Blood Cries Out

Pentecostals, Ecology, and the Groans of Creation

A. J. Swoboda, Swoboda

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781625644626
  9781498227728
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630877460
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

John McConnell Jr. was the famed founder and visionary of Earth Day. McConnell's vision was one of creating a day of remembrance, solitude, and action to restore the broken human relationship to the land. Little acknowledged are McConnell's religious convictions or background. McConnell grew up in a Pentecostal home. In fact, McConnell's parents were both founding charter members of the Assemblies of God in 1914. His own grandfather had an even greater connection to the origins of Pentecostalism by being a personal participant at the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles in 1906. Earth Day, thus, began with strong religious convictions. McConnell, seeing the ecological demise through his religious background, envisioned a day where Christians could "show the power of prayer, the validity of their charity, and their practical concern for Earth's life and people." In the spirit of McConnell, today's Pentecostal and Charismatic theology has something to say about the earth. Blood Cries Out is a unique contribution by Pentecostal and Charismatic theologians and practitioners to the global conversation concerning ecological degradation, climate change, and ecological justice.

PART ONE

Historical Precedents

1

Pentecostal Pioneer of Earth Day: John McConnell, Jr.

Darrin J. Rodgers and Nicole Sparks

Many readers will be surprised to learn that the founder of the original Earth Day was a Pentecostal.1 John McConnell Jr. (1915–2012) was best known for his zeal for peace and earth-care, but few people realize that his life work arose from his formative experiences in the Pentecostal church. McConnell had an impeccable Pentecostal patrimony—his grandfather (T. W. McConnell) was Spirit-baptized at the Azusa Street Mission, and his parents (John S. and Hattie McConnell) were founding members of the Assemblies of God. Their story provides insight into the lives of entrepreneurial pioneers in the rough-and-tumble world of early Pentecostalism. Perhaps more importantly, the life of John McConnell, Jr. demonstrates that one can both love Jesus and care for His creation.2

Pentecostal pedigree

The founder of Earth Day had a solid Pentecostal pedigree. John McConnell, Jr.’s grandfather, Theodore Ward (T. W.) McConnell, was a Baptist minister who identified with the Pentecostal movement at the interracial Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles in 1906—which was one of the focal points of the emerging Pentecostal movement.3 The first issue of the Apostolic Faith—the newspaper published by the Azusa Street Mission—shared his testimony:

About 28 years ago, I went into a meeting to break it up, and the Lord broke me up. My conversion I never could doubt. I was called to preach . . . The Lord supplied my every need, and was with me in revival meetings and in healing many that I prayed for. But I heard of people receiving the Holy Ghost and speaking with tongues. I came to Los Angeles to investigate, and found it was a fact, and earnestly commenced to seek the Lord for the baptism with the Holy Ghost. And the Lord, knowing my heart, came and took possession of me and spoke with my tongue. I want to say to every person, test God and you will never deny the baptism with the Holy Ghost.4

T. W. and Frances McConnell had five children, the youngest of whom, John Saunders McConnell (1892–1966), answered the call to become an evangelist in 1911 while attending the Stone Church, a prominent Pentecostal congregation in Chicago. One of the first things J. S. McConnell did as he launched into ministry was to purchase and rebuild an “auto express car” into a “gospel car.” This ministry-mobile allowed the budding evangelist to venture beyond the reaches of the railroads and provided a home while on the road in the ensuing years.5

While holding revival meetings in Shannon, Texas, J. S. McConnell fell in love with the beautiful young woman who was his pianist—Hattie MacLaughlin (1892–1992). They were married on December 15, 1912, on the front porch of her parents’ home. She later recalled that they had a working honeymoon: “We left the next day [after the wedding] in his ‘gospel car’ headed for southern Texas, without appointments—just trusting God to lead us to wherever we could be of service and give the gospel message.”6

Despite his father’s embrace of Pentecostalism at Azusa Street and his own involvement at Chicago’s Stone Church, J. S. McConnell apparently had not experienced Spirit-baptism himself until several years into his ministry. J. S. and Hattie began to seek their own personal Pentecost after a doctor’s wife—whom Hattie called “a very dear and spiritual lady”—shared her testimony with them a few times while attending revival meetings held by the McConnells at a town near Houston, Texas. This lady just happened to be the daughter of Arch P. Collins, a leading Pentecostal pastor from Fort Worth who later became the second chairman of the General Council of the Assemblies of God. Impressed by this woman’s walk with the Lord, J. S. remarked, “I think she has something that we need.”7

The McConnells headed to Houston to seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Hattie remembered, “We were made very hungry for more of God and our hearts were open. Yet we had reservations.” One Sunday morning, J. S. was asked to preach at Brunner Tabernacle, just outside of Houston, even though he had not yet received the experience. Hattie was concerned, but these fears were soon allayed:

I thought, ‘Oh, I hope he says nothing to offend.’ Instead, he preached the best ‘Pentecostal’ message I ever heard. At the close of his message he said, ‘Now this is what the Bible says.’ This experience is for me and as many as our Lord shall call. So I am going to this altar—not to seek—but to receive what God has for me.8

J. S. and Hattie were each baptized with the Spirit and spoke in tongues that morning. This experience resulted in rejection by some of their former friends and ministry colleagues, who claimed that the McConnells had accepted heresy. However, J. S. and Hattie found acceptance in Pentecostal circles—ministering in prominent churches such as F. F. Bosworth’s Dallas congregation and Chicago’s Stone Church, as well as in storefront missions, schools, theaters, and tents.9 Hattie noted, “As my husband’s calling always seemed evangelistic or preaching in new fields where the Pentecostal message had never been heard, we were ready to move on, in a short time.”10 During the next decades, the McConnells w...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Contributors
• Part One: Historical Precedents
• Chapter 1: Pentecostal Pioneer of Earth Day: John McConnell, Jr.
• Chapter 2: The Devil’s Suicide: Early Pentecostal Hermeneutics of Space and Their Ecotheological Implications
• Chapter 3: The Pentecostal Pacifism of John S. McConnell Jr., Founder of Earth Day
• Chapter 4: The Environmental Theology of Aimee Semple McPherson
• Part Two: Theological Reflections
• Chapter 5: The Greening of the Spirit: Towards a Pneumatological Theology of the Flourishing of Nature
• Chapter 6: Maximus the Confessor and a Deeper Actualization of the Apostolic Dimensions of Pentecostal Movements
• Chapter 7: Pentecostal Eco-Transformation: Possibilities for a Pentecostal Ecotheology in Light of Moltmann’s Green Theology
• Chapter 8: A Green Apocalypse: Comparing Secular and Religious Eschatological Visions of Earth
• Chapter 9: Jesus as Sanctifier: Creation Care and the Fivefold Gospel
• Chapter 10: Sins of the Ancestors: Generational Sin, Pentecostalism, and the Ecological Crisis508
• Part Three: Contemporary Practice
• Chapter 11: Healing for a Sick World: Models of Pentecostal Environmentalism in Africa
• Chapter 12: River from the Temple: The Spirit, City Earthkeeping and Healing Urban Land
• Chapter 13: Spirit of Creation, Spirit of Pentecost: Reflections on Ecotheology and Mission in Latin American Pentecostalism