Jay Beaman, Pentecostal Pacifism The Origins, Development And Rejection Of Pacific Belief Among The Pentecostals (Hillsboro, Kansas Center For Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1989), 142 Pp. $10

59

Jay Beaman,

Pentecostal

Pacifism:

The

Origins, Development

and Rejection of Pacific Belief among

the Pentecostals

(Hillsboro, Kansas: Center for Mennonite Brethren

Studies, 1989),

142

pp. $10.00 paper.

Reviewed

by Murray

W.

Dempster

Even

though Jay

Beaman came from a Pentecostal

background,

he was

surprised when,

as a student at North American

Baptist Seminary in

1980,

he first learned .about the

pacifism

that was

part

of his own religious

tradition in its formative

years.

His

curiosity

to discover the facts about this

forgotten heritage

led him to an

independent study which

expanded

in short time into an M.Div. thesis written under Professor

Stephen

Brachlow. After

completing

the thesis in

1982, Beaman’s academic interest in

pacifism

was further fueled

by

his faculty appointment

at Tabor

College

in Hillsboro, Kansas, a Mennon- ite Brethren liberal arts

college closely

associated with the

publisher

of this book.

Pentecostal

Pacifism

is the

slightly

revised

publication

of Beaman’s masters thesis. The substance of the book benefits in

targeted

areas from Beaman’s

conceptual

refinements and his use of

secondary

stud- ies

published subsequent

to his

thesis, particularly

the work of

Roger Robins on pacifism in the Assemblies of God and of Cecil M.

Robeck, Jr. on the

thought

of Frank Bartleman. Aside from these

updates

and a stronger,

more

engaging literary style,

Beaman has left the overall conceptual

framework,

chapter divisions,

content and main

argument almost

entirely

intact from his earlier thesis. The

publication

of Pente- costal

Pacifism, therefore, represents

a culmination of Beaman’s own personal

and academic association with

Pentecostal, Baptist

and Men- ‘ nonite Brethren institutions and traditions over the

past

decade. The

purpose

of Beaman’s

study

is to trace and

interpret

the

change that has occurred

during

this

century

in the Pentecostal view and

prac- tice of pacifism. After

sketching

the

story

of “the

origins, development and

rejection

of

pacific

belief

among

the

Pentecostals,”

Beaman addresses the critical

question

that rests at the heart of his

inquiry:

“… have Pentecostals altered their

pacific

views as a result of new Biblical insights

or cultural accommodation?”

(viii).

In

light

of the lack of an explicitly developed

biblical rationale to

justify

the shift in

position concerning military

service

among

Pentecostals and the

presence

oi historical factors which can be identified to account for this

change, Beaman

gives

the nod to cultural accommodation as the better

expla- nation for the loss of Pentecostal

pacifism.

Beaman deserves

high praise

for this

pioneering

and

thought-provok- ing interpretation

of Pentecostal

pacifism.

The careful documentation from the

original

sources of the various forms and

expressions

of early

.

1

60

Pentecostal importance divided among views-provides sources, Beaman’s

study

seling young people science,

or

being

humiliated

during

Wilson

declaring.the that the

A/G position whole,

pacifist

Pentecostal

pacifist

in and of

itself,

the

long-term scholarship.

A bibliography-

letters, minutes and inter-

refusing

to use church

church was

“officially”

a

which it was not. Such

of

early

qualifications,

Beaman’s

pacifism

should establish,

of this

study

for Pentecostal

books, articles,

pamphlets,

a

goldmine

of sources for the reader. From these

makes clear that

many early Pentecostals, both at the levels of leadership and at the

grassroots, paid

a steep price for their

uncompromising pacifistic

convictions at the hands of their own

governments.

The details of Pentecostals

facilities to sell

Liberty

Bonds to

support

the war

effort,

or

preaching from the

pulpit against

an

unqualified

American

patriotism,

or coun-

about the moral

obligations

of Christian con-

in the

military camps

because

they refused noncombatant service are culled out of the archives of

history and

brought

to life in a

compelling

manner. The facts uncovered are captivating

and Beaman also narrates the

story

well.

