The Pentecostal Church in Slovakia and the Common Witness of Evangelical Churches in the Spirit of Partnership and Cooperation

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1 The Pentecostal Church in Slovakia and the Common Witness of Evangelical Churches in the Spirit of Partnership and Cooperation Viktoria Soltesova Viktoria Soltesova is the head of the Department of Theology and Christian Education at Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, teaching Missiology and New Testament Greek, and is a member of the board of Wycliffe Slovakia. Abstract This study aims to describe the Pentecostal Church in Slovakia in the scope of current ecumenical cooperation and dialogue. The Apostolic Church is a member of the Union of Evangelical Churches in Slovakia, which established the Department of Theology and Christian Education (DETM) at the University of Matej Bel. Since 1994, individual churches have continued together in ecumenical cooperation in the education of their young spiritual workers. The curriculum includes academic interpretation and missiological reflection on selected parts of mission. It offers the practical efforts of the teachers and students, especially from the viewpoint of the churches common witness in diversity. The curriculum of the study programme for theologians interprets the two mission documents Together towards Life (TTL) and The Cape Town Commitment (CTC) from a Slovakian evangelical theological view and applies it practically in context. This paper introduces DETM s educational programme in mission and ecumenism and examines how it embodies the values and concepts of those two mission documents through its activities. Special interest is focused on the topic of the practice of common witness in a spirit of partnership and cooperation. Keywords Pentecostal, Apostolic Church, Slovakia, evangelical, ecumenical, cooperation. Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches 179

2 International Review of Mission Volume 107 Number 1 June 2018 The Apostolic Church in Slovakia The Apostolic Church in Slovakia can be classified as a congregational church. In these churches, the basic unit is the congregation. The churches are self-governing in the spiritual, moral, and economic spheres. The Apostolic Church is a Pentecostal Church that has undergone its own development in relation to the church in the former Czechoslovakia. It went through many difficulties during communism without the help of more experienced churches in the West, since it could not be organically or spiritually linked to Pentecostal centres. Its only source remained the word of God through these difficult times, yet it proclaimed itself to the other Pentecostal churches in the world. After the Velvet Revolution and the expansion of the church, the existing churches consolidated, building new converts and church staff, but also establishing new churches. In 1985, the Apostolic Church in Slovakia became a member of the Pentecostal European Fellowship (PEF); in 1988, it became a member of the World Pentecostal Conference (WPC); in 1994, it joined the World Assemblies of God Fellowship (WAGF); and in 2005, became a member of the Pentecostal European Mission (PEM). The Association of Evangelical Churches in Slovakia as Common Witness in Unity Evangelical churches as minority churches In addition to creating visible unity between the churches at home, the mission of the Ecumenical Council of Churches is to build unity with the community of the church in the world. The international ecumenical movement is an importance source of the impulse for cooperation between churches at the national level. Often, examples from churches abroad of how to address complex issues help churches at home. Among the important ecumenical tasks is to build relationships between Free churches and traditional churches. Most liberal churches in Slovakia established themselves between the First and Second World War. The first generation of members of these churches originated from traditional churches, especially the Lutheran Church. In many cases these were active members of the Evangelical Church who were contacted by revivalist movements and did not find new opportunities for a more active form of spiritual life. Many of these people for some time lived their faith in the Lutheran Church in parallel with one of the Free churches. This of course led to tensions and ultimately to hostility from traditional Lutherans, who considered newly established churches such as Baptists, Methodists, and Brethren Church as sects, and often openly called them so. Over the last decade, however, 180 Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches

