The Holy Spirit is no tame Spirit. When the people of God grow comfortable, satisfied, and sleepy, when the call of God’s mission to the whole world recedes, the tendency of the Spirit is to shake up the church and dislodge it from its ease and self-satisfaction. This shake-up is happening to many churches in the West. Many will die, and through the shaking, many will renew or discover a sense of the expansive mission of God and new openness to the Spirit of God. Today the doctrine of the Spirit remains no longer the awkward stepchild of theology but has risen to the center of attention. Why has this happened? Our answer may surprise you.

Hosted by Leonard Allen and Lauren Smelser White, this pathway took place in ACU’s Onstead-Packer Biblical Studies Building on Monday, September 16, 2019.

Testimonial

“My ministry partner and I were abundantly blessed by attending Dr. Leonard Allen and Dr. Lauren White’s sessions in the Holy Spirit pathway at the recent ACU Summit 2019. Their insights to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives as well as new knowledge of the historical significance of the Holy Spirit's outpouring in 1801 during Barton Stone’s Cane Ridge Revival, gave us fresh vision into the unifying work of the Spirit across our Christian traditions.”

—Dee Halbert, Abilene Holy Family Catholic Church

Recordings

Welcoming the Spirit: Five Reasons Why the Holy Spirit Has Come to the Forefront (Leonard Allen)

By the end of the 20th century, the doctrine of the Spirit was no longer the awkward stepchild of theology but had become a center of attention. Christian leaders are realizing that the Spirit’s presence and power are not secondary but central to the Christian life and the mission of God. This session explores five reasons for this dramatic shift.

The Mission of the Spirit: Trinity, Kingdom, and Mission (Leonard Allen and Lauren Smelser White)

In this time of the collapse of Christendom, the church is no longer a comfortable institution. It instead finds itself thrust into mission, which reintroduces the community’s reliance on the Holy Spirit. This session explores how this reliance on the Spirit is best understood in light of the Trinity’s own mission to establish God’s kingdom in the world.

The Spirit and the Body: The Spirit Loves and Forms Real Bodies (Lauren Smelser White)

The witness of Scripture indicates that we must not “spiritualize” the Holy Spirit but instead attend to the ways that the Spirit works in and toward certain material forms. Taking Romans 8 as a touchstone, this session considers how the Spirit “befriends” materiality in order to form bodies—corporeal, corporate, and cosmic—into the body of Christ.

The Charismatic Spirit: To Be Christian Is to Be Charismatic (Leonard Allen and Lauren Smelser White)

Paul does not conceive of two kinds of Christians—charismatics and noncharismatics—but rather maintains that each member of Christ’s body “is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). Membership in the ecclesial body implies Spirit-filled gifting: to be Christian is to be charismatic. This session focuses on the theological and practical implications of this rather astonishing claim.

Opening Pandora’s Pentecostal Box: The Challenge for Churches of Christ (Leonard Allen)

In light of the odd history of the Holy Spirit in modern Churches of Christ (which this session briefly recounts) our 200-year-old tradition faces several specific challenges. In general, our increasingly post-Christian time offers a “wildly opportune moment,” as George Hunsberger has said, for churches to re-clothe themselves in the garments of their calling.

Speakers

LEONARD ALLEN

Leonard Allen serves as dean of the College of Bible and Ministry at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. He taught theology, ethics, and philosophy at the graduate and undergraduate level for over 20 years, serving as visiting professor at Biola University (La Mirada, California), adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, and professor at Abilene Christian University. He has spoken widely on college campuses and in churches over the past 35 years on biblical, historical, and theological themes. He holds the Ph.D. in history of Christian thought from the School of Religion at the University of Iowa, he has authored numerous books, including The Cruciform Church: Becoming a Cross-Shaped Church in a Secular Age (anniversary edition), Distant Voices: Discovering a Forgotten Past for a Changing Church, and Things Unseen: Churches of Christ in (and after) the Modern Age. His most recent book is Poured Out: The Spirit of God Empowering the Mission of God (2018). His wife Holly is professor of family studies and ministry at Lipscomb. They are the parents of three grown children.

LAUREN SMELSER WHITE

Lauren Smelser White is assistant professor of theology at Lipscomb University. She holds a Ph.D. in theological studies from Vanderbilt University, as well as degrees in English from Abilene Christian University (M.A., 2006) and Harding University (B.A., 2004). Lauren’s research focuses on the theological intersections of hermeneutics and material culture, and she teaches courses in Lipscomb’s College of Bible and Ministry and its Hazelip School of Theology. She and her husband Jason have two children.