Balance is another virtue of Beaman’s

study.

Beaman

rightly points out that from the

beginning

the Pentecostal attitude toward a Chris- tian’s

participation

in

military

service was not a unified one. Even

World War I when the Executive

Presbytery

of the Assemblies of God

(A/G)

sent its now famous resolution to President Woodrow

A/G to be a

pacifist

church and later indicated

represented

the Pentecostal Movement as a

Beaman notes that a pluralism of positions existed

among

Pen- tecostals on the

morality

of

participating

in the war. Beaman thus distinquishes

the fact that the Pentecostal

church from the fact that the Pentecostal church was a mono- lithic

body

of pacifist churches and individuals,

a distinction instructs his readers to

develop

an

understanding

sentiment that is

properly

nuanced and

appropri- ately qualified.

the

backdrop

of these balanced

for the loss of

pacifistic

belief

among

Pente- costals makes

good

sense. No

doubt,

as Beaman

argues,

the rise in social and economic status

among Pentecostals,

surrounding

World War II, the

leadership

role of the A/G and its mem-

in the National Association of

Evangelicals,

chaplaincy

changing

the attitudes and beliefs about the church’s earlier “official”

no future studies

explaining

in the

position

will be considered without

addressing

that Beaman has so skillfully

brought together.

Not

only

has Beaman’s

interpretation

shed new

light

on the nature of

pacifism,

but as John Howard Yoder notes in his foreword

Beaman has also laid the foundations for

important future

analyses.

The

greatest

contribution of Beaman’s

study may

turn

Against sociological

explanation

bership tionalization

of the Pentecostal

pacifism. Certainly church’s

factors

pentecostal to the

volume,

the “moral” aura

and the institu- all

played major

roles in

this

change

adequate

the

2

61

out to be the future research into this

subject

which his work

hopefully will stimulate. Three such areas which arise out of Beaman’s exami-

nation can be readily identified for further

investigation.

First,

the

question

of the

origins

of

pacifism among

Pentecostals needs more

in-depth

and broader

exploration.

Beaman locates the origins

of Pentecostal

pacifism

in two

major religious

movements of the late nineteenth and

early

twentieth

century:

the Holiness Move- ment and the Reformed

Evangelical

Movement. Given his

purpose, Beaman

properly

restricts his

analysis

of the roots of Pentecostal

paci- fism

only

to the essential

background

information

necessary

to contex- tualize his

study historically.

As a consequence, the causal connections between Pentecostal

pacifism

and its twin roots in the Holiness and the Reformed

Evangelical

Movements are

suggested largely

on the basis of

ideological compatibility.

Critical work that traces these

pacifistic roots

historically

remains an

important

task. An

analogous

task suggested by

Beaman’s

study

is to

identify

the similarities and differ- ences between Holiness

pacifism

and Reformed

Evangelical pacifism and to demonstrate how these two sources

converged together,

if

they did, to influence

the

adoption

of pacifism among Pentecostals. Other candidates that need to be

investigated

as potential sources of Pentecostal

pacifism

are the broader Fundamentalist movement- Beaman’s “Reformed

Evangelical” category only

includes the

.

‘

Plymouth

Brethren church and its offshoots as well as the

thought

of D. L.

Moody-the Quaker

movement and the

populist

movement. The Quaker connection,

while

probably

the most

enigmatic

to track,

may shed some

light

on the content and the

language-use

found in the 1917 pacifism

statement, a statement

which was

subsequently justified by the claim of the A/G

leadership

that “from the

very beginning

the movement has been characterized

by Quaker principles” (Weekly Evangel,

4 August

1917, 6).

