Pilgrimage into Pentecost explores the life and legacy of Howard M. Ervin, Th.D., chronicling Ervin's pilgrimage from his beginnings as Baptist pastor to his global influence as a Pentecostal leader. His exegetical theology led him to advocate a distinctively Lukan theology of the Holy Spirit, and he became for a while the leading scholarly apologist for the classical Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit baptism. Ervin's scholarship spurred fruitful theological debate on the contemporary work of the Holy Spirit, especially with New Testament scholar James D.G. Dunn, while his extensive ecumenical pastoral ministry demonstrated the Spirit's work of unifying the body of Christ. Pilgrimage into Pentecost not only pays well-deserved tribute to a pioneer of Pentecostal scholarship but also offers his devout scholarship and distinguished forty-year teaching career at Oral Roberts University (ORU) as an example for others.

aAn exceptional book in that it tells the story of the failure of a faith-based movement rather than its success. In a richly textured narrative, the authors describe the limitations of religious charisma when it confronts the harsh reality of a business-minded board that requires accountability. This book is fascinating reading for anyone who wants to understand the interplay between spirit and flesh, vision and economic reality.a
--Donald E. Miller, Executive Director, Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California

What does it mean to live out the theology presented in the Great Commandment to alove God above all and to love your neighbor as yourselfa? In Blood and Fire, Poloma and Hood explore how understandings of godly love function to empower believers. Though godly love may begin as a perceived relationship between God and a person, it is made manifest as social behavior among people.

Blood and Fire offers a deep ethnographic portrait of a charismatic church and its faith-based ministry, illuminating how religiously motivated social service makes use of beliefs about the nature of Godas love. It traces the triumphs and travails associated with living a set of rigorous religious ideals, providing a richly textured analysis of a faith community affiliated with the aemerging churcha movement in Pentecostalism, one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic religious movements of our day.

Based on more than four years of interviews and surveys with people from all levels of the organization, from the leader to core and marginal members to the poor and addicts they are seeking to serve, Blood and Fire sheds light on the differing worldviews andreligious perceptions between those who "served in" as well as those who were "served by" this ministry.

Blood and Fire argues that godly love -- the relationship between perceived divine love and human response -- is at the heart of the vision of emerging churches, and that it is essential to understand this dynamic if one is to understand the ongoing reinvention of American Protestantism in the twenty-first century.

One of the unique aspects of the religious profession is the high percentage of those who claim to be "called by God" to do their work. This call is particularly important within African American Christian traditions. Divine Callings offers a rare sociological examination of this markedly understudied phenomenon within black ministry. Richard N. Pitt draws on over 100 in-depth interviews with Black Pentecostal ministers in the Church of God in Christ-both those ordained and licensed and those aspiring-to examine how these men and women experience and pursue "the call." Viewing divine calling as much as a social process as it is a spiritual one, Pitt delves into the personal stories of these individuals to explore their work as active agents in the process of fulfilling their calling. In some cases, those called cannot find pastoral work due to gender discrimination, lack of clergy positions, and educational deficiencies. Pitt looks specifically at how those who have not obtained clergy positions understand their call, exploring the influences of psychological experience, the congregational acceptance of their call, and their response to the training process. He emphasizes how those called reconceptualize clericalism in terms of who can be called, how that call has to be certified, and what those called are meant to do, offering insight into how social actors adjust to structural constraints.

While there are a growing number of researchers who are exploring the political and social aspects of the global Renewal movement, few have provided sustained socio-economic analyses of this phenomenon. The editors and contributors to this volume offer perspectivesin light of the growth of the Renewal movement in the two-thirds world.

Development was founded on the belief that religion was not important to development processes. The contributors call this assumption into question & explore the practical impacts of religion by looking at the developmental consequences of Pentecostal Christianity in Africa, & contrasting Pentecostal & secular models of change.