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Pentecostal Pastor: I Thank God For You
By Robert Rhodes
Mennonite Weekly Review
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| Paul Alexander addresses a joint adult and youth worship service on July 4. — Photo by Paul Schrag/MWR |
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SAN JOSE, Calif. — An Assemblies of God pastor and teacher who
rediscovered his church’s peace tradition exhorted a joint worship
service of youth and adults on July 4 to share their faith with others
and remain faithful to Christ’s teachings on nonviolence.
“Just
like Paul thanked God for the Ephesians, I thank God for you
Mennonites,” Pentecostal minister Paul Alexander told the packed
Mennonite Church USA worship service.
Noting
that he had grown up in a devout Assemblies of God family in Kansas,
Alexander said he was never aware of his church’s own pacifist
tradition until he was an adult, trading stocks by day, listening to
conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and studying ethics and theology
with an eye toward the ministry.
At the time,
he came out in favor of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, finding it presented
no conflict to the faith he had been raised in.
“I cheered as the bombs fell on Iraq, because I thought that was the right thing to do,” Alexander said.
In
his mid-20s, however, Alexander said he lost his faith for a time, but
rediscovered it by returning to some of the sources of early
Pentecostalism and by taking a class from Mennonite theologian John
Howard Yoder. He also started reading Anabaptist theology and taking
note of the early Pentecostals who had been persecuted for their belief
in nonviolence.
“This so intrigued me that I
had to write a book to figure out what it all meant,” Alexander said.
“I read Yoder and the first-generation Pentecostals and they sounded
like they were saying the same thing.”
At age
27, Alexander said, he had regained his belief in Christ and began
searching for resources about Anabaptism and the Mennonites.
“Your existence helped me realize I could follow Jesus in the 21st century,” he said.
Alexander,
who received his master of divinity degree from the Assemblies of God
Theological Seminary in Springfield, Mo., in 1995, and a doctorate from
Baylor University in Waco, Texas, found his pacifist views were
unpopular among his fellow church members, especially after the Sept.
11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“If you start questioning nationalism and war, that’s going to cause trouble,” he said.
Alexander’s views eventually cost him his teaching position at a Pentecostal seminary.
He urged his Mennonite audience to embrace their church and to share their faith courageously with others.
“This gospel that we live . . . if it’s real, let’s live it,” he said. “If it’s real, let’s do it.”
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