3 Viktoria Soltesova Pentecostal Church in Slovakia on both sides a new generation has grown up, relationships have clarified, and proselytism is not the only way for recruitment of new churches. Even the Lutheran Church opened for revivalist spirituality, so that people who want this spirituality can experience it in the Lutheran Church. This shift of emphasis leads to improved cooperation between the Lutheran Church and the Free churches. 1 At this point, one must mention the phenomena of the ecumenical scene and the more extreme charismatic movement spreading across the churches, whether small or large, old or new. In Slovakia, the smaller the church is, the harder it is to cope with the charismatic movement. While the Roman Catholic Church has taken charismatic spirituality almost fully into its structure and the Lutheran Church lost only some members, charismatic spirituality led to a split within the Free evangelical churches. In particular, the younger generation of these churches has built new communities that have difficulty communicating with their mother church. Notable in this regard is the reaction of the Baptist Union, which in Bratislava prevented the departure of a large group of charismatic members of the team that set up the new church, which was created especially to create space to manifest charismatic spirituality. However, common mission is the latest, and also the first, objective of ecumenical efforts. Practical help in the mission does not, like other missionary activities, require consistent beliefs and theological consensus, so it is the most open area for ecumenical cooperation. (On the other hand, this question later became a reason for the stagnation of the global ecumenical movement.) However, the Slovakia Association of Evangelical Churches (ZEC) was created in 1993 to establish a common education of spiritual workers. And in 1994, the Department of Theology and Christian Education (DETM) was established in the Faculty of Pedagogy at the Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica (Slovakia). Department of Theology and Christian Education The role of DETM is to develop educational activities in accordance with the intention of the founder, the ZEC: that is, to prepare workers for spiritual practice. The students practical training and exercises, both individually and in groups, also consolidate cooperation with other churches through regular inter-religious activities. Our most important common task is to support students in their education in the field of 1 In the years We see increased caution in relation to the missionary impact within the Lutheran Church after 2007, evident in the opinions of the Civic Committee in (that is, the condemnation of so-called alternative worship services and prayer groups). Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches 181

4 International Review of Mission Volume 107 Number 1 June 2018 theology and to assist them in their personal theological profiling, both in research and in their training to work in evangelical congregations. Mutual respect and solidarity with other staff in the department is a prerequisite for fulfilling this vocation. Our small ecumenical community is united by common pillars of faith, and I would be happy if we also built mutual understanding and cooperation in the coming years. Our students are mainly interested in church work: to be active pastors and missionary workers in evangelical churches at home and abroad. Our task is therefore to extend cooperation with practice (with registered churches) on a stable basis and to create a framework for such action in the department through adequate material, technical, and organizational conditions. This includes, for example, inviting experts to present selected problems within specialized subjects, writing on cooperative themes in dissertations, working with alumni to improve the quality of education, and establishing contacts through practice. Development of international cooperation should also help to improve the quality of the teaching process in the department to make it attractive to students from different religious backgrounds and cultures. Departments recruit teachers under the Erasmus scheme: the presence of foreign lecturers allows creative discussions and exchange of experience in the fields of scientific research and education. Christian churches that decided to establish a common Bible school founded ZEC in the Slovak Republic in January The committee became the authorized representative of churches that supported the idea of a higher education institution that would provide a platform for professional theological discussion. Teachers from different Christian traditions commonly reported to pietic Christianity (The Methodist Church, Free evangelicals, Assemblies of God, Baptist Union, Reformed Church). The main objectives of the educational activities were to provide a professional and theoretical theological basis in training future preachers, catechists, and missionaries. The doctoral research of department members provided orientation and professional development, while also leading to ecumenical understanding. Adherence to evangelical Christianity never meant being closed to other Christian traditions, but dissertation work in different faculties has opened up new possibilities for professional conversation within different fields of study. The number of students increased significantly with the opening of distance learning (1995), as church workers supplemented their theological and catechetical education. The theological institute grew primarily through scientific, theological, and catechetical conferences, which have been held regularly since 1995, mostly with international participation. It is significant that the first conference was a theological reflection on Evangelical Christianity. 182 Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches

