Tara's View on Books: Pentecost Revisited

A veteran pastor, U.S. Navy chaplain and missionary

takes a fresh look at the traditional Pentecostal view

In Pentecost Revisited: Why tongues of Pentecost Divide—and how they can unite the church of Jesus Christ, Glenn Brown declares with heartfelt conviction that his church has long mistaken the true purpose of speaking in tongues. He describes clearly his doctrinal differences with the church and presents a scriptural alternative. Pentecost Revisited offers biblical evidence that tongues, correctly understood, will reverse Babel and help unite the body of Christ around the world.

Glenn Brown has been an ordained Assemblies of God minister for more than fifty years. He began his ministry as founding pastor of an Assemblies of God church in Colorado in 1955 while in seminary. In 1960, Brown began his career as a U.S. Navy chaplain assigned to a Marine battalion in Camp Le Jeune, NC. Eight years later, he was the assigned chaplain aboard a helicopter carrier off the coast of South Vietnam, loaded with a reinforced battalion of battle weary Marines. It was during this assignment in the combat zone that Brown came to grips with doubts about the validity of a doctrinal statement his church asked him to affirm annually before renewing his credentials.

Knowing it might cost him his career, he dared to question the validity of this Assemblies of God doctrine: “The baptism of the Holy Spirit is witnessed by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance.” This resulted in ongoing disputation with his denomination that continues to this day. Brown has offered to resign, but his senior district official has asked him not to do so. He said, “Our constituency needs to hear what you have to say.” This book gives the opportunity to do so.

Though Brown was convinced that the Assemblies of God doctrine tying tongues to the initial baptism of the Holy Spirit was not based in Scripture and disclosed his dissent to his supervisors in church leadership, he resolved never to preach his views from the pulpit as long as he was shepherding an Assemblies of God church. He retired from the pastorate in late 1991. Shortly after, he was invited to minister to soldiers in Ukraine recently freed from Soviet domination. After sixteen years of sharing the gospel in Eastern Europe, he sensed the time had come to address the issue he had struggled with for decades. Brown’s new book, Pentecost Revisited, shares the story of his forty year study of the purpose of tongues, the effects of that study on his personal and professional life, and Brown’s plan for leading the church back to what he believes are God’s intended purposes for tongues—to edify the individual believer in private devotional times and to break down racial and cultural prejudices to unify the church.

“I love my church and the many friends I have in her ranks. But my primary loyalty is to Jesus Christ and the truth of Scripture. If my understanding of Scripture is wrong, I welcome correction,” says Brown. “I think many of the wonderful men and women in the Assemblies of God have limited themselves by insisting that speaking in tongues must accompany every valid Holy Spirit baptism. As to speaking in tongues, some ministers feel threatened when asked to even consider an idea that differs from their accepted traditional view. But it’s truth that I pursue, for that is what frees. My understanding of Scriptural truth has led me to write this book. I write as a convinced Pentecostal believer who longs to see us become all that the Lord intended when He dispatched the Holy Spirit two thousand years ago.”