
The inherent ability of man to do good works which will please God.
No ability to do meritorious works.
Perfectionistic.
Not perfect, but rather a sinner at conversion and a sinner even unto the moment of death.
Luther said, "I will need my Savior as much the day I die as when I was converted."
I have briefly outlined four areas that I believe give us a basis for examining the modern Pentecostal emphasis. Mr. Brinsmead has already spoken about the emphasis on the work in us. I want to ask, Does Pentecostalism draw attention to the work outside of us, or does it place its main emphasis on the work in us?
The second question I want to ask is this: How does Pentecostalism view the death of Jesus? Is it adeath which makes possible the ultimate baptism of the Spirit? Is it the death which has brought about the fundamental fullness of the believer in Christ? Or does completion or the fullness have to be brought about by man on the basis of what Christ has done?
The third question I want to ask is this: Does Pentecostalism presuppose that the believer is able to do meritorious good works which will make God respond with the fullness of the Spirit or with any other blessing?
And the fourth question I want to ask is this: Can Pentecostalism speak about the fullness and total surrender and total abandonment without implying perfectionism?
The Roman Catholic Church repudiated the concept that Romans 7:14-25 referred to the believer. Oh, no, said Rome. That does not refer to the believer. That refers to the unregenerate man. On the other hand, the Reformers, without exception, said, No. Romans 7:14-25 describes the actual conflict and tension within the believer. Now, where does Pentecostalism stand in regard to these passages? This brings us to the point I mentioned last, i.e., perfectionism. Is perfectionism implicit in Pentecostalism?
Is perfectionism implicit in the preaching of the established churches? And in regard to the Jesus
Revolution and those young men and women who have sought to abandon the cultural structure of our church society, could it be that one of the things that has put them off and aggravated them not a little is the inherent hypocrisy and the inherent self-righteousness and the inherent perfectionism of so many of us in the established churches?
The Chairman
Thank you very much, Mr. Paxton. Now, what is the true function of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer? John Brinsmead, can you answer this question for us?
Mr. John Brinsmead
In Romans 1:16, 17 the Apostle Paul declares: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."
In the fourth chapter of this same book, the apostle tells us that this righteousness provided for us in Jesus is an imputed righteousness, a reckoned righteousness, an accounted righteousness. What is the relation of the Holy Spirit's work to this gift of righteousness? Jesus said, "When He, the Spirit of truth, is come. . . . He shall glorify Me." John 16:13-14. The great object of the third Person of the Godhead is to magnify that incomprehensible, infinite righteousness of God Himself, revealed to the human family and for the human family in Jesus Christ. The Spirit's work is to glorify Jesus' perfect obedience, His spotless merits, His sinless life. Christ was uplifted on the cross as a display of God's righteousness. The Spirit's work is to show that to men. For without the Spirit we are dead in sins; our eyes are blind, and we cannot see. By nature we cannot understand even the plain things of God's Word. So the Holy Spirit operates through the preaching of the gospel. It is the Spirit's work to create faith – saving faith in the merits of Christ. The Spirit points sinners to the great covering of Christ's righteousness and teaches them to run under this shelter of the Almighty. The creation of faith is not our work. Faith is not a mere mental assent or intellectual belief. It is the Spirit's conviction and persuasion that when Jesus hung upon the cross, He hung there in my place. He hung there in your place. Faith is to know with assurance that He "loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal. 2:20. The Spirit will create faith in the hearts of all who will not harden their hearts through unbelief.
Oh, the atonement of Jesus is a magnificent thing! He has embraced the whole human family. The cords of divine love have included us all – rich, poor, high, and low. No one has been left out. Christ has bound humanity to himself by a tie of love that can never be broken by any power save by the choice of man himself.
The Christian life begins in faith; it will end in faith. It is faith from start to finish. This faith is counted for righteousness (Rom. 4:5). This is what the Bible calls "righteousness by faith." God gave us His Son.
