Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 47:4, Fall 2012 _______________ Shane Clifton (Assemblies of God in Australia) has been the Director of Research and Head of the Faculty of Theology at Alphacrucis College in Sydney since 2009, following his position as Aca- demic Dean at the College (2005–09) and lecturer (1999–2004). Before that, he worked as an ac- countant for Price Waterhouse (1989–95). He holds a Ph.D. (2005) from Australian Catholic Univer- sity, Strathfield, NSW; a B. Th. (Honours,1st Class, Div. 1) from Sydney College of Divinity; a B. Th. from the Sydney College of Divinity/Alphacrucis College; and a Bachelor of Economics from Macquarie University, Wallsend, NSW. Ordained in the Assemblies of God in Australia, his books include Pentecostal Churches in Transition (Brill, 2009), Raising Women Leaders (co-edited with J. Grey) (APS, 2009), and Globalization and the Mission of the Church (co-authored with N. Ormerod) (T & T Clark, 2010). Five chapters have appeared or are forthcoming in edited collections, and a dozen of his articles have appeared, primarily in Pentecostal journals. Editor of Australasian Pente- costal Studies since 2005, he chaired the Asia Pacific Theological Association’s Theological Com- mission, 2007–11, and has presented papers at numerous professional conferences and symposia throughout Asia and in the U.S., especially on Pentecostal and ecumenical topics. A serious accident in 2010 that left him a quadriplegic led to his exploration of the connections among virtue ethics, disability, and happiness; see his blog at shaneclifton.com. 544 ECUMENISM FROM THE BOTTOM UP: A PENTECOSTAL PERSPECTIVE Shane Clifton PRECIS This essay describes Pentecostalism's emergence as a movement with an ecu- menical spirit, emphasizing “spiritual unity” and developing a grassroots ecclesiolo- gy. Notwithstanding its ecumenical ideals, Pentecostal churches tended to be fissipa- rous and came to reject the formalities of the global ecumenical movement. Rather than lament a history of division, the essay recognizes that the independent nature of the movement facilitated its diversity and global mission. In this light a Pentecos- tal approach reconceives ecumenism not as the pursuit of one church but as a many- centered unity, one that transcends what is visible because it is not one thing but a myriad of things connecting and converging and moving freely in the Spirit. Like early Pentecostalism, the ecumenical movement traces its origins to the first decade of the twentieth century. One hundred years on, the two movements have pursued very different, although complementary, trajectories. While Pente- costalism emerged with what might be described as “an ecumenical spirit,” it has generally been indifferent to (and sometimes hostile to) the formal processes of ecumenism that were established under the auspices of the World Council of Churches and its various subcommittees. This stance has often been attributed to the influence of some conservative streams of evangelicalism on Pentecostal culture, but the more important explanation is ecclesiological. That is to say that, even if the ecumenical spirit of early Pentecostalism had been maintained, its grassroots, bottom-up ecclesiology would have prevented substantial involve- ment in the formal, creedal, and institutional processes that have characterized the ecumenical movement to date.