5 Viktoria Soltesova Pentecostal Church in Slovakia Reviewed proceedings issued from these conferences. Catechetical conferences and workshops came later, and were more focused on the experience of working with children and youth. The workshops also mapped the current needs and hot issues that catechists and teachers dealt with in their daily practice, outlining their solutions in terms of theology, pedagogy, and psychology. The primary reason for creating the Department of Theology and Christian Education in the Faculty of Pedagogy at Matej Bel University was to accommodate the evangelical churches. This objective has been fulfilled, and the department has become an important educational institution for training priests in the Slovak Republic and abroad. It is characterized today by ecumenical openness, offering the study of theology to any person equipped with the appropriate professional competencies men and women of all Christian denominations and types of piety. The ZEC has played, and continues to play, an important role in the development of the department. Member churches throughout the 20 years have not departed from the original intention to promote the department as preserving the unity of the churches, with regular dialogue between member churches and the teachers of the department. Unity in Mission and the Role of Theological Education Evaluation of Together towards Life and The Cape Town Commitment The missiological documents of the World Council of Churches (WCC) stimulate discussion and interest in the ecumenical movement among young people. This is also confirmed through studies from abroad, whose authors point out their use in the teaching of missiological disciplines. 2 Studies on the mission documents Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes (TTL) and The Cape Town Commitment (CTC) often focus on corresponding parts of the documents to examine if theological education is generally reflected in these documents. Following a short summary, I will clarify, through the case study, the establishment and existence of a workplace that educates theologians on ecumenical principles. I will also consider study programmes at DETM from the perspective of these missiological documents, analyzing their implications in the educational process. 2 For example, see Petros Vassiliadis, Mission and Theology: Teaching Missiology on the Basis of Together towards Life, in Intenational Review of Mission 106:1 (2017), 51 58, and Kenneth R. Ross, Together towards Life, Missional Formation, and Transforming Discipleship, in Intenational Review of Mission 106:1 (2017), Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches 183

6 International Review of Mission Volume 107 Number 1 June 2018 In examining TTL, it is important to mention the part on Spirit of Community: Church on the Move, God s Mission and the Church s Unity, with reference to unity in mission: The Christian communities in their diversity are called to identify and practice ways of common witness in a spirit of partnership and cooperation etc. This role can be fulfilled by common theological education and supporting organizations (I will mention this below). 3 In the same part, TTL introduces the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism: The Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME), the direct heir of Edinburgh 1910 s initiatives on cooperation and unity, provides a structure for churches and mission agencies to seek ways of expressing and strengthening unity in mission. A growing intensity of collaboration with Evangelicals, especially with the Lausanne Movement for World Evangelization and the World Evangelical Alliance, has also abundantly contributed to the enrichment of ecumenical theological reflection on mission in unity. Together we share a common concern that the whole church should witness to the whole gospel in the whole world. 4 These ideas can be fully applied not only in theological education, but also in the practical preparation of future preachers and missionaries. TTL speaks about unity in mission as follows: What makes the Christian message of God s abundant love for humanity and all creation credible is our ability to speak with one voice, where possible, and to give common witness and an account of the hope that is in us (1 Pet. 3:15) ( 68); and later, From a mission perspective, it is important to discern what helps the cause of God s mission ( 69). TTL does not deal directly with theological education. But the authority of this document in education is significant. As Kenneth Ross mentions, This affirmation from across the ecumenical spectrum gives TTL immense value as a text for the study of mission, since it pulls together so many threads that have been running through contemporary thinking and builds them into a comprehensive vision which represents a new understanding of Christian mission in the changed landscapes of the 21st century. 5 Mutual education of Catholic and Protestant clergy is not possible in European conditions, and, in fact, the collaboration of Protestant churches is also not a Together towards Life, 63. Ibid., 65. Ross Together towards Life, Missional Formation, and Transforming Discipleship, , at Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches

7 Viktoria Soltesova Pentecostal Church in Slovakia matter of course, as various denominations prepare their clerical staff at universities and non-accredited church courses individually. The university workplace of the case study of this article is an exception. In the CTC document, Part 2/IIF 4 shows partnership between theological education and mission. The mission of theological education is referred to as strengthening and accompanying the mission of the church. This part ( 4.c) urges a missional audit of theological education curricula, structures, and ethos. This document thus directly addresses theological education. It highlights the need for the right atmosphere and authority of the Bible. In the next section, I will also highlight the possibilities of fulfilling this challenge in creating a theological education curriculum that emphasizes the missionary role of the church. Theological curriculum at DETM At present, the department has 70 students, including three PhD students. Among them are several students from the Czech Republic and individuals from Serbia, Ukraine, Spain, South Africa, and the US. Graduates are active in various positions in churches and church and para-church organizations at home and abroad, often in a leading position. Some graduates are active in foreign missions or educational institutions. The continuity of education depends on the qualification growth of our teachers. The course is designed to provide a better understanding of the Bible and evangelical theology, and to develop the skills necessary to become professional ministers and theologians. DETM exists for the purpose of cooperatively meeting the needs of evangelical churches in Slovakia and other countries. It does this through theological and missionary preparation of pastors, teachers, and missionaries, the provision of means and material for lay leadership training, and the development of resources for growth of evangelical churches through research and scholarly production. Education at DETM covers three main dimensions: cognition (acquiring of new knowledge and development of thinking processes), ministry skills, and development of Christian character and professionalism. Below, I list the objectives of subjects in the area of missiology: Missiology and Deacony: theology of mission; biblical understanding of mission; introduction to missiology; the state of the unevangelized and its missionary implications; Old Testament foundations for missiology; gospels, Acts, and Pauline epistles as foundation for missiology; the local church and missions; missionary call and service; Christian missionary movement; theology of Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches 185

