Pentecostal Experience: The Writings of Donald Gee : Settling the Question of Doctrine Versus Experience

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Summary: An overview of the life and writings of Donald Gee
Review: David Womac does a wonderful job of editing Donald Gee's works. He puts together some of Gee's best writings in one book. Donald Gee had an amazing ability of explaining in words the pentecostal movement. This is a great book for anyone interested in learning more about the pentecostal movement and pentecostal expiriences.

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Summary: Sources accurately cited, but truncated in final form.
Review: Womack is to be thanked for re-presenting some of the writings of one of the most important early Pentecostal leaders and thinkers. However, Womack's hand as an editor is too heavy. In the end, he gives us a picture of Donald Gee which is short-sighted. Donald Gee wrote about and discussed subjects that contemporary Pentecostal pastors and leaders have yet to touch upon. For example, Gee critiqued World War II and the nationalistic impulses which drove much of it. He regularly, and with prophetic insight, critiqued the secular culture of his day. And, in a way that put him spiritually and intellectually far beyond both his own contemporaries and those of today, Gee regularly called for church unity in his Pentecostal publications. Womack, by and large, allows us to re-explore Gee's teachings on Pentecostal doctrine and spirituality. But he does little to help the reader understand what a cultural and ecclesial prophet Gee truly was. In the end, Womack wants us to believe that Donald Gee looked like any old contemporary North American Pentecostal official, when in fact, he was far more complex, far more courageous, and far more astute, than that. Get Womack's edition if you want a narrow focus, but read Gee himself--especially his denominational magazine articles--if you want a more inclusive understanding of this unique man.