From Azusa to Asbury

In early 2023, Asbury University drew international attention when it testified to revival. Classes ceased as students and faculty joined in an uninterrupted worship service in response to a claimed move of the Spirit. In this article, I consider the commonality of aesthetic arguments that were present in affirmations, critiques, and interrogations of the events unfolding at Asbury. Following this, through a survey of the historic cooption of aesthetics by white supremacist actors and systems, I propose that discernment of the Spirit, and more broadly pneumatology, should be ethical rather than aesthetic. In forwarding this claim, I consider the ethical ramifications of aesthetic pneumatologies and consider whether the entanglement of aesthetics and white supremacy may require deliverance unto ongoing repentance. I make these claims in conversation with the work of J. Kameron Carter, David Lloyd, Amos Yong, Keri Day, Gordon Fee, and Ernst Käsemann

Conversation · Discernment · Narrative · Worship · Karl Barth and Christian Theology · Study and Philosophy of Religion · Theological Perspectives and Practices