Pentecostal Triangle of Primitive Faith

The modern call for Primitivism derives from the idea of personal experience with God. There is yet no truth for and about Pentecostalism that does not emerge from experience. Irrational in thinking and in an intimate parallel to the story of the Primitive Church, Pentecostalism combines the discomfort and weakness of the oppressed and persecuted. It is the story of one and yet many that excels through the piety of the search for holiness and the power of the supernatural experience of Pentecost. It is the call for the reclaiming and restoration of “the faith once delivered to the saints.”

Such an idea of “looking back to the church of antiquity” derives from a Puritan background and is indisputably Wesleyan. In a letter to the Vicar of Shoreham in Kent, Wesley writes that the parallel between the present reality and the past tradition must remain close. For Wesley, the primitive church was the church of the first three centuries. Equality in the community as in the primitive church was the context in which Wesley ministered. Everyone was allowed to preach, both deacons and evangelists, and even women “when under extraordinary inspiration”

Of course, for Wesley, the Primitive Church was restored with the Church of England. The Pentecostal response was quite different, “The Methodists say that John Wesley set the standard. We go beyond Wesley; we go back to Christ and the apostles, to the days of pure primitive Christianity, to the inspired Word of truth.” The main characteristic of restoration was the personal experience of God. This experience was vividly presented by the Wesleyan interpreters in the quadrilateral along with reason, tradition and scripture. Such a scheme, however, may not be fully sufficient to describe the Pentecostal identity, as well as the paradigm of the Primitive Church.

The experience of God in a Pentecostal context carries a more holistic role, which is connected with the expression of the individual’s story and identity in both personal and corporate ecclesial settings. Through the experience then, they become a collaboration of the story of the many, and at the same time remain in the boundaries of their personal identity. The experience of both the individual and the community that holistically and circularly surrounds Pentecostalism is expressed in prayer, power and praxis.

Since Pentecostalism is based on the personal experience of God, prayer as the means of spiritual communication is its beginning. Being the source of spiritual power in the individual’s life it becomes the means of existence within the community of believers. Power derives only from God through a spiritual relationship which expressed through prayer, develops as a factor of constant change. The product is a unique praxis, which in the quest for church holiness and personal morality appeals for redefinition of the original ecclesial purpose and identification with the lives of the first Christians. The triangular formula of prayer, power and praxis is then the basis for Pentecostal theology.

Pentecostals claim primitivism aplenty, conformity to the apostolic experience of Pentecost and the Book of Acts. It affirms that modern Christianity can rediscover and re-appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit, described in the New Testament and particularly in Acts of the Apostles. In a social context, it was a call against public injustice. Globally the Pentecostal movement was a powerful revival that appeared almost simultaneously in various parts of the world in the beginning of the twentieth century. In the United States it occurred during the time of spiritual search.

During the first seventy years of national life of the USA barely 1.6 million immigrants arrived. In 1861-1900 fourteen million entered the country, and it was precisely within the recorded decade of 1901-10, with 8.8 million immigrants, that the Pentecostal movement began. The mass migration was in an immediate connection with the rapid urbanization and industrialization occurring in a chronological parallel. Since first generation immigrants are usually rootless, combined with sociological changes, the context created a search for identity and roots. In America, Pentecostalism came as an answer to this search.

In parallel, the beginning of the Church of God was a call for restoration and a literal return to the Primitive Church. It was The Christian Union committed to “restore primitive Christianity.” In its early years the Church of God focused on four main characteristics of the Church from Acts: (1) great outpouring of the Spirit, (2) great “ingathering of souls,” (3) tongues of fire and (4) spread of the Gospel. Similar to the Early Church, it began in the context of persecution, presence and parousia. While heavily persecuted the Church of God constantly remains in the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit in a firm expectancy of the return of Christ. The Genesis of the Church of God was a restoration of the Pentecostal prayer, power and praxis of the Primitive Church.

