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APS Can be contacted via email at aps@webjournals.org or by mail to The Editor, Australian Pentecostal Studies, P O Box 125, Chester Hill NSW 2162, Australia

Australasian Pentecostal Studies Aims

In his recent book, Fire From Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1995), Harvey Cox suggests that the reason that 'God did not die' (that is, why did a postreligious age not emerge, radically secularising all before it)-as he himself had predicted in The Secular City (1965)-is due largely to the rise of Pentecostal spirituality. In November 1997, a group of around 150 scholars, ministers and students gathered together to discuss the shape that Pentecostal spirituality might take in Australia. The papers presented at this gathering, the inaugural Barrett Lectures for the Promotion of Pentecostal Scholarship and Spirituality, had a common goal: to be interdisciplinary, integrative and highly contextualised-all characteristics of genuine spirituality. No doubt, as introductory studies each paper fell short of this goal in varying degrees, but the gathering as a whole achieved it. And one wonders if that integration itself is not the true locus of spirituality.

Australasian Pentecostal Studies likewise sets before itself this three-fold goal: to be interdisciplinary, integrative and highly contextualised. This goal, however, foregrounds tensions implicit in scholarly inquiry these postmodern days: aintaining a regional focus in a globalising world; valuing local, cultural and denominational distinctives on the one hand, and the importance of ecumenical, interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue on the other. Rather than 'resolve' these tensions by polarising, this journal hopes to live creatively within these tensions. This hope is reflected in the title of the journal. Australasian Pentecostal Studies is edited in a cosmopolitan city at the brink of the Pacific Rim. Sydney is a thoroughfare of globalising and localising influences¹ through media, technology, universities, international conferences, and even Olympic Games. The journal is also distinctively Pentecostal- which Edith Blumhofer describes as 'world evangelicalism'-in flavour.

The name Australasian Pentecostal Studies thus locates the journal regionally and denominationally, but also signifies a forum for international, intercultural and ecumenical dialogue. Given this high ideal, we cannot help but revel in the breadth and diversity represented in this publication. Each article, whether 'homegrown' or imported, exhibits international cross-currents. With this in mind we hope that you will be both challenged and inspired by the material presented here.

Brynley Barrett

The 1997 Barrett Lectures were held in honour of Brynley Barrett, a lecturer in theology at Southern Cross College from 1992 until 1996. Converted at the age of 13 from a card carrying communist home, Bryn began to read widely in dogmatics, church history and Christian biography. By 16, this habit had developed into a regular study schedule of two hours of reading each night. It seemed inevitable, then, that he should attend bible college. At the age of 21, he enrolled in the college where Pentecostal statesman, Donald Gee-affectionately known as the 'Apostle of Balance'-was principal. It was this 'balance' of informed spirituality which saw Bryn pastor for 35 years both in the United Kingdom and Australia, and be the first and only Pentecostal regularly to attend Banner of Truth conferences through the 1960s and 70s. Though an enigma to those of reformed persuasion, Bryn-like Calvin whom he revered-embodied the union of informed faith and passionate spirituality. His untimely death in 1996 represented a great loss to his family, students and colleagues.

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