Harvey Cox. Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995.
Harvey Cox is a theologian who had taught at Harvard Divinity
School. My more conservative friends saw him as one who jumped on the
latest theological bandwagon, rather than consistently standing up for
any theological convictions of his own (what a fundamentalist friend
called “contending for the faith,” in reference to Jude 1:3). They
noted that he first wrote The Secular City about the increasing
tide of secularism of the 1960′s and the Death of God movement. Then,
Cox turned his attention towards Eastern religions. Later, Cox’s
interest was Pentecostalism. My conservative friends thought it was
pretty noteworthy that Cox went from writing about the Death of God to
writing about Pentecostalism, a movement that claims to experience God
intimately and that sees God as very much alive and active in the
world. Regarding Cox’s interest in Eastern religions, one friend told
me about a conference where a presenter mockingly said that, for a
while, Cox was telling us to turn East, but now Cox was telling us to
turn South—-to look at the rise of Pentecostalism in Latin and South
American countries.
I had not read any of Harvey Cox’s books when my friends were saying
this. Since that time, I have read three of his books, and I am about
to start a fourth. I read Cox’s 1965 book The Secular City, in
which Cox discusses how Christians can view and respond to
secularization, the marginalization of religion, the Death of God
movement, and the increasing migration to cities. You can read some
posts that I wrote about that here and here. Years later, I read Cox’s 1988 (updated in 1992) book, Many Mansions: A Christian’s Encounter with Other Faiths.
This book contained material from Cox’s “turning east” phase, as Cox
offered thoughts about Hinduism and Buddhism and their increasing appeal
to people in the West, but it also touched on secularization and how
that was not necessarily inconsistent with biblical ideas. You can read
my post about this book here. Just now, I finished Cox’s 1995 book about Pentecostalism, Fire from Heaven. His next book that I will read is his 1984 Religion in the Secular City: Toward a Postmodern Theology.
What have been my impressions of Cox’s work thus far? I like his
books because they convey thoughtfulness and knowledge about history and
religious thought. Regarding the charge that he jumps onto the latest
theological bandwagon, I do not think that it is particularly fair. In
my opinion, Cox’s focus changes because times change, and new trends
emerge. In the 1960′s, it truly appeared that American society was
moving towards secularism, so Cox wrote about how Christians can view
that as an opportunity rather than as something to fear. Later, many
Americans were becoming interested in Eastern religions and were
studying under Eastern gurus, so Cox addressed what Americans might be
looking for as they did so (i.e., a teacher to guide them), and he
looked at that trend from his own Christian perspective. Later,
Pentecostalism was on the rise, as many became disenchanted with
secularism and sought experience with the divine and community, so Cox
wrote about that. Trends rose and fell, and sometimes one trend bled
into the other: In Fire from Heaven, for example, Cox offers
ideas about why many Americans no longer study under Eastern gurus
(i.e., they are too abstruse), yet he notes that Eastern practices
(i.e., yoga) are still popular, that the West’s contact with the East
contributed to the West having a greater focus on intuition and
experience, and that there are Americans who gravitate towards the
non-dogmatic elements of Eastern religions (though, as Cox points out,
Eastern religions have their own fundamentalist elements as well!).
These developments are consistent with the growing popularity of
Pentecostalism, which emphasizes intuition and experience, and even (in
some instances) non-dogmatism. Throughout all of these trends, Cox
maintained certain beliefs: that Jesus Christ associated with and
championed the poor, that his followers should do the same, and that
social justice is important. Cox in Fire from Heaven acknowledges that his work in The Secular City
did not anticipate the trend of Pentecostalism's increasing popularity, and yet my impression
is that he still held to a certain Christian worldview throughout his
time as a theologian, looking at the changing world. If I detect any
inconsistency in his thought, it is that, in The Secular City, he tends to champion the anonymity and freedom that comes with living in cities, whereas in Fire from Heaven he stresses community and belonging.
Fire from Heaven is an engaging look at Pentecostalism in
the United States, England, Asia, and Latin and South America. Cox
discusses the history of the movement, his own experiences with it, and
its paradoxes and complexity. While acknowledging that many
Pentecostals have adopted a view of the Bible as inerrant, he
distinguishes Pentecostals from fundamentalists, for Pentecostals
stress experience of the divine rather than dogma, plus a number of
fundamentalists shied away from Pentecostalism out of the belief that
the time of miracles had ceased with the close of the New Testament
era. Cox also looks at Pentecostalism’s characteristic features, such
as speaking in tongues and healings, offering explanations for these
phenomena and (in the case of healings) referring to how scientists have
attempted to account for them.
