Contact: Robert W. Graves, The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship, 770-516-7300

MEMPHIS, Tenn., March 22, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship (TFFPS) has conferred its 2011 awards for excellence in Pentecostal scholarship. TFFPS president, Robert Graves, announced the awards during the 2011 Conference of the Society for Pentecostal Studies convening in Memphis, March 10 - 12. One book award and three article awards were given.

This year's book award, with a $500 honorarium, went to Martin William Mittelstadt for his book Reading Luke-Acts in the Pentecostal Tradition, published by CPT Press (Cleveland, Tenn.). Mittelstadt is an Associate Professor of New Testament at Evangel University (Assemblies of God) in Springfield, Mo. He is also the author of The Spirit and Suffering in Luke-Acts: Implications for a Pentecostal Pneumatology (London: T&T Clark, 2004), which was the subject of a roundtable discussion of the 2005 Society for Pentecostal Studies conference, and co-editor with Geoff Sutton of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Restoration: Multidisciplinary Studies from a Pentecostal Perspective (Portland, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2010).

Other titles nominated for the award were Paul King’s Only Believe (Word & Spirit Press), Henry Lederle's Theology With Spirit (Word & Spirit Press), Bradley Noel's Pentecostal and Postmodern Hermeneutics (Wipf & Stock), Vinson Synan's An Eyewitness Remembers the Century of the Holy Spirit (Baker/Chosen Books), Del Tarr's The Foolishness of God (The Access Group/GPH), Keith Warrington's The Message of the Holy Spirit (IVP), and John Wyckoff's Pneuma and Logos (Wipf & Stock).

Three Awards of Excellence for short works, with $100 honorariums, were conferred this year to the following scholars: Jordan D. May for his essay "Is Luke a Reader-Response Critic? Luke's Aesthetic Trajectory of Isaiah 49.6 in Acts 13.47," Robert P. Menzies for "The Sending of the Seventy and Luke's Purpose," and Roger Stronstad for "On Being Baptized in the Holy Spirit: A Lukan Emphasis." All appeared in Trajectories in the Book of Acts: Essays in Honor of John Wesley Wyckoff (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2010). Nine other essays were nominated.

TFFPS invites all Pentecostal-Charismatic scholars to bring their books and published or read papers to its attention for consideration of the Foundation's annual Awards of Excellence.

TFFPS was formed in 2005 with the goal of advancing doctoral and post-doctoral biblical scholarship by sponsoring research and publishing projects within the global Pentecostal-Charismatic family. TFFPS is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. More information about the Foundation and its projects is available at its Web site: www.tffps.org.