"the number of pentecostal/charismatics is triple the number of evangelicals."what i find interesting in that figure is how little we hear of them in the news. i suppose what philosopher michel foucault said–power is knowledge–is in play here, i.e. those in power are the ones who determine what we know. instead, we hear a plethora of discourse from the evangelical and calvinist crowds, with calvinists only being a small but highly vocal minority. in fact there is an article, the christian faith: calvinism is back, over at the christian science monitor currently. personally, i think the resurgence of calvinism is just one of modernism's last gasps before it completely collapses. anyway, the lack of public discourse from the charismatic/pentecostal crowd is lamentable to this post-charismatic. many in the church are probably hard-pressed to come up with any names of well-known charismatic/pentecostal leaders. can you think of any off the top of your head? hint: jack hayford, president of the foursquare church, is one.
the results of barna's report tell us that the generation of mosaics (ages 18-25) are the most open to the gifts and things of the Spirit compared to the older generations of busters, boomers and builders (elders). because mosaics are known to have a more experiential approach to spirituality this is not surprising although their actual experiences with the things of the holy spirit are the lowest in the report. unfortunately, mosaics are also most likely to view the holy spirit as "a symbol of God's power or presence, but is not a living entity." i'll be honest that while i know theologically that the holy spirit is a person i have a hard time as well viewing the Spirit as a person rather than a spiritual force or power. i'm not too sure what is meant by "symbolic" though and i wish there were more of an explanation in the article. also, the report says,
Younger Christians were more likely than older believers to “sense that God is motivating people to stay connected with him, but in different ways and through different types of experiences than has been the case in the past.”i think this speaks to the growing religious pluralism in our ever-increasingly global world. subsequently, we have to be missional in our interactions and conversations with younger people today. the emerging church has caught a lot of flack for being more experiential in its approach to the faith, but these are exactly the things that mosaics and busters respond to rather than modern methods of evangelism like the four spiritual laws. modern methods of evangelism just don't cut it when engaging with today's emerging postmodern generations.
ht: jesus creed
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