Whither Pentecostal Experience?: Mediated Experience of God in Pentecostal Theology

Abstract

Experience of God (the Holy Spirit) has always been an integral part of Pentecostal theology and spirituality. Traditionally such experience has been considered rather direct or immediate, and as such has functioned as an authority for Pentecostals. More recent developments within Pentecostal theology, however, demonstrate that a more nuanced, mediated view of experience of God is being employed by some Pentecostal theologians in an attempt to acknowledge the cultural and linguistic embeddedness of all appeals to experience. Evidence of this mediated view of experience is exhibited in the work of Simon K. H. Chan, Frank D. Macchia, and Amos Yong, and has enabled creative ways forward for Pentecostal theology.