The Son gave us His righteous life. The Spirit gives us faith. Thus, salvation is the saving action of the Trinity.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit to make us Christ-conscious, and not Spirit-conscious. He does not come to testify of Himself. Jesus said, "When He, the Spirit of truth, is come . . . He shall not speak of Himself."
John 16:13. He never bears testimony to Himself. The life of Jesus of Nazareth was a revelation, not of Himself, but of the Father of glory. So the other Person of the Godhead only comes to reveal Jesus, to make us conscious of what He has done for us and what He is to us. He inspires faith in Christ, the divine remedy for sin. The Spirit makes us utterly dependent upon that righteousness which is outside of ourselves, even that righteousness which is in the Person of Christ, who stands at God's right hand for us.
Much less does the Spirit make us experience-conscious. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, his face was radiant with the glory of God. Yet the record says that he was unconscious of it.
The book of Acts records how the Spirit was poured out when Jesus Christ was uplifted (see chs. 2, 10,
19), when the death and the resurrection of Jesus were preached. The Spirit glorified Jesus. He did not come upon men after a sermon on the Holy Spirit. He was manifested in power when Jesus, the Savior of the world, was uplifted.
Another office of the Holy Spirit is to teach the believer the Word of God. The Word reveals Jesus – His infinite merits and righteousness. The Word alone is the supreme judge of all experience and all doctrine.
In Protestantism the Word of God is the only infallible rule of conduct and religious doctrine. But in the other stream of thought we have the dependence on miracles, visions, sacraments – on something apart from, or outside, the Word. The modern charismatic movement also looks to audio-visual evidence of the Spirit's work.
Another great work of the Holy Spirit is to write God's law in the hearts and the minds of His people.
Then His people bring forth fruit unto God (Heb. 8:10; Rom. 7:4), not in order that they might be accepted of God, but because they have accepted their acceptance in Jesus Christ.
Finally, we must always remember that our right to heaven is not based on what the Holy Spirit does within us, but upon what God has done outside of us in Christ. Our title to heaven is founded on what the fullness of the Holy Spirit has done for all of us in Jesus. John 3:34 says, "For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him." In Christ was manifested all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9). He was the complete revelation of God's righteousness.
That is our only right and title to be with Him where He is and behold His glory. Every religion which is not of divine origin teaches men, either initially or eventually, to look within their experience for standing with God — to look for some great miracle, some change, some fruit.
There are basically only two streams of religious thought — Protestant and Catholic. All humanity is divided here. It does not matter what creed we claim. Are we pointing to, glorying in and rejoicing in what God has done through His divine Spirit in the one Man, Jesus? Is that our vital testimony to the world? Or are we down in the realm of the subjective, glorying in and testifying to what we imagine the Holy Spirit is doing in us?
The Chairman
Thank you, John Brinsmead. Now, friends, let us bring things together. We have looked at two streams of thought this evening on three major areas of New Testament teaching. Dr. Zwemer, where does the modern charismatic movement lie in relation to them?
Dr. Jack Zwemer
This evening we have sought to establish three fundamental points as they relate to the only two systems of religious thought which exist. One system is the Protestant Reformation ethic; the other system is the ethic of the medieval church, which will yet be shown to embrace all other religious forms.
The three points made this evening are these:
1. Reformation thought declares that man's acceptance with God depends on the absolute and infinite righteousness of man's Substitute, his Representative – the Man Christ Jesus, who stands in the presence of God for us. That is the Protestant ground of acceptance. For that Man only is pleasing to the Father.
The other system of religious thought declares that God is pleased and satisfied with an inherent, an acquired righteousness, a borrowed goodness in man.
Thus, the Reformers looked outside themselves for righteousness that inheres in their Substitute before God's throne, while the other system looks downward upon man and within man to find an exhibition of something that might be pleasing to God.
2. The second point tonight relates to the nature of the Christian man. The Protestant always regards himself as a sinner — "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." As the Apostle Paul came to the end of his life and said, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief," so the Christian man in Reformation thought regards himself as a sinner. He freely admits it.
