But you have to remember, of course, that this was the underside of American religion, far from centers of power and wealth, and it was often, in fact, exported by non-Americans. And also, of course, there were similar phenomena going on elsewhere in the world at the same time, which were less able to globalize their influence.
Pentecostalism grows today almost entirely through indigenous initiatives, not through American televangelists, whatever they may say about themselves. Pentecostalism, in short, is world Christianity distant from power and wealth, associated largely with poverty. And global pentecostalism is usually not at all dependent on Western pentecostalism. So what are the political impacts in the global South? Does the pentecostal experience lead necessarily to a particular political position?
In the past it was often said that pentecostalism necessarily leads you to be apolitical, and that proves to be wrong. And then it started to be said that it necessarily leads you to be politically conservative. But there are many signs that that is not always by any means the case either. There are surveys that show the pentecostal experience does not correlate with being less involved in social and political movements.
There is an increasing involvement of pentecostals in politics, in Asia to a certain extent, although not so much, in Africa quite a lot and in Latin America especially. The positions adopted have been extremely diverse and the record very mixed. Pentecostalism is being put to a variety of political uses across the globe. Its fragmentation means that its direct political impact is always smaller than might be hoped or feared.
No pentecostal neo-Christendom potentially dangerous to democracy is really feasible. In any case, a very small minority of pentecostals have theocratic political projects similar to those of militant Islamists. The results for democracy are paradoxical.
Totalitarian regimes or movements are firmly resisted, as are non-Christian religious nationalisms, but authoritarian regimes that do not impinge on freedom of religion may not always be. Being so fragmented, pentecostalism is less useful during phases of democratic transition. But during the more extended periods of democratic consolidation, it helps to incorporate marginal social actors and instill the confidence and skills which strengthen democratic culture at the level of civil society.
Such a mentality is, at best, not helpful to democratization. But that withdrawal mentality is now less common, especially in churches at a slightly higher social level. One now sometimes finds the opposite of that: So theocratic ideas are emerging that say believers should govern their countries in the name of God. In any case, the churches are too divided among themselves. So the direct effect of pentecostalism on politics may be less than is hoped or feared.
Very often also, third-world pentecostals are cut off from the history of Christian political reflection. They are undoubtedly on a steep learning curve. But the growing involvement in social projects sometimes leads to more critical political involvement, oriented more to the good of society as a whole. In fact, one can even see, to a certain extent, a shift to the left, or at least to the center left, particularly in parts of Latin America.
In part, this shift is due to the sudden shifts in the politics of the Catholic Church, no longer seen as occupying the left so much and therefore opening space for another religion to do that. In addition, pentecostals are often quite nationalistic. And in some cases, pentecostalism has been embraced by ethnic minorities with their own political agendas. At the level of civil society, very often the impact is very different from that at the macro level of political parties and parliaments. There is a tremendous amount going on at that level.
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But anyway, if foreign policy concerns and security concerns mean any questioning of the immense power differential between the United States and other countries in the world, then I would say, yes, undoubtedly pentecostal growth will have some implications for that. If it means will there be pentecostals blowing up buildings in Los Angeles next week, no, probably not.
Pentecostalism sees itself, amongst other things, as a recovery of primitive Christianity. And primitive Christianity, of course, was largely pacifist. It was persecuted, not persecuting. So even though you do increasingly have some pentecostals moving in other directions, they have greater difficulty justifying that tendency on the basis of primitive Christianity.
Spirit and Power : The Growth and Global Impact of Pentecostalism (2013, Paperback)
There is certainly in pentecostal political militancy some use of violence. As I said, there are some marginal theocratic tendencies among pentecostals in some parts of the world. As to the use of political violence, there have been some incidents in Nigeria where, of course, pentecostals — and Christians in general, and Muslims — are involved in a fight for the control of a very important nation state.
There have also been some recent cases of pentecostal vigilantism in parts of Central America as part of the more general phenomenon of vigilantism.
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And there has been some involvement of pentecostals in armed separatist movements in a few countries of Asia and Africa, which are all based perhaps more on ethnicity and region than on religion. But with regard to international terrorism, there is really no pentecostal equivalent. Some scholars have expressed the fear that African Christianity might have a serious terrorist potential. However, there is very little evidence for this, at least so far. As I say, some pentecostals in northern Nigeria have killed some Muslims who, they would say in justification, were attacking them.
However, it should be remembered that pentecostal Christianity, as compared with Islam, has had a very different historical relationship to the state, to territory and to the use of force. What about a comparison between pentecostals from the global South and their co-religionists in the United States? Perhaps far from being a constituency for international terrorism, does global pentecostalism constitute an extension of American soft power? Does it mean that there will be a commonality of geopolitical worldviews which will extend the power of the United States throughout the world?
The war on terror, and especially the war in Iraq, has revealed a deep fissure within global pentecostalism. Before the invasion of Iraq, a television program in Brazil featured several Brazilian pentecostal congressmen discussing this issue. While not monolithic, the majority current in Brazilian pentecostalism seems far closer on these questions to Christian currents in the United States, which might be labeled mainstream.
As for Spanish-speaking Latin America, a surprising diversity of Latin American churches made official pronouncements against the war, including many churches usually thought of as politically conservative, or which like to imagine themselves as non-political. In addition, a very conservative South African Christian political party, based mostly among white and black charismatic churches, the African Christian Democratic Party, opposed the imminent invasion of Iraq in no uncertain terms. Their spokesman in Parliament said that selfish interests and ducking domestic problems were not good reasons to go to war.
