Third Wave Pentecostalism, Zionism and Eschatology

The highly controversial Fuller Seminary Professor and Missiologist C. Peter Wagner coined the term 'third wave Pentecostalism' as a way of collectively referring to the new expressions of charismatic Christianity that were emerging in the early 1980s (see Peter C. Wagner, The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit: Encountering the Power of Signs and Wonders Today (Servant Publications, 1988)). John Wimber and the Vineyard, the movement of which I am a part, was one of the primary drivers of this 'third wave'. For reference, Wagner labelled the original dawn of Pentecostalism in the early 1900s 'first wave Pentecostalism' and the initial birth of the charismatic movement in the 1960s 'second wave Pentecostalism'. Some of the key differences between the second and third waves were: A. The gift of tongues was not deemed a necessary, initial visible evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit, B. there was a greater emphasis upon individual supernatural experiences and C. The issue of Christian Zionism and the role of the modern state of Israel became a core component of the theology of the movement. Note that there were other important differences between the second and third waves. Also note that not all leaders associated with the third wave necessarily believed or taught all of these key distinctives.

The issue I want to consider in this blog post is the way in which Christian Zionism, oftentimes birthed from or wed to various forms of dispensationalist eschatology, became a core component of this latest wave of charismatic/Pentecostal Christianity from the early 1980s and still to this day. This is obviously a very current topic, given the very recent war between Israel and Iran. In our very polarized political and theological moment in history, I always wrestle with how I should approach these controversial topics. Should I express my own personal views and clearly point out what I see to be the evils of the alternative point of view? The benefit of this option is that my conscience cannot accuse me of shying away from unpopular opinions and doing nothing in the face of injustice. On the other hand, I could attempt to be a peacemaking and bridge-building influence that helps people of different opinions to continue to talk and listen to one another. In this particular blog post I am going to choose this second option, because I don't think very many people nowadays are likely to change their point of view as a result of being told that they are an evil oppressor who is complicit in the murderous actions of terrorists on the one hand or state-sponsored genocide on the other. I think that the environment within which most people are most likely to arrive at the most just opinion is if we make space for open and respectful discussion, rather than the activist approach of just telling people how wrong and evil their beliefs are without any openness to trying to understand the other person.

I recently served as a Teaching Assistant for Professor Jamie Davies at Wycliffe College in his course on the book of Revelation. This was a valuable experience because it solidified my understanding of some of the ways in which the most common popular-level approach to eschatology in North America over the last 150 or so years is deeply and profoundly flawed from a biblical perspective. As with many in my generation of Christians, I was very keen on the 'Left Behind' series as a pre-teen (a close second to my Veggie Tales watching as a younger child!). My parents’ generation were equally fascinated with (terrified by?) books such as This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti and The Late Great Planet Earth by Carla C. Carlson and Hal Lindsey. All of these books to a lesser or greater extent draw on a tradition of Christian eschatological theology known as dispensationalist eschatology. This way of reading the book of Revelation and various sections of books like Daniel was essentially invented by J. N. Darby and his early followers who began the group of churches known as the Plymouth Brethren in the early-mid 19th century in parts of Britain and Ireland. As it happens my mother's family for several generations were very devout Plymouth Brethren and so were steeped in this way of understanding Christian eschatology. In fact, my poor mother came home from school one day as a young child and, when she couldn't find anyone in the house, believed she had been 'left behind', with her entire family having been taken to heaven in an instant in 'the rapture'. Part of what I am trying to do on my blog is help Christians become more acquainted with the 2000-year-old tradition of historical Christian biblical interpretation. The fact that many of the most prominent features of dispensationalist eschatology have no witness in the universal Christian Church prior to the 19th century should be seen as a big red flag, in my opinion! As the twists and turns of history played out, the Brethren had, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively small impact in the places where they originated - Britain and Ireland. But for some reason, dispensationalist theology, especially dispensationalist eschatology, had an outsized impact in North America. Entire schools, including the still very prominent Dallas Theological Seminary, were founded largely to defend and promote dispensationalist teachings. The end result was that about 150 years’ worth of American Christian eschatology was greatly fuelled by dispensationalist eschatology and this then affected American foreign policy in significant ways with massive consequences in the Middle East and around the world (notice that having sound theology is not just a matter of personal taste or preference, our theology affects our decisions and can therefore have either massively positive or massively negative results in human history. This is part of why I keep trying to help charismatics see that we can no longer afford to marginalize or neglect serious academic engagement with theology).

