The Evangelical/Pentecostal Problem

I am writing this on Pentecost Sunday evening.

 

This morning I listened to the devotional on the Lectio 365 app, which by the way, if you don’t have it, you need it. Trust me.

I was struck by Pete Greig’s quote from Dr. Chris Green, Professor of Public Theology at Southeastern University, Florida and Bishop of the Diocese of St. Anthony (CEEC):

“Whatever we might've heard, Pentecost is not the story of devout believers lost in prayer, hidden away in an upper room, caught up in mystical rapture. …Pentecost is the story of bewildered not-sure-what-to-believe believers swept out of prayer into the streets, into the public eye. Pentecost is the end of spirituality because the Spirit presses the church into the public square, into public responsibility. Following the Spirit always leads down from the upper room and out to the outer courts.”

First, a slight personal detour: There is a reason I feel like a deconstructed evangelical charismatic.

It’s not that I don’t think Jesus meant it when he said: “I’ve come to seek and to save the lost.” LUKE 19:10 This was recorded just prior to him mounting a donkey, riding into Jerusalem, to his own tribe, mind you, and breaking down in hot tears, “You didn’t recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” I’m more settled than ever that the answer to the extreme brokenness and deep loneliness of humans rests in the Passover identification of Jesus of Nazareth.

And the power and gifts of the Spirit cannot be ignored in the history of the church. Before he ascended, Jesus called this outpouring a gift needed to best facilitate our witness of the New World Order under his authority. As the saying goes, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Check out the etymology of that phrase later.

Nevertheless, the Post-Enlightenment mindset seemingly dismissed all transrational experiences and Westerners have never fully recovered.

But here’s the problem for me: I’m embarrassed by the politicization of my former affinity—not to mention the showy, embarrassing expressions, the grifting, the shameless self-promotion, and shallow circus-like productions. I wonder if this is a bit of what God felt when he cried, “I hate all your show and pretense—the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. . . . Away with the noise of your songs! . . . But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” AMOS 5: 21, 23a, 24

I couldn’t say it better than Dr. Green: “Following the Spirit always leads down from the upper room and out to the outer courts.”

The way of true spirituality is not a sequestered life, but an outward-focused movement to the people whom Jesus loves—that is, all who sense estrangement from the universe but can’t identify the feeling.

Dismiss the titles and descriptors. Let’s simply do what Jesus has demanded that we do in the power he offers to anyone who will receive. And let’s teach our people to do likewise.

Dave Workman | The Elemental Group

Pentecost, 2026

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