INTERNATIONAL: Pentecostal Words?

When Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt spoke jointly to the world their statement on the post war future was an extraordinary one. It was either meaningless—or almost Pentecostal. They did not use the language of realism, of balances of power, of geopolitics. They used language common to humanity but unusual for statesmen: “We came here with hope and determination. We leave here, friends in fact, in spirit and in purpose.”

They spoke of the heart and of the mind, of conscience, of “free nations, untouched by tyranny.”

The world that heard these words had not expected, nor was it accustomed to hear such language, such human hopes, invoked by its leaders, and at such a time. But the world was glad to hear them. These words proclaimed a hope that all men, of all languages, could understand and say amen to.