Swirling Fire (ebook: .epub or Kindle .mobi files)

October 2013 saw the Strange Fire conference—and some ensuing controversy—take certain portions of the online evangelical world by storm.

Several related issues were swirling around, all related to the question of what is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit today. Much of the debate around the conference was over ‘cessationism’ vs. ‘continuationism’: were the gifts that resulted from the outpouring of the Spirit throughout Acts limited to that apostolic age (i.e. they ceased, thus ‘cessationism’); or are they available to believers today (i.e. they continued through history; ‘continuationism’)?

We’ve put together a Brief Book that deals tangentially with this issue. We don’t engage directly with the particulars of this case as such; instead the articles we’ve collected address some of the issues raised by this ongoing discussion. The Briefing has engaged with the charismatic movement in a number of ways over the years, and so in this Brief Book we’ve collected a number of articles from the recent and not-so-recent archives on cessationism/continuationism, the Hillsong movement, how to have theological disagreements, music, and other topics.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction by Sam Freney
2. Where have all the miracles gone?by John Woodhouse
3. Your church is too small by Sam Freney
4. The surprising face of Hillsong by Tony Payne and Gordon Cheng
5. Athanasius and TD Jakes by Sandy Grant
6. Fight the good fight: A time to break down and a time to build up by Tony Payne
7. Fight the good fight: How critique, dispute and controversy should be conducted by Tony Payne
8. Matters of indifference? by Mark Thompson
9. God is in the house by Phillip Percival
10. A continuing story: 19th-century Methodists, charismatics and me by Tony Payne