‘One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism’?

Abstract

The emerging ecumenical activities of Classical Pentecostals affect and are affected by the relations between Oneness and Trinitarian Pentecostals. The commitments of Trinitarian Pentecostals to Oneness Pentecostals could hinder their involvement in ecumenical contexts that reject Oneness Pentecostals, while their increasing Trinitarian commitments could strain their already tenuous relationship with Oneness Pentecostals. This article is a programmatic essay that explores the emerging tension through its focal point of baptism, an important subject in intra-Pentecostal and ecumenical discourse. The author unpacks the origins of the problem facing Trinitarian Pentecostals before articulating why baptism is the proper locus for beginning to resolve the tension. He argues that the tensions for Pentecostals caused by the doctrine of God are best resolved by the further development by Pentecostals of their Trinitarian theology. The author concludes with necessary steps to be taken in this doctrinal formulation within intra-Pentecostal and ecumenical contexts.