November 3, 2009

The Pentecostal Faith is currently faced with civil dissention that can be understood within the context of the definition of what it means to be Pentecostal. According to church officials with the Assemblies of God Church, Pentecostalism is distinguished from other evangelical movements by its emphasis on Scripturally based "gifts of the spirit," including healing, prophecy and speaking in tongues.

The belief in speaking in tongue is an issue of division in the Pentecostal Faith. The divide is most acute along generational lines of the pastors. The younger Pentecostal pastors tend not to encourage speaking in tongue, while it is a mainstay of the older pastors. The older pastors religiously believe that speaking in tongue is a gift and should be encouraged as an act of faith.  In fact, speaking in tongues is so central to the 3 million-member, Missouri-based Assemblies of God, that at the church's General Council meeting in August the church’s denominational leaders voted unanimously to reaffirm it as doctrine. Younger Pentecostal pastors often conduct whole sermons without one parishioner speaking in tongue. This is a source of deep concern and disappointment to older Pentecostals.

The development of the Pentecostal movement originated in the American west coast near the turn of the century. Its strong focus on “gifts of the spirit” immediately distinguished it from the more mainstream Christian faiths. Pentecostals believe Christians must experience a second "baptism in the Holy Spirit." The movement, and its doctrine of Holy Spirit gifts, is based on a scene in the New Testament book of Acts in which Christ's apostles, in the wake of his resurrection and ascension, gather for a Jewish feast day called Pentecost, 50 days after Passover. At that gathering in Jerusalem, as the apostles prayed, "suddenly, from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind," according to Acts. "All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability."

 

Definition of Speaking in Tongue

GLOSSOLALIA

"... making sounds that constitute, or resemble, a language not known to the speaker. It is often accompanied by an excited religious psychological state, and in the pentecostal and charismatic movements it is widely and distinctively (but not universally) viewed as the certifying consequence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit."

— The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements