Pneuma 31 (2009) 275-282 brill.

nl/pneu

One, One, One . . . One Way to God?

A review essay of “In Jesus Name”:
The History and Beliefs of Oneness Pentecostals

Marlon Millner
Azusa Imani Ministries, Norristown, PA 19401
marlon@[Link]

Abstract
“In Jesus’ Name” is a groundbreaking work on Oneness Pentecostalism. It seeks to be an
exhaustive study, which historically situates OP culturally and theologically within a long
tradition of Pietism dating back hundreds of years in Europe, and Christocentrism found in
American Evangelicalism of the 19th century. However, in lifting up an African-American as
the exemplar of Oneness Pentecostalism, the book introduces the person’s “black heritage” as an
interpretive key, but then fails to follow through on this insight, despite several works around
Oneness Pentecostalism, in particular, and race. This leaves open the possibility that there is a
significant hole in an otherwise comprehensive monograph. Indeed, closer attention to social
location and the theological problem of race, would have paid off with material that indeed
moves the tradition from so-called heterodoxy to a more robust, if contested, conversation with
the dogmatic tradition, which the author seeks.

Keywords
Pentecostal, Oneness Pentecostalism, African-American religion, the Trinity, racism, Pietism,
Evangelicalism

A debt of gratitude is owed to David Reed for the work “In Jesus’ Name.” 1 The
book represents a magnum opus on at least two levels. First, it reflects more
than 30 years of scholarship, research, writing, and reflection on Oneness Pen-
tecostalism by the author, who himself was nurtured within this religious tra-
dition as a youth. The book is a result of studies begun in graduate school and

1
David A. Reed, “In Jesus Name”: The History and Beliefs of Oneness Pentecostals (Blandford
Forum, UK: Deo, 2008). All references to this book will be made parenthetically in the text as
IJN followed by the page number.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/027209609X12470371387967
276 M. Millner / Pneuma 31 (2009) 275-282

continued on and off in years of teaching, researching, and participating in

scholarly sessions within the ecumenical and charismatic world of Christianity.
Second, the book is a magnum opus because it is simply one of the very few
in-depth, (almost) exhaustive, and sympathetic-yet-critical treatments of One-
ness Pentecostalism that we have. Most other works, specifically on Oneness
Pentecostalism, are polemically written by Evangelical Christian scholars or
presented triumphantly and apologetically by the movement’s participants.
Reed mediates a strong path between those two poles.
The book has three movements. Part I is the legacy of Oneness (or Apos-
tolic) Pentecostalism, which in painstaking details seeks to situate the move-
ment within a longer and larger strain of christocentric, evangelical Pietism,
with roots in Europe and North America. Here Reed attempts to provide a
rich theological backdrop to the emergence of Pentecostalism generally and
Oneness Pentecostalism in particular over against the view, often held by
insiders, that the movement spontaneously generated as a latter rain revival.
Part II is the birth of Oneness Pentecostalism where Reed focuses on central
characters within the birth of the modern Pentecostal revival. Reed offers crit-
ical insight into William Durham’s finished-work teaching, Durham’s views of
the atonement, and his overarching idea of “identification with Christ.” Reed
speculates on possible influences on Durham, such as E. W. Kenyon. He also
meticulously traces how Oneness pioneers who were followers of Durham —
Howard Goss prominent among them — take up these themes as a precursor
to formulating early Oneness Pentecostal doctrine. In particular, Reed attempts
both to nuance the emergence of the “New Issue” around water baptism by
immersion in the name of Jesus and to illuminate the theological wrestling in
light of the various solutions immediately offered by looking at E. N. Bell’s
rebaptism and reflection upon it as well as the 1915 compromise in the Assem-
blies of God, which preceded the much better known schism around the New
Issue just a year later.
Part III outlines a theology of Oneness Pentecostalism in terms of a theol-
ogy of the Name. In so doing, Reed posits a Jewish Christian theology, and
suggests Oneness Pentecostalism is at least in part reaching back to a very early
period in post-New Testament Christianity before the church cut itself off
from its Jewish roots and began to reflect on scripture and practice in light of
Hellenized philosophical concerns. Foci in this part of the book include devel-
opment of the idea of a “dwelling” Christology, and discussion of strands
of the “identificationist” position that are not as sectarian as those who see
Acts 2:38 as normative for salvation. And finally, Reed often suggests a
 M. Millner / Pneuma 31 (2009) 275-282 277

