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The Holy Spirit in the Latter Days
By Harold Lindsell
Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 1983. 205 pp. $11.95.

There is probably no doctrine that is as difficult with which to live, and yet few that are to be more normative for the Christian, than that concerning the Holy Spirit. Such has been the case in the history of the church since Pentecost. The Spirit's authority has been called forth both to divide as well as to unite Testaments, ages of history, Catholic orders

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and Protestant denominations. In this book, the evangelical curmudgeon, Harold Lindsell, tries to get evangelical Protestants to sit down with charismatics and pentecostalists, that grouping which Henry P. Van Dusen referred to as the "Third Force" of Christendom. The purpose: to stave off an engulfing tide of secularism and, citing the authority of Irving Babbitt, a rising spirit of totalitarianism in the world.

The modern ground swell of interest in the Holy Spirit may be the best hope for a reversal of the secular trend in America. If this movement passes without any great awakening or substantial spiritual renewal among our people and churches, America may face the judgment of a rightous God who is giving us a last opportunity before He ravages the nation, dims the divine light, an allows the church in the West to become a church in the wilderness (p. 12).

The book is neither a Thomist charting of the field of prophecy nor medieval path to the beatific vision. It is a straightforward call for reconciliation between evangelicals and the charismatic movement. Along the way it offers some helpful and practical guidelines, recognizing, but not always dealing fully with, some of the historic pitfalls which have dogged an adequate articulation of a doctrine of the Spirit.

Lindsell begins by mapping the current scene: Christians are divided over the question of the gifts of the Spirit at a time when that empowerment is needed more than ever before. Some (Assemblies of God) see tongues as the sign of the baptism of the Spirit, others (Dispensationalists, particularly strong among Southern Baptists) believe that the miraculous gifts of the Spirit ended with the apostolic period. Yet, citing the Report of the Special Committee on the Work of the Holy Spirit, submitted to the 182nd General Assembly of the UPCUSA in 1970, such manifestations of the Spirit like glossolalia are to be regarded with "openness" and as a possible sign of renewal, not as pathological or hysterical phenomena. Lindsell traces the roots of interest in the charismatic movement back through its origins in this century through a select list of Protestant holiness and revival leaders in the previous century to the origins of the Anglo-evangelical movement. Next he moves to a helpful study of the relevant portions of Scripture in an analysis of some of the particular exegetical issues that have divided Christians on these matters. This Bible study clearly bears much ofthe weight of the book. Finally, examples of those whom the author feels are Spirit-filled Christians, and useful guidelines to become such, are given. Here the practical value of the book comes clearly to the fore as it does in his concluding reflections on the positive and negative aspects of the current charismatic movement.

If Lindsell's work does not always deal fully with some of the difficult questions that have been associated with a doctrine of the Holy Spirit, they are recognized and do stand like shadows in the background: the relationship of the Spirit to ages of history, the problem introduced into churches with charismatic elements of categorizing between first and second class Christians, the relationship between theology and experience

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as directing modes of Christian endeavor. But such a theological enterprise is not the purpose of the book. Its audience is clearly the general evangelical reading public (the ones who buy most of the religious literature produced today) which is being encouraged to open up to the charismatic movement, the Christian growth group of the latter third of the twentieth century. For these groups Lindsell's close study of the biblical texts will be especially appealing. The distinctions which Lindsell draws in the sealing, indwelling, and filling of the Spirit are useful: all Christians are sealed and indwelt by the Holy Spirit upon belief. Filling for empowerment toward service is to be normative, although not always coming with initial belief (pp. 91-94). Salvation and sanctification are associated with the former, not primarily the latter. Lindsell's thinking about the work of the Spirit in the Old Testament period in comparison with that of the New Testament seems less clear.

I fear that the criticism which I have to offer is part of the same theological package as the audience to which the book is directed. To rectify the former might alienate the latter-clearly a problem for the evangelical community. As Lindsell traces the roots of the charismatic and pentecostal movement, he sees it as having developed clearly in line with the sane and sober side of the Anglo-American evangelical and revivalist thrust. One wonders what connections might exist with their "wilder" relations-Anabaptists, Ranters, Quakers, Shakers, Manifestarians, and Muggletonians. (R. A. Knox might have thought there to be a connection.) Second, examples of Spirit-filled Christians are drawn from the deacons of Acts 6 and then jump to Jonathan Edwards and the Anglo-American Protestant tradition. Why not Gregory the Great, Francis of Assisi, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Thomas á Kempis?

The author prides himself in approaching this topic from his background as an instructor in church history. Citing earlier examples might help to open the door for Catholic pentecostals as well-which the author seeks to do only with some theological qualifications (pp. 189-191). Furthermore, jumping as he does from the book of Acts to the eighteenth century helps to foster a "latter-day" mentality which is at odds with the author's definition of such (the Church Age) and can only serve to please the apocalypticists in our midst. Finally, calling for an adherence to a Spirit-filled life as the firmest bulwark against the onslaught of secularism only makes sense if clearly understood as hedged by the author in his concern for the primacy of truth over experience (pp. 100-101). Apart from this, however, the political banner of experience and emotion united to perceived moral reform has been one that has caused more devastation in the twentieth century than almost any other. While Lindsell himself cannot be faulted in this area, some further caution on his part would have been in order in a book largely oriented toward a group that has been charged, rightly or not, with a tendency toward anti-intellectualism. Still, when weighed in the balance, with his study of the biblical texts and useful spiritual

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guidelines for personal and corporate holiness delineated as they are with an irenic spirit, Lindsell's work is one that will probably be a help in most ministerial and church libraries.

Rodney Lawrence Petersen
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Deerfield, Illinois