In looking at early Pentecostal hermeneutics, we fi nd that scholars did
not employ a hermeneutics of culture that might have allowed them to
expand the racial idealism held by some in the movement into a theo-
logically robust mandate for genuine racial equality at all levels. Instead,
in looking at three recent analyses by Pentecostal scholars, we fi nd that
hermeneutics was almost exclusively conceived of as interpreting Scripture.
Furthermore, this approach was not employed in order to develop a com-
pelling, Pentecostal account of racial justice. In fact, theological doctrines
regarding the intersection of race, culture, and Christianity were rarely
considered, subordinate to emerging theological positions justifying the
uniquely Pentecostal theme of a “persistent emphasis upon the supernatu-
ral (charismatic) manifestations of the Spirit within the worshipping com-
munity” (i.e., Baptism in the Spirit, speaking in tongues, divine healing,
miracles, prophetic utterances). 60
Kenneth Archer, in analyzing the theological context of early
Pentecostalism, sees the early Pentecostal articulation of a hermeneutic
as a hybrid account that forged a middle path between a fundamental-
ist/conservative mode steeped in Common Sense Realism on one hand,
and a modernist/liberal approach heavily reliant upon Schleiermacher and
Kant on the other. 61 Ultimately, the authority of Scripture and religious
experience was placed into a “creative dialectical tension” 62 in which both
centers of authority informed each other. Archer characterizes the inter-
pretive method of early Pentecostalism as the “Bible Reading Method,”
an approach in which the Protestant doctrine of the perspicuity of the
Biblical text merged with a positive assessment of human cognition in
the pursuit of attaining comprehensive answers to doctrinal questions.
Culture was not a major consideration of these early exegetes, except
when further studies into the historical cultural context of the passage in
question would assist in paving a path through diffi cult doctrinal terrain. 63
This method, according to Archer, found its most creative expression in
the doctrines of “Spirit Baptism evidenced by speaking in tongues” and
“Water Baptism in the Name of Jesus Only.” 64
Archer’s assessment is similar to the fi rst method of theology found
in Christopher Stephenson’s taxonomy of Pentecostal theology. 65 This
method, which Stephenson labels “Bible Doctrines,” is a “common
sense approach to interpreting scripture” in which the Bible is per-
ceived as containing a consistent, coherent perspective on doctrines that
“the average Christian with limited resources and the help of the Holy
Spirit” can understand. 66 The theological loci covered in texts considered
240 D.T. LOYNES