Thinking about Bibles in the Holiness churches of my childhood this morning. Thompson Chain Reference was standard issue. Everyone who wanted to study the Bible had one of these. (Needless to say, Holiness churches were KJV-only.) The conceit of the Thompson–and what made it appealing to Holiness folks–was that it was not a study Bible full of “man’s opinions”; it was a study Bible that directed you back to the text itself. Of course, it’s clear to anyone reading this claim critically that the building of the chain was itself an ideological task. What verses were included as a link, and which were not?
Oddly, apart from one I’ll mention momentarily, I don’t recall any serious contender to Thompson as a Holiness study Bible. Scofield was known to those who were really into dispensationalism (the accepted eschatology of the Holiness folks) but it would have been particularly niche, and very rarely owned by a layperson.
The distant second to Thompson was the Dake study Bible, which I’ve mentioned before. And, rereading that post, I can see it was heading toward my realization today: Dake represents a Pentecostal esotericism. Not literally. It’s a vibe, as the kids might say.
Whenever Dake was mentioned, it was always prefaced with “now I don’t always agree with Dake but…”. It wasn’t just his eccentric opinions on established Christian doctrines. What kept him at arms length for most Holiness folks was his topics:
- Pre-Adamite world
- Giants
- Nature of the resurrected body
- Several others, but I’m working from memory
More generally, he took traditional topics in unexpected directions. He claimed to know way more about traditional topics, with strange specificity. He was both arcane and detailed.
This is not, in itself, unusual for Christianity on the whole, which has its share (both orthodox and not) of odd and unusual ideas. But it feels strange for conservative Protestantism, which is meant to be very much not esoteric. It is a public, evangelical faith. And Dake was too! But in another way he feels like he’s pulling on a different tradition.
He feels of a piece with my contention that Pentecostalism is a re-enchantment of Protestantism. Have I mentioned that before? (Searches…) Apparently not. Religions, like human lives, can’t remain comfortably unbalanced. Just as early Christianity needed the divine feminine and found it in the Blessed Virgin, Protestantism needed ecstasy and, through a series of movements, eventually birthed Pentecostalism at Azusa Street.
So there’s my post of Monday morning hot takes.