Simo Frestadius
Regents Theological College, Applied Theology, Faculty Member
- I am the Dean of Research and Executive Director of the Institute for Pentecostal Theology at Regents Theological Col... moreI am the Dean of Research and Executive Director of the Institute for Pentecostal Theology at Regents Theological College, West Malvern, UK. I am also the chair of the European Pentecostal Theological Association (EPTA) and an ordained minister in the Elim Pentecostal Church. My teaching and research focuses on Pentecostal theology, philosophical/constructive theology, public theology, and philosophy of religion. My publications include Pentecostal Rationality: Epistemology and Theological Hermeneutics in the Foursquare Tradition (2020 Bloomsbury T&T Clark), which is based on my PhD at the University of Birmingham.edit
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Pentecostal social theorist Nimi Wariboko provides a pathway to understand how the Spirit guides believers to “human flourishing.”
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Pentecostalism has a mixed history with theological education. The movement has been shaped by a strong current of anti-intellectualism, but it has also established and supported training institutions from its inception. This article... more
Pentecostalism has a mixed history with theological education. The movement has been shaped by a strong current of anti-intellectualism, but it has also established and supported training institutions from its inception. This article briefly maps out the historical development of Western classical Pentecostal theological education and proposes that many of the existing challenges and tensions have been caused by the movement’s uncritical adoption of Fundamentalist theological norms and a “pick and mix” approach to theological training. This has resulted in incoherences in Pentecostal education, and has also polarized academic theology and the work of the Holy Spirit. The article argues that a coherent Pentecostal theological education should be informed by Pentecostal philosophical determinants. After outlining Pentecostal metaphysics, epistemology and teleology, the article proposes seven theses for Pentecostal theological education in late-modernity. The educational vision that emerges is characterized by holism and a pluralistic Pentecostal hermeneutic.
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In a global context, numerically European Pentecostals are relatively few. That said, European Pentecostalism has deep native roots and a rich international history. Indeed, this article argues that European Pentecostalism is precisely a... more
In a global context, numerically European Pentecostals are relatively few. That said, European Pentecostalism has deep native roots and a rich international history. Indeed, this article argues that European Pentecostalism is precisely a modern European Christian movement because of both its European origins and its international ethos. Informed by this historical past, the article proposes that the pentecostal narrative of Acts 2, which celebrates the diversity of cultures and calls peoples to repentance, has the potential to help European culture to navigate its complex past and provide the foundational story for building its multicultural future. This, however, can only be done if European Pentecostals themselves effectively socially embody the message of Pentecost in their local congregations, networks, and institutions.
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Research Interests: Sociology and Psychology
The article explores the nature of the Elim movement by utilizing Alasdair MacIntyre's concept of tradition as ‘an argument extended through time’. In doing so it seeks to identify the essential content of the Elim argument (read:... more
The article explores the nature of the Elim movement by utilizing Alasdair MacIntyre's concept of tradition as ‘an argument extended through time’. In doing so it seeks to identify the essential content of the Elim argument (read: tradition) and its method (read: rationality); and to narrate how the Elim argument has progressed during its 100 year history, with particular emphasis on its two major epistemological crises.
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Pentecostal theologians are increasingly aware that there cannot be an authentic pentecostal theology without a distinct pentecostal epistemology, or at least an epistemology that is compatible with pentecostal spirituality, beliefs, and... more
Pentecostal theologians are increasingly aware that there cannot be an authentic pentecostal theology without a distinct pentecostal epistemology, or at least an epistemology that is compatible with pentecostal spirituality, beliefs, and practices. To date, Amos Yong and James Smith have arguably provided the most philosophically mature pentecostal theories of knowledge. They have not only constructed insightful theological epistemologies based on pentecostal presuppositions, but seem also to have provided pentecostal versions of “correlationist” and “postliberal” approaches to theological epistemology. The purpose of this article is to assess the pentecostal epistemologies of Yong and Smith, offer evaluative comments on their approaches, and suggest that pentecostal theologians/philosophers would significantly benefit from familiarizing themselves with and building on the epistemologies of Yong and Smith as the search for pentecostal epistemologies continues.
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The aim of the thesis is to provide a tradition-specific 'Pentecostal rationality.' To do this it will first analyse and evaluate some of the main contemporary Pentecostal rationalities and' epistemologies (chapter 1), before... more
The aim of the thesis is to provide a tradition-specific 'Pentecostal rationality.' To do this it will first analyse and evaluate some of the main contemporary Pentecostal rationalities and' epistemologies (chapter 1), before proposing that Alasdair Macintyre's tradition-focused and historically-minded narrative approach is conducive in providing a more tradition-constituted Pentecostal rationality (chapter 2). Utilising the methodological insight of Macintyre, the thesis will then provide a philosophically informed historical narrative of a Pentecostal tradition, namely, the Elim Pentecostal Church, by exploring its underlying context and roots as a classical British Pentecostal movement (chapter 3), its emergence as a religious tradition (chapter 4), and its two major 'epistemological crises' (chapters 5 & 6). Based on this historical narration, the thesis will argue that Elim's tacit Pentecostal rationality is best defined as Pentecostal Biblical Pragm...