way forward, suggesting areas of development for a theology of the Name,

reflecting on the role of the Holy Spirit, and still expressing hope that Oneness
Pentecostals might be viewed as heterodox, rather than heretical.
Yet it is not entirely clear how repositioning Apostolic Pentecostalism as
heterodox rather than heretical changes the theological debate around the
movement. The book’s inherent strength — longterm and in-depth analysis
and engagement — is juxtaposed to the reality that Reed rejected Oneness
Pentecostalism years ago and is fully committed to and rooted in the dogmatic
tradition. Reed, who is now an Anglican theologian, has not had counterparts
within the Oneness Pentecostal tradition who could or would engage him in
the discursive path he sets forth in the book — a path that recasts possibilities
of Oneness Pentecostalism in light of orthodox, Trinitarian theology. I fear
that of the few Oneness Pentecostal scholars that do exist, too many will be
interested only in those scholarly bits in the work, which they feel buttress
their position (such as citations by Reed of Lars Hartman or Emil Bruner; IJN
281, 321). Or at worst, Oneness Pentecostals will take offense at an attempt to
define them as heterodox, when they see themselves as the central preservers of
Biblical truth and they will simply dismiss the work. A dismissive response is
certainly possible, given how Reed routinely refers to certain Oneness teach-
ings as “crude” or lacking understanding (IJN 291, 298), or as inherently
something less than as a popular theology (versus systematic Trinitarian ortho-
dox theology) (IJN 332).
It is an open question whether my fears — as one who himself was nurtured
in Oneness Pentecostalism — are justified. But my upbringing in a non-Anglo
form of Oneness Pentecostalism also causes me to wonder whether or not
Reed’s work might have been strengthened by deeper engagement with the
complexities of social locations among early Oneness Pentecostals and the role
such locations — or identities — served to produce a set of claims that might
naturally lead to the critical reflection and ecumenical dialogue the author
earnestly desires. I sense that Reed, perhaps more than any recent North
American Pentecostal scholar, realizes the role that identity (particularly racial
identity) plays in forming notions of what it means to be Christian generally
and Oneness Pentecostal in particular. But as Reed develops the terms Ortho-
doxy and Heterdoxy in his book, he seems to neglect the very question he
raises about how race informs these terms.
For example, Reed states in the introduction, “I am convinced that in theo-
logical vision and ministry, [Garfield] Haywood exemplifies a holistic breadth
of perspective and spirit that is likely formed and informed by his black
278 M. Millner / Pneuma 31 (2009) 275-282

heritage” (IJN 4). Yet, Reed describes the work of Roswith Gerloff on Oneness
and blackness only as a “sub-theme” (IJN 4),2 and refers to Charles Parham as
William J. Seymour’s “theological mentor” (IJN 80). Reed often routinely
points out race on those far fewer occasions when he cites a non-Anglo writer
or preacher. Non whites are the theological exception not the rule in this work.
Both the glaring absence of an interpretive lens of identity and the representa-
tion of Anglo-American perspectives as the norm indicate this book could be
a local history and theology. The book might be better sub-titled, “the history
and beliefs of White Oneness Pentecostals.” Is Reed satisfied to subsume the
identities of all non-whites under a norm of Anglo-Americanism? Most Anglo
theology is white because it presumes its perspective, its particularity, as nor-
mative. Reed does nothing to disrupt this discourse by robustly defining what
he means by “black heritage” or deeply explicating how such a heritage informs
Haywood as an exemplar of Oneness Pentecostalism. Neither does he explore
whether the theological tradition is moved forward by this “black heritage” by
offering a counter narrative to the hostilities among white brethren who parted
ways in 1916 in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Could this be an oversight, given the
work of Gerloff and others like Iain MacRobert who have paid such deep
attention to identity, race and the emergence of Oneness Pentecostalism?3 The
existing work on race and theology in Oneness Pentecostalism is so developed
that it’s difficult to ignore Reed citing Haywood as an exemplar but not using
more refined methodological tools to explicate him and those who follow him.
I want to suggest where Reed generally laments the lack of theological
engagement in the Anglo sources, one finds such engagement in the African-
American and other non-Anglo sources. But these are not the norm in the
book. Dr. James Clark, former presiding bishop of the Church of Our Lord
Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, one of the largest Oneness Pentecostal
denominations in the U.S., has written on “The relationship between theology
and social action in the Black Apostolic Tradition.”4 And of course there is
the work of Dr. Manuel Gaxiola-Gaxiola, which Reed cites, if not engages
(IJN 350). These works, like all theology, arise out of historically constituted

