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Assemblies of God Schools and Scholars for the 21st Century

by James K. Bridges

The individuals pictured in this article are representative of the many fine educators who have been influential in Assemblies of God schools of higher learning during the 20th century.

I am encouraged by the growing appreciation and support among our churches for our schools and for those who serve these institutions. If we can keep building close relationships between the churches and our schools, and if our schools truly serve our churches, we will see more financial support for our schools—especially in a day when unprecedented amounts of money are passing between generations through estates, trusts, and wills.

As educators, we must view ourselves as our churchmen view us. One church leader commented on church school educators: “They either increase or decrease the number of people who worship God each Sunday.” Of course, this is true of ministers and church leaders as well. Our lifestyle and teaching ministry will be of such influence on our future church leaders that we contribute to either the raising or the lowering of attendance and membership in the church.

We who teach and preach God’s Word not only influence the attendance of the church, but we also influence what worshipers hear or do not hear of God’s truth. You are most valuable to the kingdom of God and to the Assemblies of God, and we salute you for the contribution you have made and are going to make to the work of God in the future.

CLARIFYING THE ROLE OF ASSEMBLIES OF GOD SCHOOLS

When reading the history of other church schools, one is struck with the inclination of these schools to move away from their parent denomination by seeking first to become generic. They then begin to serve other entities beside their parent organization. Dilution and drifting are not far behind.

It is vital that we understand the purpose and function of our institutions in the context of the church and its mission. The distinctive ministry of each school is to be rendered to the Lord Jesus Christ through the denomination with which it is affiliated. Many people are trying to diminish the importance of denominations today, but I would rather have the multiple denominations that have emerged out of the Reformation, than to be held in the bondage of a Roman colossus that keeps its devotees in ignorance and spiritual darkness. Beware of the ecumenical movement afloat today, lest when the new garb is removed, it shows itself to be the same old bondage.

It is also important that our Assemblies of God students understand that their training and education is in the context of fulfilling the purpose and mission of the denomination of which the school is affiliated. Even students with nonministry majors need to view their training not in a merely selfish or individual pursuit of education. They need to find their place of service using their talents and gifts in the local church.

RESPONSIBILITY TO OUR FELLOWSHIP

Keeping Our Pentecostal History and Heritage Alive

We are deeply indebted to our founding fathers for their faithfulness to the Word of God and our Pentecostal experience, and for their insight into the role of biblical and theological training they brought to our Movement from the beginning. One reason E.N. Bell and the other brethren gave for the meeting in Hot Springs in 1914 included developing a “general Bible training school with a literary department.” Inherent in our church’s foundation was the significance of theological training.

Many of our early leaders were well-trained formally and others through their own personal pursuit of education. Our brethren not only understood the need for training, they “had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32). These leaders were alert to what was happening on the religious scene in America and recognized the sad deterioration and apostasy of church-related seminaries in our country.

Gary McGee, in This Gospel Shall Be Preached, captured a critical statement from Augustus Strong, president-emeritus of Rochester Theological Seminary. Strong declared that the failure of the seminaries to teach traditional Protestant theology was turning them into “organs of antichrist.”

As a response to this desertion of the faith, our Assemblies of God leaders built schools committed to the inspired, authoritative Word of God; loyal to our tenets of faith; faithful to world evangelization; and thoroughly dedicated to our Pentecostal lifestyle.

In creating our own Assemblies of God schools, our founders were well aware they were building bastions of truth against the floodtide of secularism dominating public education, against Darwinian evolution controlling scientific thought, and against German higher criticism enslaving the church scholars’ minds and corrupting the seminaries.

The United States paid a horrendous price during the Civil War to free the country from human slavery. But now the nation seems oblivious to the philosophies of humanism and anti-Christian and anti-biblical ideologies, which enslave it. Although the Assemblies of God has been engaged in warfare for 85 years, these philosophies and ideologies are more entrenched in the fabric of our nation than ever before. Our warfare, however, has not been in vain; the Church has been called to “contend for the faith” and will ultimately triumph at Christ’s return. We must continue the same vigilance and vision we inherited from our godly forefathers.

Responsible To Give Constructive Criticism

Objective criticism given with the right attitude is a valuable asset to any church. The one receiving criticism must, with objectivity, determine if it is justified or unjustified. A wise person will learn from justified criticism and will graciously overlook unjustified criticism. But we are never justified in using destructive criticism with hidden motives intended to hurt, undermine, or subvert.

When F.F. Bosworth attempted to change the position of the General Council regarding initial evidence, he presented his proposal to the sixth General Council meeting in Springfield in 1918. The resolution to uphold our present position carried unanimously. Bosworth, a gracious man, voted with the majority, and being a ethical man, resigned and joined a denomination compatible with his belief. He was too honorable to act as a subversive and try to push his teaching when the Council voted otherwise.

Responsible To Live a Genuine Pentecostal Lifestyle and To Provide Genuine Pentecostal Scholarship

The young people coming to our schools deserve professors who model a genuine Pentecostal lifestyle with consistency and integrity. Anything less is cheating the student and the school out of their investment. We are teachers of faith.

Our Fellowship deserves Pentecostal scholarship that, because of its respect for and submission to the Holy Scriptures and its dependence on the Spirit of Truth, can attain to a scriptural and spiritual insight that can truly edify and assist the church in fulfilling its mission to witness and evangelize.

THINGS NOT REQUIRED TO BE A PENTECOSTAL SCHOLAR

A Negative View of Pentecostal History

Pentecostal arrogance is an oxymoron. Yet this is the approach of a few popular Pentecostal scholars who put their heritage in a negative light. We do not need to engage in a revisionism of our history, attempting to judge our past in the light of present cultural and social conditions. It is easy to jump on someone’s bandwagon and begin to interpret our church history and its leading personalities through such a frame of reference. This rarely gets to the truth.

