Books by William P. Atkinson

This book is about that treasured doctrine of Pentecostalism: baptism in the Holy Spirit, understood as a work subsequent to conversion to Christ. Since James Dunn's publication of Baptism in the Holy Spirit, there has been heated response from Pentecostals in defense of the doctrine. Key players are Roger Stronstad, Howard Ervin, David Petts, James Shelton, Robert Menzies, and ex-Pentecostal Max Turner. This book reviews Pentecostal criticisms of Dunn with respect to Luke-Acts, concluding that Pentecostals are right: for Luke, receiving the Spirit was not the inception of new covenant life. It was a powerful enabling for prophecy and miracles; for the church's outward mission and its internal life. After placing Luke-Acts in a wider canonical context, the book closes with some practical lessons from Luke-Acts for today's Pentecostal churches.

This book views the triune God from a Pentecostal viewpoint. In so doing, it offers a fresh articulation of the theology of the Trinity that starts with Pentecost and with the Spirit. It concludes that the Trinity cannot be adequately appreciated using any single model--whether social, modal, or psychological. Instead, it presents three models--relational, instrumental, and substantial--that need to be held in paradoxical tension with one another. Of these, the relational is the foremost. Pentecost offers rich potential for seeing these relations between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as a dynamic reciprocal "dance" in which each person empties self in order to exalt the other.