A

Quaker

source for

pacifism may

have moved

imperceptively

into Pentecostalism

through

the

personal religious

histories of several of the more influential Pentecostal leaders. Frank

Bartleman,

the most prolific

writer on

pacifism among Pentecostals,

had a mother who nurtured him in the

Quaker

faith. Charles Fox Parham had his earlier pacifism

reinforced and

deepened by

his

marriage

to Orah Thistlewaite who had a sturdy

Quaker family heritage.

Arthur

Sydney

Booth-Clib- bom in the third edition of Blood

Against Blood

traced his own

pacifist heritage

back to the conversion of John Clibbom to the

Quaker

faith in 1658

(Appendix

C, 166-176). Booth-Clibbom’s book, as Beaman

him- self notes, was

constantly promoted

for Pentecostal

consumption

in both Word and Witness and The

Weekly Evangel.

Arthur

passed

on his Quaker-based pacifism

to his son Samuel H. Booth-Clibbom whose own Pentecostal

pacifistic writings-not

cited

by

Beaman in his book-appeared

in The

Weekly Evangel (“The

Christian and

War,”

28

–

.

3

62

April 1917,

5 and 19

May 1917, 4-5)

and in his

booklet, Should A

Christian

Fight?

An

Appeal

to Christian

Young

Men

of

all Nations

(Swengal,

PA: Bible Truth

Depot, n.d.,

circa

1918).

These

biographi-

cal

details,

when

coupled

with the

explicit

reference to “Quaker

prin-

ciples”

in the

justification

for

pacifism

formulated

by

denominational

leaders, suggest

that the

feasibility

of a Quaker

origin for,

or at least a

shaping

influence

on,

Pentecostal

pacifism

stands in need of further

research and

investigation.

.

Second,

the

question

of how

representative pacifistic

belief was of

the

early

Pentecostal movement as a whole needs reassessment.

Beaman’s main thesis

presupposes

the

veracity

of his assertion that

pacifism

was the

majority

view in Pentecostal circles

through

World

War I and the interwar

years.

On the face of

it,

Beaman’s assertion

appears

incontestable. The

general

consensus of Pentecostal scholar-

ship concerning

the truthfulness of this

grants

it a prima facie status.

Further,

the 1917

pacifist

Statement

by the Executive Presbytery

of the

A/G was

later

justified

on the basis that

pacifism

was the

position

of

the Pentecostal movement as a whole.

Moreover,

the literature of the

period demonstrates,

as Beaman

adeptly shows,

that

pacifism pervaded

all branches of the Pentecostal movement.

But even

so, something

is not

quite

kosher in this

portrayal

of a

majority pacifist

movement

shifting

to a non-pacifist movement within

such a short

period

of

time, especially

in

light

of the

intensity

with

which the

pacfists

held their convictions on this matter. Here are but a

few

problems.

The claim

by

the A/G

leadership

that its 1917 statement

represented

the

pacifistic

character of the Pentecostal movement as a

whole is

demonstrably hyperbolic

based on Beaman’s own research

into the broad

range

of

perspectives

that existed on this issue at the

very

time the statement was issued. Under both the

press

of deadlines

imposed by

the Federal Government and the conditions established

by

the

Congress

for

religious

denominations to qualify their members for

Conscientious

Objectors status,

the A/G executives

registered

the

denomination as a pacifist church. This

action, therefore,

was

politi-

cally necessary

to protect those Pentecostals who were

pacifists

from

military

service.

Accordingly,

the statement

itself,

and the rationales

developed

to justify

it, may

not

provide

faithful measures to determine

the

degree

of

pacifistic

sentiment which characterized the movement

as a whole.

.

,

More

critically,

the

pacifist writings

which Beaman

exposits

exude an

advocacy

character.

They

were written to persuade their readers to adopt

a pacifistic

point

of view not to elucidate an

accepted position. The character and function of this

corpus

of

pacifist literature,

not merely

their

contents,

should not be

glossed

over

lightly.

