Why perichorus?
Visioneering a new wineskin for Pentecost in the postmodern world.
Perichorus illustrates an emerging wineskin. Current wineskins cause us to sometimes imagine the Triune God in mathematical calculations. But for the ancients, God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit infers what they experienced as, the “dance of God!” Trinity means that God is dynamically and relationally alive, as if the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are eternally moving in a joyful, circular rhythm. They saw the Trinity as the perichoresis (peri- “around,” + “chorus”).
The dance of God. Yet the Triune God has opened the circle, making space for you and I. God’s Triune life, is the message: He invites us into the rhythm of His eternal dance. That’s why the prophet spoke: “He will exult over you with loud singing, as on a day of festival!”
Seeking after and entering into God’s dream, song, and dance- and inviting others to this heavenly party, is what Pentecost is all about. God is passionate. His passion comes upon us, as His comes upon us. God poured out His passion upon His prophets. Today, He is still pouring out Pentecost.
Conceptualising Pentecostal ethos through postmodern paradigms.
I am visioneering Pentecost, bursting through new wineskins. A Pentecostal ethos bursting through wineskins of Post-Enlightenment metaphors and paradigms. 20th century Pentecost fell within the wineskins of modernity. So for good reason, we have valued the trans-rational experience of God’s Spirit coming upon us. Yet in our naive human failings, we have generally lacked awareness to our own modern paradigms. So we have mistaken the wineskin for the wine! And we have so often, comically dichotomised spiritual experience from moral and intellectual reasoning. The result is that we and our churches become more shaped by modern management models, pop psychology, and consumerised entertainment impulses- rather than biblical theology, servant-leadership and spiritual worship. Pragmatic relevance too often, displaces spiritual reality.
Yet today we live between the twilight of one age, and the dawning of another. I believe that as an oral culture, Classic Pentecostal spirituality will find its most natural release not through 20th century modernity, but through a number of cultural paradigms that are defining the emerging Postmodern world. I believe that this can best validate the broad ethos of Classical Pentecostal experience and belief, if Pentecostalism is to continue flourishing as a revival movement through the Postmodern 21st century world.
Encountering Jesus as the Baptiser in the Spirit.
Finally, I am visioneering a church where Pentecost, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, lies at the centre of life in Christ. The baptism in the Spirit is not a one-time, past event, but an ongoing encounter with Jesus, the Baptiser in the Spirit. Historically, we have called this tarrying before the Lord. In the pluralistic culture of even the Church world today, with its attendant marketplace of competing doctrines, readily and popularly available through both hard and soft copy, the definitive contours of Classic Pentecost are often blurred.
Yet amongst the interpretive communities within Scripture, there runs all through the Scriptures, the tradition of the prophetic anointing. That tradition finds its fullest expression- as we Pentecostals often confess, in Luke-Acts. We can keep on seeking from the resurrected Jesus, a fresh baptism in the Holy Spirit. He is still pouring. This is life in Christ.
What you’ll find in perichorus
Within perichorus, you will find paradigms and theological reflections, constructed for the shaping of the local church. Two paradigms should be foremost discerned.
First, is that perichorus is an attempt to root Pentecostal ethos, within the Wesleyan four-fold synergy of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience.
Second, is that these reflections seek to consciously address how the doctrine of the Trinity, should shape the life of a local church, and can even facilitate a Pentecostal ethos that is responsive to the challenges of postmodernity.
Therefore, it’s good to begin visiting this site at the following two main pages:
Every encounter with the Holy Spirit is actually an encounter with the Triune God. A true Pentecostal ethos is thus actually, an ethos that is shaped by the Triune life of God. An ethos facilitating the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Monte Lee Rice (August 2007)
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