EU approves Bulgaria’s Euro adoption despite protests

Thousands protest in Bulgaria against the Euro

Pentecostal articles for Pentecost Sunday

Offering a few recent Pentecostal articles in light of the upcoming Pentecost Sunday celebration:

1. The Forgotten Azusa Street Mission: The Place where the First Pentecostals Met
2. Diamonds in the Rough-N-Ready Pentecostal Series (Complete)
3. 95th anniversary of the Pentecostal movement in Bulgaria
4. Toward a Pentecostal Solution to the Refugee Crises in the European Union
5. Historical and Doctrinal Formation of Holiness Teachings and Praxis among Bulgarian Pentecostals
6. Pacifism as a Social Stand for Holiness among Early Bulgarian Pentecostals
7. The Practice of Corporate Holiness within the Communion Service of Bulgarian Pentecostals
8. Sanctification and Personal Holiness among Early Bulgarian Pentecostals
9. First Pentecostal Missionaries to Bulgaria (1920)
10. Historical and Doctrinal Formation of Holiness Teachings and Praxis among Bulgarian Pentecostals
11. The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought
12. Online Pentecostal Academic Journals
13. What made us Pentecostal?
14. Pentecostalism and Post-Modern Social Transformation
15. Obama, Marxism and Pentecostal Identity
16. Why I Decided to Publish Pentecostal Primitivism?
17. Historic Pentecostal Revival Tour in Bulgaria Continues
18. The Land of Pentecostals
19. Pentecostal Theological Seminary Address
20. A Truly Pentecostal Water Baptism
    

The Prism of Purity: God’s Unalterable Design

by Kathryn Donev

Aristotle was a towering intellect of his era, a philosopher brimming with ideas and insights—though not all of them aligned with truth. He posited that white was a primary color, emerging from the interplay of light and transparent substances, and that all other colors derived from a blend of white and black. Aristotle taught that light was a static quality inherent to objects, with true white as its essence, and that colors arose as deviations from this original state.

Centuries later, Isaac Newton challenged this notion. After purchasing a prism at the Stourbridge Fair in Cambridge, he observed something remarkable. When light passed through the prism, it didn’t merely adjust, but it fragmented into a spectrum of colors, revealing the rainbow. Newton reasoned that if Aristotle’s theory held, passing this refracted light through a second prism should alter the colors further. Yet, that’s not what happened. Instead, the colors recombined into white light. This demonstrated that light was not a fixed property of objects but a dynamic phenomenon capable of being split and reassembled, traveling as waves or particles. Newton’s experiments revealed that white light contained all colors, directly contradicting Aristotle’s view that light merely exposed an object’s inherent qualities.

In Genesis 6:11, we read that God looked upon an earth “corrupt in His sight and full of violence.” Humanity had strayed from God’s design, descending into chaos marked by violence, unruliness, and the normalization of homosexuality without remorse. Righteousness collapsed entirely, culminating in the Great Flood. Afterward, God set a sign in the sky.  The rainbow, a phenomenon never before witnessed in history. It was more than a visual marvel; it was a masterfully crafted symbol of humanity’s connection to the Creator and the purity in which we were formed. Beyond that, it carried a profound scientific message to all creation.

When true light passes through the prism of rain, the rainbow emerges. Its source is unwavering and pure. And when that light passes through another prism, it returns to its original state of true white, undistorted and unchangeable. The prism’s ability to split white light into a rainbow reflects God’s divine order—a singular source of light unveiling a spectrum of beauty, just as His singular truth and holiness shine through the diversity of creation. The constancy of light’s nature, refracting into a rainbow yet remaining unaltered in essence, points to the immutable will of the Creator. Human sin, like the corruption described in Genesis 6:11, may cloud perception, but it cannot change the fundamental properties of light that God established.

Thus, the rainbow stands as a dual testament to God’s judgment and mercy. It is a fixed design no human can undo. Though some have co-opted it as a symbol of pride, its true meaning endures as a representation of divine order and perfection that cannot be altered. Great thinking alone, as Aristotle demonstrated, is not enough. True understanding must be anchored in unchanging truth. No matter how far we stray or how desperately we attempt to twist reality, the fundamental truth endures, steadfast and unshakable.

The rainbow, in its essence, can never deviate from its purity. It is bound by the immutable laws of its creation to reflect the full spectrum of true light. It emerges from the Creator’s design as a promise, an eternal testament woven into the fabric of the universe, incapable of being anything less than the radiant, unblemished expression of divine order. No human effort can redefine its nature or dim its brilliance; the rainbow will forever shine as a flawless symbol of its origin, a beacon of truth that cannot be bent or broken.  Just as humanity cannot redefine its nature or dim its brilliance.  Humanity was created in the image of God as a beacon of truth with a flawless design that needs no efforts to mutilate God’s unalterable design.   We are prisms of perfect purity with a purpose.

Created on 4.8.25