When these factors are

coupled

with Bartleman’s

eyewitness

accounts of how the war

spirit

invaded the Pentecostal churches

during

the

war,

a fresh

” –

.

4

63

appraisal

of whether

pacifism

was ever a position held

by

a majority of Pentecostals

may

seem more warranted that at first

suggestion; Bartleman minced no words once the war was over to declare his view that the war had robbed the church of her

“pilgrim

role”

[“Christian Citizenship,”

tract

(circa 1922), 2]

and that

during

the war “the Pente- costal failed to stand

by

the Lord”

[“War

and the

Christian,”

tract (circa 1922), 4].

Perhaps

the

change

of pacifistic belief in the Pentecostal

movement, particularly

in the

A/G,

should be

conceptualized differently

from the way

Beaman

suggests.

Given the

political

nature of the 1917 state- ment,

the

advocacy

character of the

pacifist

literature and the

eye- witness

appraisal

of

pacifists

like

Bartleman,

the

change

in the Pente- costal

position

on

military

service

may

make more sense if

explained in terms of the loss of a prophetic minority of

pacifists

who were not able to sustain their numbers due to the

very

factors of cultural accommodation cited

by

Beaman. With the demise of this

prophetic minority

over time,

sustaining

the “official”

pacifist position

became a mute

point.

Because the data on

early

Pentecostal

pacifism

are mixed and fit

reasonably

within different frameworks of

interpretation,

the issue of whether or not

pacifism

was the

position

held

by

a majority of Pentecostals needs further evaluation.

Third,

the

question

of whether a distinctive “social

reality”

called “Pentecostal

pacifism”

ever existed needs to be addressed. A meta- ethical

analysis

aimed at

articulating

the

theological grounds

used

by the

pacifist

leaders to justify their views

might

demonstrate that there was no unified set of

theological

and ethical ideas which can be meaningfully

labelled as “Pentecostal

pacifism.”

Arthur Booth-Clib- bom’s “ethical humanitarian”

pacifism grounded

in the doctrines of Creation and

Redemption

is

radically

different from the “sectarian” pacifism

of

Stanley

Frodsham

grounded

in an

other-worldly

eschatol- ogy.

Samuel H. Booth-Clibbom’s

“dispensationalist” pacifism,

reflec- tive of Fundamentalist

thinking,

shows little

theological affinity

with the

“populist”

vision

encapsulated

in the

pacifism

of Charles

Parham, which echoed a view of human

history

more characteristic of Social Gospel thinking.

In a uniquely strident

tone,

Frank Bartleman’s

“pro- phetic” pacifism, grounded theologically

in an understanding of human sinfulness and of the

universality

of the

Gospel, provided

a moral critique

of the structural evil that war

represented

and

perpetuated. Although overlapping

ideas

among

these

pacifists

can be

found,

the diversity

of the

theological frameworks,

doctrines and ideas which they

used to justify their

respective types

of pacifism may

suggest

that there

really

was no

ideological configuration

held in common

among them which can be

meaningfully designated

as “Pentecostal

pacifism” at all.

Perhaps,

then,

in addition to the factors of cultural accommoda- tion cited

by Beaman, pacifism disappeared among

Pentecostals

5

64

because these

pacifists

never established a

theologically-informed ethical

heritage

to

perpetuate

their

pacifistic

beliefs to

subsequent generations.

Their

eschatologically-driven

world

view, which Beaman succintly outlines, may

have been

chiefly responsible

for this inatten- tion to theological reflection.

Beaman’s book

provokes

such crucial

questions, lays

the foundation for further academic work and

provides

a creative

interpretation

of pacifism among

Pentecostals. Without

question,

Pentecostal

Pacifism will become the standard benchmark for future

study

on this

subject.

I heartily

recommend it to

anyone looking

for a

comprehensive

over- view of this

fascinating chapter

of Pentecostal

history.

Murray

W.

Dempster,

Professor College,

Costa Mesa, California.

of Social

Ethics,

Southern California

6