3.3 Statements of Faith

[Nicole]

Pentecostals can guard against falling in to the error of theological liberalism through valuing, studying, teaching, and upholding the Word of God as God-breathed, and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, as Paul says in 1 Timothy. Being sure to test all teaching and prophetic words against the full counsel of Scripture.

I think that guarding against theological fundamentalism is much harder! I believe this is also done through considering the full counsel of scripture. I find a lot of theological fundamentalism is fixated on specific verses without the full context of the Word. I also believe love being our highest value will cause us to prefer one another and pursue harmony.

[Nate]

One way of keeping us from either of these errors is actually to read the word more, and to stay attentive to Holy Spirit. The more we know God and his word, and seek to be like him, the better we become at learning to live this way

[Caleb]

Liberalism and fundamentalism in Theology have always been a problem in the church. Most of these problems I think exist at the root because of a lack of acknowledgement that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ and Jesus has died for all believers. I think Pentecostals can guard against this by simply having conversation with other believers and finding the common ground of dogma between them. as long as we hold the same dogmatic views, we should at least make an effort to fellowship with them.

[Micah]

I agree. Your emphasis on sanctification being an essential piece in avoiding unnecessary disunity makes me think of some of the key things to help prevent third-order beliefs from creating disunity: things like grace, humility, and a desire to learn. We need to recognize that we are not always right and that there is room for a lot of nuance within personal beliefs and preference. These dynamics must go both ways.

I think of issues that seem very insignificant, such as not wearing hats in services: two or three generations above me generally have much stronger convictions on this idea as a form of respect, yet that appears to be heavily culturally influenced. That being said, that is no reason to foster disrespect from the younger generations where that is less of a cultural factor, rather, both sides must honour each other and approach things like this with humility, recognizing the appropriate significance of the issue and adjusting behaviour accordingly.