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Pentecostal Theology: A Theology of Encounter

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Keith Warrington's attempt to homogenise Pentecostalism's many theological viewpoints is his noble but quite impossible quest. The movement has too many subsets to make it remotely achievable. But we should thank him for trying.
Warrington's book is a compendium of Pentecostal views on most but not all subsets of systematic theology, with particular attention paid to those for which Pentecostalism is famous (e.g. healing, exorcism, the Holy Spirit and his gifts) and with nearly one third of its pages on how Pentecostals understand God. We may thereby observe the incredible and sometimes rather disconcerting diversity of thought within the movement, while picking out some of its consistent emphases and affirmations and noting the maturation of thought therein. This is the book's major contribution, which is why it may be a worthwhile addition to the libraries of pastors and theological institutions.
However, Warrington does not engage in critical analysis of most of the points of view he canvasses. Indeed, some heterodoxies such as the Oneness Pentecostal view of God are reported quite uncritically. There are places within this work where he makes some useful proposals, but they do not appear to be located in anything but the broadest systematic scheme, they are asserted rather than argued, and there is little attempt to join them into a coherent whole. Mostly we are left either with outlines of ideas that Warrington has observed, or proposals concerning what Pentecostals believe based on his attempt to produce a consensus from the literature.
The weaknesses of some areas of Pentecostal theology are also highlighted, though probably unintentionally. For example, only now are Pentecostal theologians beginning to give serious consideration to ecclesiology. Warrington notes, again uncritically, that many of the myriad systems of governance within Pentecostal denominations have developed for pragmatic reasons (p. 136). Warrington's reports on the efforts of a few Pentecostal scholars to develop a unique ecclesiology merely highlight how far they have still to go.
Warrington's praxis arises from the presupposition that the God-encounter is the root stock of Pentecostal theology, hence the book's subtitle and the direction it takes. The assertion that "Pentecostals believe that the main purpose of the Bible is to help them develop their experience of and relationship with God..." (p. 188) typifies Warrington's outlook. However this immediately raises the question of where authority really lies. Warrington does not provide clear answers here, and the reader may be left with the impression that the subjective experience of a God-encounter is all it takes to get the right answers out of the Bible.
To this reviewer, Warrington's attempt to ground theology on a platform as nebulous as subjective experience makes the whole work less than convincing. However, this is probably the point of greatest weakness in most Pentecostal theologies. Subjective experience, being by definition individualistic, and even when considered in the light of the Bible, is unlikely ever to provide a solid platform for systematic theology.