Theology and Space for the Holy Spirit: A Dream for the Anabaptist Church
As a leader, my heart yearns to foster both theological openness and experiential encounters concerning the Holy Spirit. I emphasize the intertwining of theology and experience because they are inseparable. While our Western church tradition often leans towards intellectual dialogue in understanding the Holy Spirit, we must not forget that the Holy Spirit is not merely a subject for academic scrutiny. Theologian Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen echoes “We need to remember he is not out there for just the sake of academic study, rather, the Holy Spirit is a person to be encountered.[1] The theologian Clark H. Pinnock aptly reminds us that theology falters when it divorces itself from the living encounter with God revealed through the Holy Spirit.[2] In fact, Pinnock suggests that “theology always gets into trouble when its practitioners think they know what God is like about from what revelation says God is like"[3]. Simultaneously, while experiences are vital, a solid theological foundation provides the accountable framework for healthy understanding and practice, so that we may effectively and healthily navigate the tension between encounter and doctrine. Thus, it's crucial to engage with the Spirit of God experientially, not merely theoretically. Without the marriage of theology and experience, theology becomes nothing more than a speculative narrative. Contrasting, without the marriage of theology and experience, our understanding of the Holy Spirit is threatened to be shaped by mystic coincidences and overwhelming emotions that prevent us from being able to discern truth.
While our movement acknowledges the Holy Spirit as God's "active agent to bring order to chaos," as emphasized by Gene L. Green in The Spirit over the Earth, our theological focus would predominantly center on Christology if it weren't for “the dramatic spread of Pentecostal and charismatic movements through the world" that have forced us to reevaluate our understanding of the Holy Spirit. [4] Regrettably, our movement has often failed to embrace these expressions, either due to misunderstanding or reluctance to accommodate their unique manifestations. Consequently, many have departed from our ranks, birthing new movements that often thrive without the historic and traditional dysfunction that has inherently afflicted us. This struggle is not unique to us as Anabaptists but it also echoes through the halls of many other Protestant and evangelical groups. While we affirm the Spirit's role in the biblical narrative, Theologian Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen again suggests we grabble, because the Spirit of God and the activity of the Spirit throughout history now leaves for us on the table “the question...whether the Spirit’s speaking through prophets was merely a thing of ancient Hebrew past.” [5] That is the question I want our church community and church movement to wrestle with and through.
It's crucial to acknowledge that our Anabaptist movement once embraced these encounters as standard practice and we believed the extraordinary was ordinary reality. While our theology and historical roots may attest to this, we've gradually allowed new paradigms to reshape our praxis. Sometimes, it appears (to me as an outsider) that we prioritize maintaining recent traditions over rediscovering what initially defined our movement: a fervent devotion to Christological insights and encounters with the Holy Spirit. An early Anabaptist theologian Balthasar Hübmaier articulated this sentiment, asserting, "I have never taught Anabaptism" [6] Despite the rich history of the Holy Spirit within early Anabaptism, later congregations, such as the Mennonite and Hutterite churches, tended to downplay these manifestations while not entirely rejecting the miraculous. Pilgram Marpeck, for instance, advocated against the exclusion of miracles, writing "Nor does Scripture assert this exclusion ... God has a free hand even in these last days."[7] Yet, what got practice was more ecclesial than pneumatological. While we haven't entirely disregarded the miraculous, we've veered away from cultivating honest, academic, and practical space and theology around it. In my humble opinion, this deviation has hindered the free hand or expression of God's power in our present age.
Is there perhaps a healthy rationale behind prioritizing the creation of space and theology for the unrestricted work of God? Why is it imperative for a church community like ours to grapple with this concept? One of my favorite Theologians, Jurgen Moltmann, encapsulates the essence of this necessity, asserting, "The gift and presence of the Holy Spirit is the greatest and most wonderful thing we can experience - we, the human community, all living things, and this earth."[8] Within this experience, he emphasizes that we encounter God throughout the entirety of our lives, experiencing wholeness, healing, and redemption with all our senses. Moltmann writes, “We experience God through our lives….We experience whole, full, healed, and redeemed life, experience it with all our senses."[9] Such profound encounters not only imprint themselves upon our identities but also possess the power to fundamentally transform who we are. They elevate us from mere knowledge about God to intimate knowledge of God and from God, for discourse about God holds meaning only when rooted in a genuine encounter with the living God. Chad H. Pinnock suggests, "Only by attending to the Spirit are we going to able to move beyond sterile, rationalistic, powerless religion and recover the intimacy with God our generation longs for." [10]
Moreover, these encounters with the Holy Spirit are not merely transformative for our spiritual lives and church communities. Even more, they are essential for effective living in every sphere of influence and in every aspect of our existence in culture and society. Our encounter with the Holy Spirit also overflows and intersects with our engagement in the realms of politics and public life. We cannot effectively embody the Anabaptist principles of proclamation and justice in the public square without the dynamic presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Amos Young, Malaysian-American Pentecostal theologian and Professor of Theology and Mission at Fuller Seminary, reminds us that the Spirit converges with the “intersection of Christian faith and the political and public square.” [9] We cannot be the Anabaptists in the public square of proclamation and justice if we don't have the convergence of the experience and empowerment of the Holy Spirit's free hand in our lives.
As a leader, I want to be fervently committed to fostering both theological receptivity and experiential encounters within our community. I am eager to witness the unhindered movement of God's hand in our midst. Who shares this vision with me? Let us anchor our theology in experience and let our experience propel our theology forward. The Holy Spirit must occupy a central place in our spiritual formation as individuals, as congregations, and as a movement.
What would it look like for us to create more theology and space for the Holy Spirit in the Anabaptist Church?
[1] Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective, second ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 2.
[2] Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 33.
[3] Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 33.
[4] The Spirit Over the Earth: Pneumatology in the Majority World, Majority World Theology Series (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016), 1.
[5] Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective, second ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 2.
[6] Vedder, Henry Clay (1905), Balthasar Hübmaier: the Leader of the Anabaptists, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, p. 204.
[7] The Spirit Over the Earth: Pneumatology in the Majority World, Majority World Theology Series (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016), 32-33.
[8] Jürgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 10.
[8] Jürgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 10.
[9] Amos Yong, In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology, Sacra Doctrina (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2010), xix.
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