Claims to hear from or to speak on behalf of God are often, and rightly, met with skepticism. Many of us are familiar with assertions of modern prophecy, mystical experiences, or extrabiblical revelation as put forward by people whose honesty seems suspect: televangelists, authors of sensationalist memoirs, politically-adjacent figures, and the like. Given the egregious nature of some of these claims, I can understand why a disinterested observer might dismiss them as a self-interested sham.

Are skeptics right that there is nothing more to these than self-serving fabrication? Or is there a richer history of Christian supernatural revelation and experience which may still find expression, a history that is an alternative to the sensationalized, politicized charismatic theology that seems to characterize a great deal of popular American religion today?

What might other Christians learn from Pentecostalism?