2
See Roswith I. H. Gerloff, A Plea for British Black Theologies: The Black Church Movement in
Britain in Its Transatlantic Cultural and Theological Interaction with Special References to the Pente-
costal Oneness (Apostolic) and Sabbatarian Movements (Frankfurt and New York: Peter Lang,
1992).
3
Iain MacRobert, The Black Roots and White Racism of Early Pentecostalism in the USA (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988).
4
James I. Clark, “The Relationship between Theology and Social Action in the Black Apos-
tolic Tradition” (MDiv thesis, Union Theological Seminary [New York City], 1990).
 M. Millner / Pneuma 31 (2009) 275-282 279

contexts that demand engagement, not further isolation from Orthodoxy,

racially or theologically understood. In the case of the strongest written mate-
rial among African American Apostolic Pentecostals, their work centers around
a corporeal ethics, where the Oneness of God must translate into a Oneness
of God’s people, which is why one finds a history of interracial fellowship
pursued by the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, the trenchant critique of
racism by Robert Lawson in the 1920s,5 and even reflection upon Oneness
Pentecostal participation in the “ecumenical” movement by Smallwood E.
Williams in the 1950s and 1960s.6 This strain of black Oneness Pentecostal-
ism might be identificationist, if that can be glossed by saying it’s liberationist.
Likewise in Mexico, Manuel Gaxiola-Gaxiola is working within a dominant
Catholic identity over against which everything else is defined. Therefore, in
some Mexican Apostolic circles it is advantageous to define oneself as Evan-
gelical, not in the Anglo-North American sense, but over against the prevailing
Christian identity of Catholicism. And this applies even to Gaxiola-Gaxiola
reflecting on language that might bridge the Trinitarian-Oneness divide.7
Marginalization as other in both African-American and Mexican arenas pro-
vide a context for robust engagement because naming someone heretical has
clear theological implications that are social, economic, and political. But then
again, this is precisely the point of most contemporary challenges to supposed
Orthodoxy by, say, black, feminist, queer, and postcolonial theologies, just to
name a few.
These non-Anglo Oneness Pentecostals are doing more than engaging in
doctrinal ripostes attempting to define themselves as good Evangelicals. Gerl-
off may have a point in suggesting that the break between Oneness and Trini-
tarians should be read racially, because if University of Chicago theologian
Kathryn Tanner is right that the church is a community of argument about
Christian materials,8 then persons in the Assemblies of God and the United
Pentecostal Church definitely know each other much better than they know
their respective partners in the Church of God in Christ or the Pentecostal
Assemblies of the World. Evangelical as a term in North American theology is

5
Robert Lawson, The Anthropology of Jesus Christ Our Kinsman (New York: Church of Christ
Publishing, date uncertain).
6
Smallwood E. Williams, This is My Story: A Significant Life Struggle (Washington, DC: Wil-
liam Willoughby, 1981).
7
Manuel Gaxiola-Gaxiola, “Reverberations from Memphis,” PNEUMA: The Journal of the
Society for Pentecostal Studies 18 (Spring 1996): 125-28.
8
See Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1997).
280 M. Millner / Pneuma 31 (2009) 275-282

