Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - A. Boyd Gregory

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113 pages

English

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What's special about Oneness Pentecostals?In this penetrating analysis of Oneness theology and practice, Gregory Boyd reveals the experience of four years of personal involvement in a Oneness church. Although Oneness Pentecostals' belief in Christ's deity establishes some common ground with other Christians, their aggressive denial of the Trinity has nonetheless fostered their indisputably sub-Christian ideas about God's character, about salvation, and about Christian living.

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Pentecostalism

Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 juin 1992
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441214966
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0634€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Copyright © 1992 by Baker Books
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-0-8010-1019-4
Scripture quotations not otherwise identified are from the New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
To my loving wife Shelly. A better companion for this spiritual journey we call life could never be found.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Preface
Abbreviations of Works Cited
Introduction: Confessions of an Ex-Oneness Pentecostal

1 Understanding Oneness Pentecostalism
2 The Trinity: Truth or Error?
3 Is Jesus His Own Father?
4 Did the Son of God Exist Before His Birth?
5 Is Jesus the Holy Spirit?
6 Baptism, Salvation, and The Name
7 Was the Early Church Oneness?
8 The Inescapable Trinity

Appendix A: Salvation, the Spirit, and Tongues
Appendix B: The Holiness Standards and Works Salvation
Appendix C: Hair
Appendix D: Statistics on Oneness Pentecostal Groups
Notes
Back Cover
Preface

