Video: Global Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism: Convergences and Challenges, Part 1—Spring 2017 Nyvall Lecture

North Park Theological Seminary welcomes Dr. Amos Yong, Professor of Theology and Mission and director of the Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, for the David Nyvall Lectures. His graduate education includes degrees in theology, history, and religious studies from Western Evangelical Seminary (now George Fox Seminary) and Portland State University, both in Portland, Oregon, and Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, and an undergraduate degree from Bethany University of the Assemblies of God. He has authored or edited over forty volumes. He and his wife, Alma, have three children – Annalisa, a senior at Point Loma University (San Diego, California); Alyssa, a graduate of Vanguard University (Costa Mesa, California); and Aizaiah (pronounced like the biblical Isaiah, also married to Neddy), who works in the Office of Diversity at Vanguard University and is a PhD (practical theology) student at Claremont School of Theology (Claremont, California) – and one granddaughter (Serenity Joy, from Aizaiah and Neddy). Amos and Alma reside in Pasadena, California.

In the first part of his lecture, Dr. Amos Yong sketches how global evangelicalism and global Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity have grown up together, especially across the Global South. He highlights their shared DNA—conversion-centered piety, a high view of Scripture, vigorous mission/evangelism, and lay-driven renewal—and shows how Pentecostal pneumatology (expectation of the Spirit’s present work, healing/deliverance, expressive worship) has energized evangelical movements in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. He also stresses that “Pentecostalization” isn’t just about style; it reshapes ecclesiology, worship, and missional imagination, offering evangelicals a thicker theology of the Spirit and a broader openness to non-Western cultures and practices.

Yong then names the tensions this convergence must navigate: prosperity teaching and its social ethics; political-nationalist entanglements; uneven theological education and accountability in fast-growing movements; interdenominational suspicion about charisms; and the risks of syncretism versus the need for contextualization. His constructive appeal is for mutual correction and reception—evangelicals learning from Pentecostal vitality and pneumatology; Pentecostals receiving evangelical strengths in catechesis, doctrine, and institutional sustainability—so that a genuinely global, Spirit-led evangelicalism can be both rooted in the gospel and responsive to diverse cultures.

Timestamps

• Welcome, context, and title framing — ~00:00

• Defining “evangelical” and “pentecostal/charismatic” — ~03:30

• Historical sketch: 20th-century renewals and mission — ~07:30

• Global South surge & the “Pentecostalization” of evangelicalism — ~12:00

• Shared core commitments (Scripture, conversion, mission, lay renewal) — ~17:30

• Pentecostal distinctives (pneumatology, healing, deliverance, worship) — ~22:30

• Regional snapshots: Africa / Latin America / Asia — ~28:30

• Contextualization vs. syncretism: navigating local cultures — ~35:00

• Prosperity teaching: typologies and social-ethical questions — ~40:00

• Public witness: politics, nationalism, and power entanglements — ~46:00

• Formation: theological education, accountability, and institutions — ~51:00

• Ecumenical dynamics: charismatic gifts in evangelical spaces — ~56:00

• Constructive proposal: mutual reception and correction — ~1:01:00

• Closing charge and Q&A wrap-up — ~1:06:00