8 International Review of Mission Volume 107 Number 1 June 2018 mission and deacony; holistic mission and social responsibility of the church; perspectives of these activities in today s world. Evangelism and Discipleship: biblical understanding of evangelism and planting churches; practical witnessing to the ends of the earth; spiritual assumptions for spiritual ministry; deepening cultural understanding and sharpening missionary skills; personable evangelization and massive evangelization; steady Christian living. Cross-cultural Communication and Anthropological Geography: cross-cultural communication and modern theology of mission; other cultures; anthropology and demography changes in the world; familiarity with the basic terminology of applied anthropology; basic information on distribution of population in different continents (religious affiliation of ethnic groups, with an emphasis on Christianity); culture and missions; cross-cultural communication; contextualization; academic and applied background for mission abroad; individual work with information; statistics on world population. Continuous Evangelization Practice: Practical evangelism work; new skills training; analysis of public methods; personal evangelization practice and methods; methods of public evangelization; evangelization practice in local churches (including of specific groups and special methods); mobilization and training church members for specific forms of evangelization work; integration of the new believers into the church. Practice in the Gypsy Mission: To become acquainted with this specific Gypsy ethnic group for potential mission work within this population; methods for missionwork in Gypsy population; Gypsy mission work in the context of state and nonstate organizations. Goals and materials: The values and concepts of Together towards Life and The Cape Town Commitment are realized in the teaching and practical activities of missionoriented subjects and subjects from the area of ecumenism. Here belongs ecumenical self-understanding of the church. The students task is to prepare a missionary reflection on selected parts of these papers, as part of the practical effort of teachers and students to grasp and implement them in church practice. Older and new mission documents are discussed in the classrooms, in courses from missiology to ecumenical theology. Students read actual missiological books as the 186 Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches

9 Viktoria Soltesova Pentecostal Church in Slovakia part of their studies according to the curriculum, for example, D. J. Bosch, J. M. Terry and J. D. Payne, D. Stoner, and T. Keller. 6 Mission projects and Romany Bible translation One of the mission projects of the department is a Romany (Gypsy) New Testament translation based on the work of translators and consultants from various evangelical churches in Slovakia and abroad. In 2013, the Word for the World Bible Translators project finished the translation of the New Testament into the North-Central dialect (East-Slovakian) of the Romany language. Research assistant Dr Soltesova was the consultant for the New Testament Greek text in the translation process. Students participating in her lectures from the area of New Testament Greek and New Testament exegesis were able to learn about the process in the practice. Dr Soltesova is the lecturer in the area of Romany Mission and Domestic and Foreign Mission in the department. Former and current students are working as pastors, missionaries, Christian educators, prison workers, Christian social workers, and youth workers. Our alumni have been involved in both short-term and long-term missions with sending organizations such as Wycliffe Slovakia and Operation Mobilization. Contextual realities At the beginning of the Pentecostal movement, some of the fundamental issues that developed in Pentecostal circles were based on a premillennial eschatology that was highly suspicious of and uncooperative with the wider Christian world, especially in the case of the ecumenical movement and Catholicism. But this changed after the Edinburgh conference. Pentecostal theologian C. Polhill, leader of the Pentecostal Missionary Union (PMU) in Britain, drew attention to the calls of the conference to make the most of the unprecedented opportunities to engage in world evangelization. 7 Pentecostalism has always been a missionary movement in foundation and essence. It emerged with a firm conviction that the Spirit had been poured out in signs and wonders in order for the nations of 6 7 D. J. Bosch, Transforming Mission. Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Markynoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2011); J. M. Terry and J. D. Payne, Developing Strategy for Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Cultural Introduction (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2013); D. Stoner, Evangelical Churches in Slovakia (Banska Bystrica: NEEFC, 1997); T. Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2012). Allan Heaton Anderson, The Emergence of a Multidimensional Global Missionary Movement: A Historical Review, in Pentecostal Mission and Global Christianity, ed. Wonsuk Ma, Veli-Matti K arkk ainen, and J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu (Oxford: Regnum, 2014), 10 25, at 10. Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches 187

