Pentecostals

[Psalm45_9]

One thing I really hate is when I hear Catholics say that “We’re Catholics, not Christians.” This a bad misunderstanding of the word “Christian” that has been usurped by the reformers. One thing I wonder is are Pentecostals Christians? It seems that they have a different understanding of the Trinity, thus I have been classifying them with the Mormans and JWs. I am not a Pentecostal, but I would like to know more about this new denomination, so I can prepare myself for when they knock on my door.

 

[DaveBj]

Psalm45:9:

One thing I really hate is when I hear Catholics say that “We’re Catholics, not Christians.” This a bad misunderstanding of the word “Christian” that has been usurped by the reformers. One thing I wonder is are Pentecostals Christians? It seems that they have a different understanding of the Trinity, thus I have been classifying them with the Mormans and JWs. I am not a Pentecostal, but I would like to know more about this new denomination, so I can prepare myself for when they knock on my door.

Pentecostalism isn’t new (well, compared to Catholicism it is ); it’s been around since the end of the 19th century. “Classical Pentecostals” (Church of God, Assemblies of God) are orthodox in their belief in the Trinity, so much so that their baptisms are recognized by the Catholic Church. The majority of the independent charismatic churches (“Word of Faith,” etc.) are as well. There is a long-standing (since the early 20th century) breakaway (the United Pentecostal Church and its splinter groups) that does not believe in the Holy Trinity, but in “Jesus only.” These may be what you have been dealing with, if you find their statements on the Trinity odd.

DaveBj

 

[RobedWithLight]

Psalm45:9:

One thing I really hate is when I hear Catholics say that “We’re Catholics, not Christians.” This a bad misunderstanding of the word “Christian” that has been usurped by the reformers. One thing I wonder is are Pentecostals Christians? It seems that they have a different understanding of the Trinity, thus I have been classifying them with the Mormans and JWs. I am not a Pentecostal, but I would like to know more about this new denomination, so I can prepare myself for when they knock on my door.

That would be foolish for any Catholic who say such things. It gives non-Catholics the wrong impression that Catholics are indeed non-Christian and hence “pagan”.

Incidentally, the pentecostals you must be referring to are the so-called Oneness (Jesus Only) Pentecostals. Like the JWs, Mormons and certain fringe sects, they espouse a modern version of the ancient anti-trinitarian heresy of Sabellianism.

They baptize in Jesus’ Name only (without invoking the Trinitarian formula), by immersion. They believe that God revealed himself as the Father in the Old Testament, as the Son in Jesus during Christ’s ministry on earth, and now as the Holy Spirit after Christ’s ascension. Thus the three persons become merely three distinct “phases” in the One God’s manifestation to humanity, an explicit denial of the reality of the three persons.

Gerry