Servants to an Academic System

We do not have to become servants to an academic system that has been superimposed on the educational institutions of this nation (including religious institutions). This system of controlled learning sets its own parameters, including and excluding as it chooses. The apostle Paul referred to this same system when he described it to Timothy: “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). The rejection of the authority of the Word of God has made it impossible for this age to acknowledge truth, much less know it.

The spirit of this academic system is a spirit of skepticism and unbelief. We are responsible to create an atmosphere of faith and of the presence of God through our teaching. The spirit of this academic system is one of arrogance and elitism, but we do not have to drink from that cistern. Paul has cautioned that knowledge puffs up—makes arrogant; but love builds up—edifies (1 Corinthians 8:1). We are armed with the biblical formula to avoid the poisoning of our spirit.

Accepting of Current Trends in Scholarship

We do not have to accept the latest theological or hermeneutical trends no matter what a popular theologian is espousing, even if he or she is Pentecostal. If it does not square with Scripture and with our tenets of faith, we have every reason to reject it.

One example is the current popularity in hermeneutics that denies narrative passages of Scripture their didactic value. This teaching denies the Book of Acts as a source of doctrine. It is of great concern that any Pentecostal scholar could approve such a system, seeing that it is a blatant contradiction of 2 Timothy 3:16. To espouse such a system shows the deception of secularism and a serious loss of respect for the Word of God.

Many of us have sat under professors weighed down with their research, publications, and footnotes, and who felt their responsibility was to weigh the student down with the same. I agree with Professor John Leith, author of Crisis in the Church: The Plight of Theological Education, when he states: “There is very little value in publishing books or articles unless they advance the knowledge or enhance the life of the church and its mission.”

We must be very careful not to fall into the trap of thinking of our schools as just centers for thought, research, writing articles, books, and creative theological enterprises where our end-goal is the discussion and study of religion. And for a Pentecostal scholar to write a book which differs none from that written by a secularist or Buddhist, brings no honor to its author and does nothing to strengthen Pentecostal distinctives.

THINGS REQUIRED TO BE A PENTECOSTAL SCHOLAR

A Respect for the Sacred/High View of Scripture

I first heard the statement from H.A. Ironside that one who handles the Word of God and the sacred things of God must never become guilty of “trafficking in unfelt truth.” We must never let the Scriptures become common to us, and this is such a temptation for those who handle the Word of God. The scribes and lawyers of Jesus’ day fell prey to the temptation to sit in judgment on the Word of God, rather than letting the Word sit in judgment on them. Let us imitate the Thessalonians who welcomed the Scriptures, “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectively worketh also in you that believe”

(1 Thessalonians 2:13). We must hold to a high view of Scripture and be committed without reservation to the authority, inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Word of God. We must hold to a system of hermeneutics consistent with our high view of Scripture, and not contradictory to it. Right hermeneutics follows right view of Scripture.

An Appreciation for Our Pentecostal Heritage and Practice

We must hold to a genuine appreciation for our Pentecostal heritage and share it with our students. We must be trained in Pentecostal theology, doctrines, and practices. We must exhibit a current Pentecostal lifestyle and experience. We must have scholars experienced in Pentecostal ministry and worship. There is such confusion today with excessive hype and entertainment, performance and sensationalism. We must show our students the genuine from the counterfeit.

Contenders for the Truth

Dr. Leith has noted that heresies, which the Church rejected during its first 5 centuries of existence, are now reappearing in the writings of today’s theologians. We must remember that heresy is not merely denial of Christian faith, but the corruption of it. This happens within the Church, not just outside it.

Today truth is being neglected and distorted. As contenders for truth, we must see to it that truth is not lost, particularly our Pentecostal truths. Neglecting truth starts when the church begins to place other things in rivalry with and in prominence over scriptural truth.

Scriptural truth’s importance is ignored for other more popular things and truth is proclaimed less frequently and becomes disregarded as unessential, such as failing to preach the baptism in the Spirit and failing to give place for people to receive the Baptism. It then becomes just a doctrine in the bylaws and no longer a viable experience among the people. Finally, it is revised in the bylaws to either fit the practice of the church or removed as something of the past.

Dr. Opal Reddin, in Truth: The Foundation of Our Faith, states: “The Bible tells us that we can know the truth: 1) propositionally as it is written in understandable terms; 2) personally because Jesus is Truth; 3) pneumatically because the Holy Spirit brings the personal and the propositional together for us; 4) practically because what we believe determines what we do.

Truth has to be absolute, eternal, and unchanging or it is not truth. Only an infinite God can give ultimate truth. He has done so, both in a Person and in a Book. Jesus is Truth Incarnate (John 14:6). The Bible is truth (John 17:17), inspired, inerrant, and “forever settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89).

CHARTING OUR COURSE FOR THE FUTURE

The Assemblies of God is faced with the choice whether we will move into the future by breaking with our past. Should we burn our bridges to the past? What new bridges should be built for us to use in the future?

As for our Movement and our schools, if we stay with the Scriptures as our foundation, and keep our practices in alignment with the Bible, we have a great future. As for our scholars, if we will stay with the Book, the Blood, and the Blessed Hope, we will have a great future until Jesus comes. The Spirit of Truth will guide us into all truth. He will guide us to the Cross, to the Upper Room, and to the nations. We want our schools and our scholars in the forefront of such an advance to the future.

James K. Bridges is the Assemblies of God general treasurer, Springfield, Missouri. This sermon was presented at the A/G Faculty Seminar in Springfield, Missouri, July 1998.