Changes in Clergy Belief and Practice in Canada’s Largest Pentecostal Denomination

In 1985/86, Carl Verge conducted a survey of clergy belief and practice within The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC). In 2014, Adam Stewart and Andrew Gabriel conducted a follow-up survey of PAOC clergy to determine if any changes to belief and practice had occurred within this group during the last three decades. In this article we, first, describe the methodologies used in both surveys, second, compare and discuss the relationship between graduate education in religion and clergy belief and practice in 1985/86 and 2014, and, third, describe the overall decrease that has occurred in clergy commitment to traditional Pentecostal belief and practice since 1985/86. Finally, we conclude by proposing a theoretical framework developed by the sociologist of religion Peter Berger that helps to explain the change in commitment to traditional modes of pentecostal belief and practice among PAOC clergy as part of much broader realignments occurring across numerous religious traditions in late modern society.

The Influence of Dr. J. E. Purdie's Reformed Anglican Theology on the Formation and Development of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada

The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC) has had many similarities with its United States counterpart, the Assemblies of God. In fact, in its early years the PAOC was affiliated with the Assemblies of God.1 Yet the PAOC was unique in that it had a friendly relationship with the Anglican Church of Canada2 vis-à-vis the Toronto low-church Anglican theological school, Wycliffe College.3 This relationship centered on one man, a Wycliffe College graduate and Anglican priest, who was asked to be principal of the first Canadian Pentecostal Bible school in 1925, a position he held until 1950. This man was James Eustace Purdie, arguably the most influential person in the formation and development of PAOC doctrine through the theological education of Pentecostal ministers.4