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There is a curious "hole" in this issue. Almost everything seemed to have been written from the perspective of an outsider looking in.

My wife and I had been lay missionaries in West Africa. Over a four-year period we slowly and painfully burned out. We returned to the United States and in the spring of 1971 encountered the charismatic renewal movement in a small Episcopal parish. Not long after we were prayed for to receive the infilling of the Holy Spirit, we received a call to return to Africa. When we returned in the power of the Holy Spirit, lives were changed, both ours and those we worked with.

Perhaps, if you ever visit this issue again, you need to include more testimony of those on the inside looking out.

Torre R. Bissell
Schenectady, New York

I adored your editorial [page 8]. As one of those who have experienced some of the power of God descending, I thought your editorial was well written and humorous and dead-on correct. I have personally felt that "live electric wire" and thought I would die.

Jo Ellen Chisholm
Pooler, Georgia

It is rare that anyone (even Pentecostals) can focus clearly on the real significance of this movement—the Living God refuses to be domesticated. When he comes down, kingdoms are shaken. In this case, the universal church has been shaken by the winds of God! My prayer is that Mark Galli's comments [page 8] about Pentecostalism will be true for the next generation.

Daniel Tomberlin
Thomasville, Georgia

I was offended by the article [page 42] "Pentecostalism's Global Language." It is clear from reading even this short piece that this new religion is just a new form of Gnostic existential mysticism. The editors have allowed the ruse to continue without question or exegesis of any kind.

Even as Mr. Hollenweger tries to convince us that "Pentecostalism today addresses the whole life, including the thinking part," he is first forced to admit that when you convert, "you are converting not to a certain theology but to a new experience of faith." In other words, Christ's death and resurrection for the atonement of sins is not what is foremost but a "new experience of faith."

Jay Adkinns
Orange Park, Florida

I am a member of a Russian ethnic emigrant group (Spiritual Christians, called Molokan) who fled persecution in Russia. The first settlers arrived in Los Angeles, from Ellis Island, in 1904. Although we are not Pentecostals, we are (free) Christians and can be considered a holiness society. We have experienced the visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit for centuries, and also have been known to speak in tongues and experience healings.

Therefore, how was it possible for others to be "the first" to speak in tongues in Los Angeles in 1906?

George J. Samarin
South Gate, California

I enjoyed this issue but was disappointed that you missed one Pentecostal church leader who took a lot of heat for his church's multiracial conventions in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A.J. Tomlinson, who was the first General Overseer of the Church of God of Prophecy, refused to segregate his assemblies and forbade his state and national overseers from doing so. He did comply with state laws on restrooms and drinking fountain segregation but was embarrassed to do so.

Eva M. Nettles
McCalla, Alabama

Corrections:

• It was Charles Mason, not Charles Jones, who "took a large portion of cogic members and … the name of the denomination" (page 36).
  
  
• The denomination of World War I hero Alvin York, Churches of Christ in Christian Union, was not Pentecostal but holiness (page 22).
  
  

—eds

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