Toward an Ecclesiology of Racial Reconciliation: A Pentecostal Perspective

There is a need for a new construct of the church as an alternative to the notion of the racially homogeneous church, especially the exclusive white Pentecostal congregation. This dissertation contends that the concept of progressive sanctification, including the moral duty to progress in love, should undergird the concept of the Pentecostal-multiracial church, and the ecclesial domains of Worship and Fellowship, for the purpose of racial reconciliation. In other words, I posit that the local church, in the form of a Pentecostal multiracial congregation composed of whites, blacks, Latinos, for example, can sustain racial reconciliation. In light of Critical Race Theory, John Calvin's concept of progressive sanctification, and Robert Schreiter's approach known as Local Theology, I reconstruct the Pentecostal-multiracial church based on the Azusa Mission, as dependent on the guidance of the Spirit, integrating equal power sharing and liturgy, targeting both parishioners and outsiders—those, Christians and non-Christians, not yet convinced that racism is wrong and that the church is to be interracial—and demanding that parishioners focus on working together for their mutual shalom through justice, in addition to being concerned for the good of humanity. To investigate liturgical interactions among whites, blacks, Latinos at the Azusa Mission, I appeal to American social history, ritual studies, and sociology. These cognate sciences also inform my ecclesiological proposal. After constructing rites of prayer, preaching and teaching, and testimony, I offer a robust Pentecostal ecclesiology for racial reconciliation shaped by my Afro-Caribbean background and Pentecostal experience in America