Review: Northern Harvest

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Northern Harvest: Pentecostalism in North Dakota, by Darrin J. Rodgers. Bismarck, North Dakota: North Dakota District Council of the Assemblies of God, 2003.

Northern Harvest documents the rise of Pentecostalism in North Dakota from a few scattered congregations at the turn of the twentieth-century to its present status as the state’s fourth largest religious group. While many historians contend that revivals in Topeka, Kansas (1901) and Los Angeles, California (1906-09) became the focal point of the emerging worldwide Pentecostal movement, Rodgers unearthed evidence that earlier revivals in Minnesota and the Dakotas provided it with precedents and leaders. North Dakotans, Pentecostals, and historians will be intrigued that a network of Scandinavian immigrant churches on the northern Great Plains practiced tongues-speech and healing before the better-known Topeka and Azusa Street revivals. This is the first significant study of Pentecostal origins in Scandinavian pietism in Minnesota and the Dakotas, exploring the movement’s roots outside the American Wesleyan and Holiness traditions.

Rare Kathryn Kuhlman transcripts donated to FPHC

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Produced by iFPHC

Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman (1907-1976), possibly the world’s most prominent female evangelist and faith healer (although at times she objected to these titles), was a catalyst for the emerging charismatic renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. Her life and ministry — and her impact on the broader Christian church — remain the focus of much popular and scholarly attention.

Three unique and significant notebooks focusing on Kathryn Kuhlman’s ministry during the years 1949 to 1952 have been donated to the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC).

A new convert, Gay Luchin, took shorthand notes during Kuhlman’s meetings in Pittsburgh and spent many hours transcribing her eye-witness notes, placing them in three notebooks. The donation also includes correspondence from Kuhlman to Luchin, in which she encouraged Luchin in her work to develop these accounts.

Luchin’s notebooks contain well over 1,000 carefully-recorded pages of typescripts, detailing Kuhlman’s unvarnished thoughts on theology, social issues, politics, ethics, and spirituality. This major donation, unexamined by the scholarly world, promises to throw new light upon an era of Kuhlman’s life that heretofore has been sparsely documented.

The FPHC invites you to visit Springfield to view these items for yourself. They are being released today, May 9th, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kathryn Kuhlman. Please call for an appointment.

Posted by Darrin Rodgers

Top Pentecostal history books in libraries

Next to Assemblies of God Heritage magazine the Bible, what is your favorite reading material? Do you have a top ten list of your all-time favorite books?

We thought it would be interesting to see which Pentecostal history books are most popular in libraries. So, we logged onto FirstSearch (aka WorldCat or OCLC, which is available at your local library) and searched for books with the following terms in their subject headings. The top ten books for each term, in terms of the numbers of libraries holding each book, are below.

Pentecostal history
1. Heaven Below : Early Pentecostals and American Culture / Grant Wacker (Harvard University Press, 2001) 878 libraries
2. Reinventing American Protestantism : Christianity in the New Millennium / Donald E. Miller (University of California Press, 1997) 847 libraries

Review: Elements of a Christian Worldview

Elements of a Christian Worldview, edited by Michael D. Palmer and Stanley M. Horton. Springfield, MO: Logion Press, 1998.

Christianity is about holistic transformation of both individuals and communities. This involves a radical reordering of both our thoughts and our lives. In Elements of a Christian Worldview, a number of Christian scholars provoke their readers to engage this process of transformation by exploring the integration of the Christian faith with topics such as worldviews, the role of the Bible, historical Christianity, natural science, human nature, work, leisure, ethics, music, literature, entertainment, and politics. Russell Spittler, Provost and Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, in the forward writes, “These wise words will help reflective followers of Jesus know what to avoid in the world, what to shun. But they will aid also in the expansion of appreciation for all that is good in human culture, the collected reflections of God’s highest creatures who, however tarnished and alone among all living beings, embody the image of God.”

Review: Java and Justice

Java and Justice: Journeys in Pentecostal Missions Education, edited by B. Brenneman, W. R. Brookman, and N. Muhovich. Minneapolis, MN: North Central University Press, 2006.

Sponsored by the Department of Intercultural Studies and Languages at North Central University, this handy volume presents foundational issues in educating students for missions in the 21st century by presenting 19 essays by 17 contributors.

Essays in this volume include:

• The shame and the glory of being a Pentecostal: a personal journey / Bob Brenneman
• A legacy of Pentecostal missions education at North Central University: 1936-2006 / Dan Notely
• Story telling: a Biblical model of missions education / Nan J. Muhovich
• Planting ethnic churches in urban America / Richard and Farella Shaka
• Prepared in the fire: Argentine revival and missionary training / Rocky Grams
• The explosion of spiritual gifts and fervor in Celtic missions / Carolyn Tennant
• Spirit, mission, and the religions: toward a p(new)matological/Pentecostal theology of religions / Amos Yong
• Biblical justice: caring for the poor and oppressed / Nan Muhovich
• Ministry in hostile areas / Mark Hausfeld
• The veil worn and the veil torn: reflections from the inside / Myra Crane
• Sexual slavery and the gospel / Beth Grant
• From Noah to Saddam: the story of the Kurds / Bob Brenneman