‘Who Needs Ethics When You Have the Spirit?’ Prophecy as Ethics in Pentecostal/Charismatic Moral Formation

Pentecostal/charismatic Christians are not well known for their nuanced ethical reflection. However, this paper will argue that prophecy is a primary means by which Pentecostals, of all varieties, engage in ethical decision-making in ways which are rational and coherent, despite attracting scorn from noncharismatic and secular ethicists alike. Drawing particularly on the works of Castelo, Augustine, and Villafañe, I will examine three dimensions of Pentecostal/charismatic prophecy: prophetic intuition as affective soteriology, prophetic words as empowered ecclesiology, and prophetic actions as emboldened missiology in order to articulate how Pentecostals make decisions with and through the prophetic Spirit of Jesus Christ. I will offer some critiques of this approach, particularly its tendency to individualism, triumphalism, and hypersupernaturalism, but I will ultimately propose that charismatic ‘prophecy as ethics’ is a charism able to bring blessings to fearful and flailing Western mainline denominations.