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Pentecostal Religion
The Pentecostal Religion is considered as a renewal faith within Christianity that values a direct personal experience of God through the baptism in the Holy Spirit. This baptism in the Holy Spirit is proven by the ability of adherents to speak in tongues. There are approximately 250 million adherents worldwide. The term Pentecostal derives from Pentecost which is a Greek term which describes the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus Christ as described in the Book of Acts. The Pentecostals see their faith as having the same spiritual power, styles and teachings as found in the early church.
The Pentacostal Religion has a wide range of theological beliefs and there is no central authority as exists in many religions. They consider themselves as Protestants and many consider themselves evangelical while others consider themselves as restorationist. Theologically, most Pentecostal denominations are aligned with evangelicalism, in that they emphasize the reliability of the Bible and the need for the transformation of an individual's life through faith in Jesus.
Pentecostals generally adhere to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, believing that the Bible has definitive authority in matters of faith, and adopt a literalist approach to its interpretation. This belief is expressed in the doctrinal statements of various Pentecostal organizations, such as the Assemblies of God Statement of Fundamental Truths, the Affirmation of Faith of the Church of God in Christ, and the Declaration of Faith of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. In the early 20th century there arose two new Pentecostal Religion doctrines, The Finished Work and Oneness Petecostalism Finished Work The Finished Work doctrine professes a two-fold experience of conversion and Spirit baptism, as sanctification is viewed as progressive rather than instantaneous. Oneness Pentecolasim This arose from the Wesleyan-holiness and Higher Life movements and differs from the rest of Pentecostalism in several significant ways. Oneness Pentecostalism retains the earlier Wesleyan holiness and Higher Life understanding of salvation, though unlike some other Pentecostals they insist that baptism is necessary for salvation. Oneness Pentecostals also differ from other Pentecostals by rejecting the traditional Christian Trinity. Oneness adherents do not describe God as three persons but rather as three manifestations: they believe that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are manifestations or titles of the one, indivisible God. Practices Like other Christian churches, Pentecostals believe that certain rituals or ceremonies were instituted as a pattern and command by Jesus in the New Testament. Many Christians call these sacraments, however, this term is not used by some Pentecostals.
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