bound up in racial identity. It’s a term that non-Pentecostal African American

Christians do not use and by which they do not define their Orthodoxy. More-
over, black academic theologians, in a way consistent with black Oneness
theologians, are typically neither overly concerned about their orthodoxy nor
endless abstractions and speculation of ecumenical and philosophical theolo-
gians. This lack of interest in Orthodoxy has caused more than one theologian
to marginalize theologies by people of color as contextual over against their
universal theologies.9
Right worship is about more than saying the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
or Lord Jesus Christ. It’s about who gets to say it, where, when, and why.
So, when Reed works so hard to put Oneness Pentecostals on the heterodox
margins of North American Evangelicalism, it’s a place where non-Anglo
Apostolics may have no interest in locating themselves because they have no
voice there.
Finally, this concern about the absence of framing theology around identity
(or at least offering multiple readings of North American Oneness Pentecostalism(s)
in light of varied identities) is most obvious not in the neglect of African-
American or Latin American sources, but in the claim that Oneness is a Jewish
Christian theology of the Name. One could argue it was anti-Jewishness that
led to Hellenized ideas overtaking Hebraic thought patterns and forms about
Jesus and God. If indeed Oneness Pentecostals are engaging in a theology
based on Jewish identity, one might expect that such a quest might be fecund
for dialogue between Oneness Pentecostal Christians and Jews. But this is
highly unlikely, because Reed locates his renamed Jewish theology of the name
with Evangelicalism, which can be anti-Jewish, with theologies of superses-
sionism and the like.
Most of Anglo-Oneness Pentecostalism’s polemical engagement with Chris-
tian theology is a defense against accusations of heresy from Evangelicalism, as
they attempt to out-evangelicalize Evangelicals. Here, Oneness Pentecostals
follow their Trinitarian Pentecostal counterparts in attempting to establish
their bona fides — in other words their whiteness. It is precisely this vicious,
idolatrous cycle that Oneness Pentecostals of color attempt to break as they
assert that in the Jewish flesh of Jesus dwelled the fullness of the Godhead
bodily.

9
See J. Deotis Roberts, Africentric Christianity: A Theological Appraisal for Ministry (Valley
Forge, Penn.: Judson Press, 2000). Interestingly enough, Roberts, who criticized the critique that
black theology has little interest in the Trinity, is himself trained as a philosophical theologian.
 M. Millner / Pneuma 31 (2009) 275-282 281

Duke University Theologian J. Cameron Carter gets to the heart of this

matter when he writes, “My fundamental contention is that modernity’s racial
imagination has it genesis in the theological problem of Christianity’s quest to
sever itself from its Jewish roots.”10 How does Carter propose to solve this
problem?

Doing theology from within crises of life and death requires that Christian theology
reconceive itself as a discourse. Theological learning must be reconceived as a labor of
life and death, a labor tied not simply to the resurrected Christ but to the Christ who
was resurrected from the dead and in whose Jewish (nonracial) flesh, Christian thought
claims, all creation lives and moves and has being (cf. Acts 17:28).11

Carter continues:

Therefore, as a twenty-first century discourse, Christian theology must take its bear-
ings from the Christian theological languages and practices that arise from the lived
Christian worlds of dark people in modernity and how such peoples reclaimed (and in
their own ways salvaged) the language of Christianity, and thus Christian theology,
from being a discourse of death — their death. This is the language and practices of by
which dark people, insofar as many of them comported themselves Christian subjects
in the world, have imagined and performed a way of being in the world beyond the
pseudotheological containment of whiteness. To the extent that they have done this,
they mark out a different trajectory for theology as a discourse. The language and
practices, therefore, of dark people who have lived into a Christian imagination can
no longer be deemed theologically irrelevant nor made invisible, which is what white
intellectuals in the theological academy have tended to do.12

So, though Reed lifts Haywood up as an exemplar, he either overlooks or

remains unwilling to excavate his black heritage, or what Carter would call his
dark flesh. In brief there is good reason to believe that Gaxiola Gaxiola, Robert
Lawson, Haywood, and others see their own flesh at stake when the read the
flesh of Jesus and develop doctrines of salvation, baptism, and Oneness of God.13
If Reed finds Oneness examinations of the humanity of Jesus so thin and
underdeveloped, it may be because he neglects some of the most fruitful sources.

10
J. Cameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) 4.
11
Carter, Race, 377.
12
Carter, Race, 378.
13
Elsewhere, I have critiqued the thinness of Pentecostal theology’s attention to the bodies of
interlocutors in the movement’s development; see my “Resurrecting Bodies, Resurrecting Mem-
ories: Azusa and the Archaeology of Pentecostal Theology” (paper presented at the 35th annual
session of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Pasadena, California, March 2006).
282 M. Millner / Pneuma 31 (2009) 275-282

Nevertheless, we can thank Reed for pointing the way in admitting and
highlighting the neglected narrative of Haywood and others like him in order
to understand fully the potentialities of Oneness Pentecostal theology and the
capacity of a Jewish Christian theology of the Name to reclaim the Jewishness
of Jesus and of the Church. Ironically, this neglected aspect in an otherwise
stellar work undermines a typical claim sung in many Oneness Pentecostal
churches, “One, one, one . . . one way to God. Baptized in Jesus name!” Even
among Oneness Pentecostals, there is more than one way.
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