Rather than a formal paper, she had submitted a shorter document which she called “Musings,” and she continued in this conversational vein. She picked up on the fugitive theme that emerged from Anselm’s theology as outlined by Jay Carter, remarking that she now sees how Western theology simply organized itself around these hierarchical concepts in its creation of church structures. Keri asked us to think about spirituality, pointing out how easily (given our assumptions) sprituality gets transformed into religiousness.

But Keri took the fugitive theme one step further, to talk about insurgency. Her point of reference was the Azusa Street Movement that came out of the 1906 revival in Los Angeles. This phenomenon is often referenced as the birth of the Pentecostal movement, at that time led by theAfrican American preacher William J. Seymour. It all began with a revival meeting on April 9th that year, and flourished in Southern California until 1915. The revival was characterized by ecstatic experiences, amazing physical healings, worship services characterized by glossolalia, and racial intermingling in social activities. Many of these aspects of the movement were widely criticized in the secular media and among Christian theologians alike, but today the Pentecostal Christians number perhaps as many as 200 million around the world.

Few of us, even when we recognize the power and influence of Pentecostalism, have ever thought about the movement as an insurgency, but that is what Keri was asking us to do. WOW! That transforms the whole perspective, doesn’t it? And, as Keri told us, this was the first