A ronalderable disruption accurred in mainline Christendom in the 1960s and 1970s. It was caused, in part, by a dispure fomed in the experiential dimension of the faith. At the center af de controversy a practice known as glomolalia or speaking in tongues. Participants defended the practice as nocemary and essential to the Christian faith, while opponents, with equal vigor, rejected the phenomenon as esoteric and mmiringios.

It was not until the debate about the usefulness of tongues subsided that researchers were motivated to put the phenomenon under the microscope and examine it as they would any other phenomenon in the range of religious experience.

In this volume, Watson E. Mills brings together representative examples from five of the different methodological approaches thar have emerged in the last quarter century of research on glossolalia: the exegetical model, the historical model, the theological model, the psychological model, and the socio-cultural model. The attempt here is not to advocate a personal or theological position regarding glossojalta, but rather to explore the available methods or evaluating this phenomenon so that a clearer interwanding of its are and essence will emerge for both this wiso do not. pastelead these