Getting the Holy Ghost by Peter Marina

Author:Peter Marina
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780739170748
Publisher: Lexington Books

Introduction

This chapter explains the process of getting saved, first providing a detailed look into the Holy Ghost Church’s belief system on getting saved, than unfolding the stories of how its members come to believe it, signified in the act of a verbal commitment. Because of the decentralized and highly autonomous nature of many Pentecostal churches, no two churches hold exactly the same ideas. For this reason, I explain the views particular to the Holy Ghost Church in great detail using the views of the church’s authority obtained in a series of interviews with Senior Pastor Redford and his transcribed sermons over the course of almost four years. These views do not necessarily reflect the ideas of the more centralized or highly decentralized Pentecostal churches or any other church that considers itself Pentecostal. Indeed, many Pentecostal churches vary in their teachings and beliefs, as one would expect in a movement influenced by various traditions. This explanation of the Holy Ghost Church worldview uses much of its vernacular and in no way denotes the views of this author. For purposes of style and convenience, I omit quotation marks used to denote the views advocated in the Holy Ghost Church. Church authorities expect its members to accept and internalize the official church ideology presented in this chapter. For this reason, I consider only the official views of the church leader since these are views presented to members who are in various stages of becoming Pentecostal.

Understanding the process of getting saved requires familiarity with such concepts as born-again, verbal commitment, indwelling, vessel, dual nature (divine and adamic), salvation, and second-birth baptism. The Holy Ghost Church preaches a fundamentalist, or strict, interpretation of the Christian Bible, and this strict interpretation, of course, finds different interpretation within and across the various denominations. Members of the Holy Ghost Church believe their views find complete consistency with the Bible and that any confusion with this literature results from confused interpreters. God’s message is said to be clear and so is the Holy Ghost Church’s understanding of it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.