What Are Pentecostal Beliefs?
What Are Pentecostal Beliefs?
Pentecostal Christianity is one of the least understood Christian denomination. Most of what people know about “Pentecostals” (as they are called) is surface — the women wear very modest clothing, never cut their hair, etc.
Pentecostals get a bad wrap probably because the faith started (and flourishes in) low income parts of the country. Besides that obvious obstacle, they have a very strict view of Christianity which requires them to dress and act a certain way.
Though there are half a billion Pentecostals around the world, this faith is basically looked over by most Christians.
Pentecostals tend to “stick together”, most likely due to the rigorous nature of their spiritual system. But what do Pentecostals believe?
Basic Pentecostal Beliefs
The word Pentecost refers to a kind of spiritual “baptism” by a figure known as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is Christianity’s vision of the spiritual aspect of God — whereas there is God the Father and God the Son (Jesus Christ of Nazareth), the spiritual embodiment of the Christian deity is called the Holy Spirit. “Pentecostal Baptism” refers to a spiritual change that takes place internally, and is seen as a gift from God.
A big part of Pentecostal worship is speaking in tongues. The Christian Bible makes a few references to this practice (in which a believer is briefly given the gift of speaking in God’s own language) but most Christian denominations do not consider it an active part of their worship. Pentecostal Christians speak in tongues quite often, and consider it as much a part of their worship as any other. Speaking in tongues can be quite a sight for the uninitiated — there is often much weeping and moaning and there can even be physical changes to a person while they are in their tongue trance.
Pentecostal Sacred Texts
The Bible is pretty much the only text needed for the Pentecostal Christian church. Pentecostals take a different view of the Bible than do most other Christians, reading it literally and believing it is the holy word of God himself. Some Christians are happy to think of the Bible as literature or as a kind of guidance, but pretty much a flawed book. Pentecostals believe that every word of the Bible is true, and they act on this belief.
Because of their belief that the Bible is literally true, the Pentecostal church is full of foot-washing, public repentance of sins, speaking in tongues, and many other activities that most Christians don’t perform.
Pentecostal Christianity is a growing faith — the church holds massive “revivals” or prayer meetings all over the world with the intention of bringing more people into their fold, spreading the teaching of Holy Spirit baptism, and increasing their numbers on a global scale. While many people don’t understand Pentecostalism, the faith itself seems to not care one bit what the world thinks. For more info on Pentecostalism, check out this page from SpiritualAbuse.org.
This post is part of a series of articles about Religious Beliefs. The other posts in this series are:
- Where Are Buddhism Beliefs?
- What Are Hinduism Beliefs?
- What Are Catholic Beliefs?
- What Are Christian Beliefs?
- What Are Jewish Beliefs?
- What Are Muslim Beliefs?
- What Are Confucianism Beliefs?
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 5:59 am and is filed under Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Actually Some Pentecostal Are Like That, But Not In My Church, The People Who Are That Strict Are The Ones Who Always Look In The Old Testiment ! But Times Change .
Times may have CHANGED BUT GOD HAS NOT
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
This is a load of rubbish
I go to a Pentacostal church but our pastor is not strict out clothing or how you look. its our view that God dosent care what you have on your back when you enter his house. and yes they do speak in tongues ive only seen it a couple of times and usally when someone is worshipping with all they have does the holy spirit cause them to speak in tongues. and its true we dont really care what everyone thinks of us we keep our eyes on God and Jesus at all times however our paster will ask everyone including other chuch leaders to pray for us and with us. so we dont just stick to ourselfs like some cult we actually love it when other churchs come to praise God with us. if you have a Pentacostal church where you live you should go give it a try you really feel the holy spirit!
God is very creative indeed, but when he thought of Pentecost, he was definitely showing his HOLY wild side!!! Praise Jesus!
Definently a helpful site! I am trying to convince my dad to let me bacome pentecostal
your Dad can not determine your faith, only you can decide that
It is not a trance but rather the receiving of a gift and instead of criticizing one should try and receive it.