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