But what does this all have to do with me TA'ing a course on the book of Revelation last month? Well, one of the main features of Dr. Davies scholarship on Revelation is attending to the genre of the book. What on earth do I mean by the genre of Revelation? Well, just as we have genres of music (hip-hop, heavy metal, pop, country, folk) and movies (horror, thriller, rom com, historical drama) so most human cultures have various genres of literature. For example, we have biographies, poetry, legal documents, love letters, newspaper articles, academic monographs, and so on and so on. I remember that Mike Bickle, in whose eschatology I was once steeped (thank God I am no longer), used to complain when people watered down the force or meaning of a biblical text by saying that it was 'just poetry'. The problem with this approach is that rightly identifying a text's genre is not just a matter of personal preference or style, it is a matter of hermeneutics, that is, interpretation, understanding. If you read poetry in the same way you would read a court order, you will totally misinterpret and therefore misunderstand what you are reading. If you read a love letter from your fiancé as if it were an article from the New York Times, you will totally miss the author's intended meaning. By the same token, if you try to read the legal material in Leviticus in the same way you read a Pauline epistle, you will misunderstand it. Or if you were to try to read biblical poetry (such as the Psalms) in the same way as standard Hebrew narrative, you will get it wrong. Refusing to acknowledge or pay attention to the genre of a particular biblical text is a common feature of anti-intellectual fundamentalist and charismatic approaches to biblical interpretation. Sometimes the consequences of this approach in people's lives and in the world are disastrous.

The book of Revelation is somewhat unique in the Christian canon in so far as it is a combination of three literary genres all at the same time. It is an Epistle, that is, an ancient Greco-Roman letter, it is a prophecy, and it is a piece of apocalyptic literature as well. All three of these are worthy of much attention, but the one I want to focus on is revelation as apocalyptic literature, because this is the one that we are most unfamiliar with in contemporary Western culture. Apocalyptic literature was a kind of writing that became especially popular within ancient Judaism during what is known as the 'Second Temple Period', which was the period between the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem narrated in Ezra and Nehemiah and the destruction of that same temple by the Romans in 70 CE. The Jewish people during this time, especially those living in Palestine, were continually oppressed by one foreign super power after another. First it was the Persians, then the Seleucids, then the Romans. Professor Jamie Davies continually said in the class that 'Apocalyptic literature was the literature of the oppressed.' As opposed to biblical prophecy, which warns God's people to return to the covenant or else face divine punishment, apocalyptic literature is directed toward the faithful remnant of a persecuted people who long for God to overthrow their oppressors and vindicate the faithful. The word 'Apocalypse' comes from the Greek word which means 'to unveil, reveal'. Thus, what happens in apocalyptic literature is that the readers are enabled to see the world from the divine perspective, where pompous and self-righteous superpowers (such as Rome) are seen for what they truly are in the eyes of God - evil, wicked, sinful, blasphemous beasts and monsters. So apocalyptic literature is focused on comforting and strengthening the faithful, oppressed remnant, encouraging them to hold fast and that God will one day unmask the powers for what they are and vindicate and reward his faithful people. It comes as a surprise to many Christians that there were other apocalypses written in the Second Temple Period besides Revelation, such as the book of Enoch. There are also apocalyptic texts in the Old Testament - parts of Daniel and Zechariah.

But why, you may ask, does this all matter for our current historical moment in the Christian charismatic movement? It matters because the vast majority of Christian eschatology within third wave Pentecostalism is either totally unaware of or totally ignores the fact that Revelation is an apocalypse. This has created a whole host of errors in interpretation, and these erroneous interpretations have fuelled not only unbiblical and harmful Christian theology, but also the foreign policy of the most powerful nation on earth. The number one rule when reading apocalyptic literature, whether it is Daniel or Zechariah or Enoch or Revelation, is that the text is highly symbolic and is not intended to be read literally. This is the complete opposite of teachers like Mike Bickle, who confidently claimed (whilst having no theological training) that the book of Revelation is to be taken literally because the features of the text that are symbolic are expressly explained by the text, e.g. see Revelation 1:20. But where does the text say 'Any material which is not expressly explained as symbolic is not symbolic'? Not only does the text not say this, this is actually a nonsensical way to read this kind of literature.

As you can tell, I have been on my soapbox for a while now. My closing thought after this rambling blog post is this: if you are looking for reasons to be a Christian who is favourably disposed towards the modern state of Israel, you should not count Christian eschatological theology as one of those reasons. There may be other reasons, but contrary to dispensationalist eschatology, the apocalyptic literature in the Christian Bible does not mandate Christian Zionism.