Product: 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.

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