Pentecostal (and Anglican) Plays (and Postscripts)

The Rev. Dr. William De Arteaga is a noted historian of revivals and of the Christian healing movement. His most influential books include Quenching the Spirit (CreationHouse,1996) and Forgotten Power (Zondervan, 2003). His most recent work is Agnes Sanford and Her Companions (Wipf & Stock, 2015). Together with his wife, he has been ministering healing for over thirty years in churches across the nation. He has been the chaplain for the Oder of St. Luke (OSL) in Georgia, a group dedicated to expanding effective Christian healing prayer, for two decades. He was ordained an Anglican priest in 2000 and pastored two Hispanic churches in Marietta, Georgia. The two plays published here represent the twin aspects of the Rev. De Arteaga's ministry, healing and pastoring, and the Christian historian. "One Day at St. John's" depicts what everyday life can be like in a church that practices the gifts of the Spirit and the healing/exorcism ministry as normal. The incidents pictured in this work happened in the course of his pastoral ministry. The second play, "Joseph ben Jacob," explores Joseph, husband of Mary, as the dream interpreter, master carpenter, and father of Mary's other children. It helps explain why Joseph was able to discern correctly his dreams, especially the one about Mary's first-born. The postscripts examine the controversial aspects of the plays and focus on two false early gospels which distorted the meaning of the true Gospels. The "Proto-Gospel of James" claimed that Mary was "every virgin" and never had other children, and the "Gospel of Nicodemus" cancelled the true meaning of Jesus' "descent into Hell" and his ministry there as described in 1 Peter 3 & 4.