10 International Review of Mission Volume 107 Number 1 June 2018 the world to be reached for Christ before the end of the age. Its missionaries proclaimed a full gospel that included individual salvation, physical healing, personal holiness, baptism with the Spirit, and a life on the edge lived in expectation of the imminent return of Christ. 8 At the beginning of the movement in Slovakia, the message of baptism in the Holy Spirit came to Slovakia through several channels: through those who were baptized in the Holy Spirit personally and through correspondence and literature, mostly from Portland, from the mission of the Apostolic Faith. By the end of the 1920s, Slovakia had lived and worked with several groups of Pentecostal Christians. Pentecostal repatriates coming to Slovakia from Hungary, Romania, Austria, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria had significant influence on the spiritual life in Slovakia because they came from the former organized Pentecostals. This created new bases for further development of the Pentecostal movement in Slovakia. The Constitution of the Apostolic Church in Slovakia was approved by the Ministry of Culture in A church evaluation conference took place in the same year, where a review of biblical teaching and forming of the theological education was discussed. In 1996, the church conference approved an amendment to the constitution, and it was adopted by the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic. The first page of the constitution has doctrinal significance and concerns important theological truths, such as the inspiration of the holy scripture, the doctrine of God, God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, fall of man, man s salvation, and divine healing. The last amendment of the constitution was approved at the Apostolic Church Conference in The movement has much in common with the Pentecostal church movements abroad, such as described by A. H. Anderson: Their pastors, prophets, bishops, and evangelists proclaimed that the same God who saves the soul also heals the body and is a good God interested in providing answers to human fears and insecurities, accepting people as having genuine problems, and trying conscientiously to find solutions to them. The God who forgives sin is also concerned about poverty, sickness, barrenness, oppression by evil spirits, and liberation from all forms of human affliction and bondage. This contextualized message makes Pentecostalism attractive. Its great contribution, consistent with the insights of African and other societies, is that life is a totality, that there can be no ultimate separation between sacred and secular, and that religion must be relevant to all human problems. It is a faith that may yet rescue the Global North from an entrenched secularization Ibid., 25. Allan Heaton Anderson, Contextualization in Pentecostalism: A Multicultural Perspective, International Bulletin of Mission Research 41:1 (2017), 29 40, at Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches

11 Viktoria Soltesova Pentecostal Church in Slovakia Conclusion The two mission documents Together towards Life and Cape Town Commitment encourage us to share our testimony together, and the CTC, as well, to cooperate in theological education in the church s mission. Meeting this challenge is not easy. The situation of minority churches may appear to be inappropriate in this respect. But in cases where it leads to mutual cooperation in education and mission, this is a positive aspect of the character of these denominations. There has been international ecumenical dialogue: Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue came into existence, in part, because of the lack of unity between Pentecostals and Catholics in Latin America. 10 This tradition also continues in Slovakia, especially through cooperation on the academic level and through flourishing ecumenical activities in some cities (such as Kosice, in the western part of Slovakia). In conclusion, I want to quote a senior professor at the Fuller Theological Seminary, Cecil M. Robeck, Jr: Christian unity and Pentecostal mission need not run competition with one another. They are not mutually exclusive. They belong together. Pentecostals would point to John 17 and say that it is obvious that Jesus saw it this way. They might read the writings of L. Newbigin and recognize the validity of his appeal for unity for the sake of mission. 11 This concerns not only the common missionary mission, but also the training of future mission workers Cecil M. Robeck, Jr, Christian Unity and Pentecostal Mission: A Contradiction? in Pentecostal Mission and Global Christianity, ed. Wonsuk Ma, Veli-Matti K arkk ainen, and J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu (Oxford: Regnum Books, 2014), , at 200. Ibid., 196. Copyright VC (2018) World Council of Churches 189