As he progresses in the Christian pathway, he becomes increasingly conscious of the fact that he is a sinner in himself. This, of course, impels him to look out of himself and upward to where his Righteousness is.
On the other hand, the medieval school man looks within himself and regards himself, not as a sinner, but as a saint. This he freely admits, and he becomes increasingly unconscious of any sinfulness inherent in him. And so we have the second great divide in Christendom.
3. The third point concerns the Spirit and His work. Reformation thought declares that the Holy Spirit is freely given that men might see their own utter moral and spiritual bankruptcy and then flee out of themselves to Jesus Christ, in whom inheres righteousness and infinite goodness. To these the fruits of the Spirit are abundantly given – faith, hope, charity and all good works. When they come up to the Final
Summons, they ask, "When did we do this? When did we do that?" They are unconscious of what they have done. They are conscious only of their utter sinfulness and the infinite righteousness of their Substitute.
On the other hand, the medieval system of thought sees in the gift of the Spirit a benefit derived by super-human effort, which conveys an experiential and ecstatic thing and a confidence within oneself. It is Spirit-conscious and self-conscious as opposed to Christ-conscious.
These three points divide the religious world into two incompatible and disharmonious camps. So we speak to our dear friends and neighbors who are Pentecostals, who perhaps belong to the Jesus Revolution or to any system centered experientially in man. Many of you perhaps have recognized the deadness and spiritual lack in the established bodies and have sought fulfillment in some of these other movements. We must, however, say to you that these are not founded upon, nor do they embrace, the great fundamental doctrines of the Protestant Reformation and that gospel so fully given to the Apostle Paul.
Now we will read some comments in the literature regarding this. I quote from recognized leaders of thought. One of the leaders of the Pentecostal movement, Donald Gee, declares that the central attraction of the Pentecostal movement consists "purely of a powerful, individual, spiritual experience." —
The Pentecostal Movement, p. 30. Another authentic leader of the charismatic movement, Edward O'Connor, declares:
"But the essential configurations of the movement from a theological point of view seem to lie in a lively and convinced faith in the Holy Spirit, the experience of His powerful action and the reappearance of His charisms."
— Edward D. O'Connor, The Pentecostal Movement in the Catholic Church.
We pass from the self-view of Pentecostal thought to the Protestant view, and I quote Frederick Bruner, who writes briefly as follows:
"Pentecostal experience, then, is distinguished by precisely the emphasis on experience. In a word, the theology of the Pentecostal Movement is its experience, which is another way of saying that its theology is pneumatology." — A Theology of the Holy Spirit, p.32.
We could read further, but we pass on to a view of the charismatic movement made by Catholic observers. We read as follows:
"Although they derive from Protestant backgrounds, the Pentecostal churches are not typically Protestant in their beliefs, attitudes or practices." — O' Connor, op. cit., p.23.
"From the point of view of the Catholic Church, it cannot be assumed that the Pentecostal movement represents an incursion of Protestant influence." — Ibid., p.32.
"Catholics who have accepted Pentecostal spirituality have found it to be fully in harmony with their traditional faith and life. They experience it, not as a borrowing from an alien religion, but as a connatural development of their own." Ibid., p.28.
"…the spiritual experience of those who have been touched by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal movement is in profound harmony with the classical spiritual theology of the Church." — Ibid., p.183.
"…the experience of the Pentecostal movement tends to confirm the validity and relevance of our authentic spiritual traditions." — Ibid., p. 191.
"Moreover, the doctrine that is developing in the Pentecostal churches today seems to be going through stages very similar to those which occurred in the early Middle Ages when the classical doctrine was taking shape." — Ibid., p.193.
Finally, two other Catholic authors write most significantly as follows:
The Cross and the Switchblade is the account of the life and spiritual adventures of David Wilkerson. . . .
The book spoke of the indwelling and powerful Spirit as the motive and moving power of our Christian lives.
It was very old doctrine, it was a very traditional doctrine, it was a very Catholic doctrine." — Kevin &
Dorothy Ranaghan, Catholic Pentecostals, pp.9, 10.
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