Journey Out: of the United Pentecostal Church
The book The Journey Out describes a pilgrimage. It is the story of one man
and woman, both reared within the closed boundaries of a narrow religious
community, who chose to make their way into the larger world of Christianity. In
this case, the religious community was the United Pentecostal Church
International, though it may well be that one could change the name to some
other closed community, and the story would equally resonate.
Closed communities are chiefly characterized by their defensive walls. In
this case, one’s theology, social network and personal spirituality were sharply
defined by a set of historical boundaries set many decades ago by people of an
earlier generation. These elements were vigorously protected as absolute truths,
and thinking or reading “outside the box” of the denomination were not merely
discouraged, but harshly reprimanded. At the same time, such a closed
community offers psychological safety in that its members always know exactly
where they are to stand and precisely what they are to believe. The social world
inside is nearly as comforting as the womb of the mother to the unborn child. One
could go anywhere in the United States—indeed in many countries of the
world—and find a fellow-member of the denomination who would be willing to
assist in virtually any sort of crisis. Such fellowship is not to be shrugged off lightly!
Nonetheless, there comes a time for the one who takes seriously the
challenge of self-evaluation when even the comforting warmth of fellowship is
not sufficient to outweigh the increasing burden of anti-intellectualism. In this
case, the journey began for a college teacher and his wife, deeply loyal to the
denomination and punctiliously careful about its fence. In time, they came to
realize that the mandates that had been handed down and the theologies which
were sacrosanct simply could not be squared with the Bible itself. To be sure,
Christians through the centuries had disagreed about any number of secondary
issues, but here, there was fundamental variance about the two most central
issues—who is God and how can one be put right with God. The whole history of
the Christian church said one thing, and the shorter history of the denomination
said something quite different. In the end, this couple came to believe that
classical Christianity had been right all along, while the founders of their sect,
deeply sincere though they might have been, were profoundly mistaken in their
conclusions.
This is their story.