Two issues that were prominent to me as I read Fire from Heaven
were political engagement and interfaith dialogue. On political
engagement, Cox notes historical and current trends within
Pentecostalism, some of which he admires, and others that disturb him
greatly. Pentecostalism began as a movement among the poor that
believed that Christ’s second coming was near, and, on some level, it
continues to be that in certain areas of the world, where adherents in
worship protest against an unjust society and remind themselves of God’s
love for them and intention to redress wrongs. This mindset can (and
has) discouraged political activity, for why seek to change the world,
if Christ will come back soon anyway and set things right? Yet,
political engagement is on the rise among Pentecostals. While critics
have stated that Pentecostalism reinforces conservatism in Latin and
South America, Cox notes that a number of Pentecostals there participate
and are influential in the political left. Cox values Pentecostalism
as a movement that has championed the poor while (with prominent
exceptions) promoting racial equality, as occurred in the United States
under the auspices of William Joseph Seymour and Aimee Semple McPherson
(a controversial figure in her own right, yet Cox seems to admire her,
and part of me now admires her, too!). Pentecostalism also allowed women to participate more actively in proclaiming the word. But Cox also observes trends
that he finds disturbing: that many white American Pentecostals are
gravitating towards the religious right, particularly the brand that
wants its interpretation of Old Testament law to be the law of the land,
that there is a focus on health and wealth that stigmatizes the poor
and the sick, and that commercialism has undermined the authenticity and
spontaneity of Pentecostal experience. In short, Cox believes that
there are progressive and regressive trends within Pentecostalism, and
he is rooting for the former to prevail.
On interfaith dialogue, Cox continues in the spirit of what he says in Many Mansions: he appears to be rather critical of how it is often a matter of stale academic discussion among liberals. In Fire from Heaven,
Cox extensively discusses the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions,
where adherents to different religions met and presented papers. Cox
considers it groundbreaking and well-intentioned, and yet he notes
several salient flaws: certain voices were excluded, each religion
wanted to subsume the others in the name of bringing religions together,
etc. Later, when talking about his own experience in England, Cox
discusses a peaceful confrontation between a Pentecostal preacher and
Muslims. They were all respectful to each other, and yet they were
honest about what they thought and felt: they did not hesitate to guffaw
or to say that the other guy was wrong, and to give their reasons. Cox
saw this as inter-religious dialogue in the raw, and he wished that his
liberal academic friends could see it! In addition, a couple of times
in the book, Cox refers to Thomas Merton’s insight that perhaps
inter-religious dialogue would be more fruitful among the mystics of the
different traditions than among academics, for the mystics have so much
in common! I enjoyed reading these insights, for, while I am all for
academic discussions because they can be thoughtful and nuanced, I would
also like to see interfaith dialogue that is raw and honest, and that
focuses on testimonies and experiences.
So much of this book resonated with me. I will offer two ways that
this was so. For one, Pentecostalism has long attracted me, while also
scaring and repulsing me. Growing up, I was raised to be rather
suspicious of Pentecostalism. We knew Pentecostals who were always
saying that the “Lord told” them such-and-such, and their dogmatism
looked pretty absurd to us, especially when they changed their mind or
turned out to be wrong. The things that Pentecostals did also struck us
as rather strange, maybe even evil, as if they were being possessed.
We championed our version of Christianity as more level-headed,
biblical, and business-like, in contrast to the apparent craziness of
Pentecostalism. As I grew up, I continued to have similar reservations
about Pentecostalism, yet there were things about it that I came to
admire: Pentecostals’ sense of joy and peace, their belief that
God loves them and that they can experience him intimately, their solid
belief that God is real, the way that they look to God in faith for
healing, and the manner in which they seemed to really love God, at a
deep emotional level. As I was reading Fire from Heaven, I was
feeling the thrill of my pro-Pentecostal side! I especially
appreciated Cox’s reference to a scientific insight that positive
thinking, faith, and feeling love from another can trigger the immune
system and result in physical healing. I can use that sort of attitude
in my own life, especially in a world that can get pretty cold!
Second, the issue of political engagement was significant to me
because my own religious background discouraged voting, out of the
belief that we should look to Christ’s second coming rather than earthly
politics to fix the world’s problems. This idea was long a turn-off to
me, as one who was interested in politics! I appreciated several of
Cox’s insights on this topic. On the one hand, he argued, believing in
imminent apocalyptic change can be good because it can encourage people
to repudiate the world’s injustice and to embrace alternative
possibilities. In the history of Pentecostalism, he notes, there have
been times when a belief in Christ’s imminent second coming has
coincided with social change here and now, as Pentecostals believe that
they are currently experiencing the Kingdom of God, find hope that
injustice will soon come to an end, and encourage racial harmony in the
meantime. On the other hand, an imminent apocalyptic mindset can
discourage efforts to address the wrongs of this world. Consider
President Ronald Reagan’s Interior Secretary, James Watt, who remarked
that Christ will come back anyway, so why worry so much about the
environment! I believe that there should be a balance: Christ may have
believed in a coming apocalypse, yet he still worked to improve the
human condition whenever he could.
Good book.