5.3 Arguments against organizations

Säwe) appointed in the first Christian Church by the Church but by the preaching brethren.‛ Further: ‛...the Church elder (the Pastor, my remark) was appointed in harmony with the council of the Church elders whom he needed in order to be able to accomplish his spiritual work.‛59 According to Blomgren and Sjöberg the former elders function as a kind of nominating committee and appoint the one or ones who are going to be elected, but it is the Church that elects. Note that the Church has no right of proposal, only in the case of deacons.60 According to Sjöberg and the statutes I have read, the elder who is also the local pastor, as a rule, automatically becomes the chairman of the nominating committee.61 The administrative committee appoints the vice chairman, the treasurer and the secretary. The board is responsible to the whole congregation.62

5.3 Arguments against organizations

From what has been said earlier, it is evident that the Pentecostal Churches are not united in a kind of ‛Church denomination with rights to either accept or reject Christ’s Churches.‛ Pethrus gives the following definition: ‛As soon as one accepts or rejects congregations, one is automatically a denomination.‛63 In his memoirs, Pethrus makes it clear that an American Pastor W.H. Durham ‛exerted a powerful influence on the American Pentecostal revival.‛ In particular this referred to questions about organization.64 This influence was also evident in Sweden according to Sundstedt.65 The Evangelii Härold in one or two articles reviewed Durham’s argument against so called ‛human organizations‛ . 1. ‛Unions, societies, associations and denominations, may have their values, but divine institution are not such.‛

_________________ 59 Säwe 1962, p. 112, 113. 60 Blomgren 1939, p. 32 ff, 49. – Sjöberg 1960, p. 31 ff. 61 Sjöberg 1960, p. 30. – Regulations, ’Filadelfiaförsamlingen i Bollnäs’, 14.2.70 for example. 62 Regulations, ’Filadelfiaförsamlingarna at Tumba, Bollnäs, Vänersborg’. 63 Evangelii Härold 5.2.20, Lewi Pethrus, ‛Diskussionen om Pingströrelsen‛ . 64 Pethrus 1953b, p. 175. 65 Sundstedt 1972, p. 208 ff.