T he Oneness heresy begins with the conviction that the orthodox Christian doctrine of the Trinity is fundamentally incompatible with a faith that there is only one God. Therefore, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cannot in this view be real, distinct, coequal persons in the eternal Godhead, but are only different roles that one divine person temporarily assumes. Though this heresy can initially appear relatively harmless, in rejecting the Trinity this belief actually cuts to the heart of all that is essential to the Christian faith.
Throughout its history, the church has occasionally confronted views similar to the Oneness belief. In the early church these views were known variously as Sabellianism, Modalistic Monarchianism, or Patripassianism. In the past these views were always rejected by the orthodox church as dangerous heresies.
Not since the early third century, however, has the Christian church had to confront the Oneness heresy to anything like the extent that it must do so today. From its informal beginnings seventy-five years ago amidst the fledgling American Pentecostal movement, different sects embracing the Oneness heresy have grown to number over one million in the United States and close to five million worldwide on conservative estimates. (For more detailed statistical information on the Oneness movement, see Appendix D.) This means that Oneness believers almost all of whom have remained within the Pentecostal movement constitute one of the three largest antitrinitarian professing Christian movements both in this country and in the world!
Moreover, it has been my experience, confirmed by many others who have since left the Oneness movement, that former trinitarian Christians make up the largest single group of people who become new converts in Oneness churches. In their eyes, trinitarian denominations are mission fields. I have confronted an increasing number of pastors who have lost some of their congregations to Oneness proselytizers. One pastor even reported that during a series of revival meetings where many people were coming forward in response to the evangelistic message, Oneness believers would actually pose as altar counselors in order to then steal the new converts over to their “true” church.
Despite these alarming facts, the majority of trinitarian Christians, and even trinitarian Christian leaders and educators, remain completely uninformed about this movement. While thousands of books and articles have been written on other antitrinitarian sects, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Armstrongism, or The Way International, next to nothing has been written on Oneness Pentecostalism. In fact, only two books have been published critiquing Oneness Pentecostalism from a theological perspective: Carl Brumback’s God in Three Persons (Tennessee: Pathway Press, 1959) and F. J. Lindquist’s The Truth About the Trinity and Baptism in Jesus’ Name Only (Minneapolis: Northern Gospel Publishing House, 1961). Neither of these works is exhaustive in its exposition or critique of the movement, and both are very dated.
Not only this, but Christian works on “alternative religions” or “cults” in America hardly ever include any discussion of Oneness Pentecostalism; and in those few instances where they do, the differences between Oneness Pentecostals and orthodox Christianity are watered down, especially concerning baptism and tongues. Hence, for example, in Ruth Tuckers work Another Gospel (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1988), the author states that “except for the denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, the United Pentecostal Church is not significantly different from other Pentecostal groups” (p. 385). As we shall see, this view is very mistaken. This perhaps explains why she confines her treatment of the United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI) to one page in an appendix, whereas a cult like “The Way,” which is a fraction of its size, is given an entire chapter.
Finally, the doctrine of the Oneness Pentecostals is frequently misunderstood in the secondary literature, as for example in Ronald Enroth’s A Guide to Cults and New Religions (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983). In this work Enroth compares the Oneness view of God to that of The Way International (p. 15). The antitrinitarianism of these two groups, however, has only a denial of the Trinity in common.
Given the widespread ignorance concerning Oneness Pentecostalism, it is hardly a mystery as to why this group is as successful as it is in evangelizing mainstream trinitarian Christianity.
There are, I believe, two basic reasons for this ongoing ignorance. First, whereas most other antitrinitarian sects tend to be tightly structured in an authoritarian fashion and are thus easily identifiable as opponents to traditional Christianity, Oneness Pentecostalism has always been a relatively disunited movement. The United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI) is the largest of all the Oneness denominations, having approximately half a million members in the United States and roughly the same number elsewhere. But there are in fact several hundred much smaller Oneness Pentecostal organizations, and even the UPCI is the result of a merger between two smaller Oneness denominations. Its presence on the Christian scene is thus much less conspicuous than that of other heretical Christian groups.
Second, whereas other antitrinitarian groups reject the Trinity by denying that Jesus Christ is equal with the Father, the Oneness Pentecostals reject the Trinity by denying that Jesus Christ is in any sense distinct from the Father. But because the doctrine of Christ’s divinity hits closer to home than the doctrine of the Trinity for most Christians (and especially for most Pentecostals), the Oneness error on the Godhead can seem more innocuous than the subordinationist error. So again, the error of Oneness Pentecostalism has largely escaped the attention of Christian leaders.
As a matter of fact, however, the inconspicuousness and apparent harmlessness of this theological aberration renders it all the more dangerous and makes the need for Christians to be informed about it all the more urgent. The rapid growth of the Oneness movement testifies to its profound impact despite its inconspicuousness. And the dangerous nature of this form of antitrinitarianism is no less real because of its affirmation of the deity of Christ As the early Fathers who first fought this heresy saw, and as I shall maintain in this book, the denial that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternally distinct “persons” within the Godhead indirectly undermines the Christian view of God’s character, God’s revelation, and God’s salvation by grace.
It is, I shall therefore argue, no mere coincidence that the present form of this Oneness antitrinitarianism is also accompanied by a number of other radical theological aberrations that run directly counter to some of the most fundamental concepts Christians have always believed about God and about salvation. Hence almost all Oneness Pentecostals today not only deny the Trinity, they also deny that one is saved by grace through faith alone. Almost all Oneness Pentecostals also maintain that one must be baptized by immersion “in Jesus’ name” (not the traditional “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”), and that one’s salvation hangs on this mode and formula. Furthermore, one must speak in tongues if one is to claim to have the Holy Spirit and be saved. Finally, it is usually held that one must live a strictly regimented “holy” life “worthy of the Lord,” involving various extreme “standards,” if one is to be saved. Indeed, I shall maintain that it is not an overstatement to see this particular antitrinitarian heresy as teaching salvation-by-works to an extent almost unparalleled in the history of Christianity.
The Oneness belief, then, is as harmful as it is influential, and I believe it is time that trinitarian Christians begin to take notice of it.
Throughout this work, I shall primarily have the United Pentecostal Church International in mind in my polemic against Oneness Pentecostalism. There are four reasons for this. First, the UPCI is by far the largest and most influential of the Oneness organizations. Second, the UPCI publishing house, Word Aflame Press, publishes and distributes almost all of the Oneness apologetic material circulating in the United Sta