We thus see how risky it is to read Third-World pentecostalism either through the lens of contemporary Islamic politics, or through the lens of the American religious right. It is not now, nor is it likely to become, either the next constituency of recruits for geopolitical terrorism or an extension of American soft power. I am going to talk about a very particular slice within pentecostalism, and this is the way in which I got to that particular point: About five years ago, I was with a good friend, Ted Yamamori, who was then the president of a large nongovernmental organization.
We wrote to about experts to recommend congregations that could be the focus of this study, and to our surprise, about 85 percent of the congregations that were recommended were either pentecostal or charismatic. So we decided we would write a book on what we are calling progressive pentecostals.
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These congregations are not necessarily progressive in the political sense, but they are progressive in the sense that they are really moving beyond an other-worldly preoccupation with the imminent return of Christ. Let me turn directly to our research findings. We found a very wide spectrum of social ministries in the 20 developing countries where we did case studies. There was a spectrum that ranged from very individualistic interventions to approaches that incorporated a public health model. For example — and this probably was true even from the earliest days of pentecostalism in — there were mercy ministries, namely, projects that were focused on providing food to people who were hungry, clothing to people who needed clothing, shelter for those who were homeless and so forth.
Also, we found a number of pentecostal churches around the developing world that were responding to particular crises. Whether it be floods or famines or earthquakes, pentecostals were there providing emergency services of one sort or another. We also, in a very interesting way, found a number of pentecostal churches that were entering the sphere of education. Rather than children going to schools with children in a classroom, they were trying to create model schools with 30, 40 or 50 children in a classroom. Also, a number of these churches were involved in preschool education of various sorts.
Moving into the social arena, many of these churches are also starting health clinics, often very affordable ones. Some of them are partnering with NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] on various kinds of economic development projects, particularly micro-credit loans that start small businesses within the community. Progressive pentecostalism is an emergent movement.
I do not know what percentage of the pentecostal movement this slice may represent, but my guess is 10 percent or something in that neighborhood; that is, of pentecostal churches that are really engaging their communities, moving beyond simply their own religious community. What are the elements that are contributing to this social engagement? One interesting comment I received from someone I interviewed in Argentina was that liberation theology, typically associated with the Catholic tradition, opted for the poor, but the poor opted for pentecostalism.
Indeed, I think there is something to be said for that idea because there is, in a religious economy sense, a lot of competition within different elements of the Christian communion, particularly in various parts of Latin America, but also, to some degree, in other parts of the world. Another important element, in my opinion, is that the leadership is not removed from the people.
They know their problems, they know their pain and they are committed to helping them move from a position of scarcity into one of greater affluence. In fact, on occasion I felt these people were megalomaniacs of one sort or another in terms of their goals and ambitions. But a couple years later, when I went back and visited the same congregations, they had, in fact, realized many of the social projects they had envisioned.
Why is this focus on social ministries emerging with greater force at this moment in the history of pentecostalism? Even though pentecostalism has its roots with the very poor, there is a growing middle class in many of these countries. So, rather than thinking simply in highly individualistic ways — how can I feed this person? I think the presence of NGOs is starting to have a very direct impact on pentecostal social engagement. They often attend the same conferences and events and read some of the same media as evangelicals do. And, of course, there is a fairly significant element of evangelicalism that also is engaged in social ministries.
It has a lot of parallels to the sociological literature that has been referred to as the Protestant Ethic Thesis, which is related to the growth of capitalism. Let me just give a pentecostal angle to that notion. What is the impact of that, particularly in relatively poor communities? One result is that people actually end up having surplus capital, at least when compared with their neighbors who are continuing those practices. Where does that surplus capital go? It ends up being invested in their own petty businesses — and I could give a lot of examples of that.
It ends up being invested in the education of their children. There are other interesting angles here. Pentecostals very much believe that one should not be involved in promiscuous affairs, that young people should have sex only in marriage and that young women, in particular, should delay sexual debut and delay having children, which often results in them having more education, allowing them to be involved in better employment.
I think that there are significant implications, then, for the possibilities of not only self-worth, but also for the evolution of democratic reform within various countries. They are creating alternative schools, alternative forms of medical care. To the extent that this will actually occur, I guess time will tell. I should add, speaking of all the research that these fine folks are doing, that the Pew Forum, with the help of our friends at the Templeton Foundation, is about to launch a major series of surveys of pentecostal publics and leaders, both in the United States and around the world.
We hope to have these results ready by early fall, so stay tuned on that one. I would ask that you keep your comments and questions brief, and that you please identify yourself. My name is Joyce Dillard.
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The whole family left Sweden because they were Baptists. She was a Samuelson; Osterberg was her married name. And my grandparents were in the movement with Azusa Street. A lot of oral history is not brought up here. Family stability is another issue. That kept our family stable. And there was an individualism. My grandfather was one of those that did the baptisms in the name of Jesus; he was one of the rebels of the movement, and he was self-educated.
You have the power to do things, to act whenever.
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Also, I think as a whole, as far as world politics go, you need to address the use of the radio back in those times. Again, my grandfather had a radio.
They would come to our house for the Rose Parade. Later, toward the end of their lives, they did have a TV set, but most of the time that was taboo. Now, the use of television has come in with the movement, and I think that transition from radio to TV needs to be analyzed and reported on. Very few people know about this. Let me address a couple of things you said. You made the comment about tongues talking and the laying on of hands.
In seeking to answer these questions, chapter authors employ a variety of methodologies and theoretical interpretations, to bring order to the seeming chaos of this rapidly expanding religious movement. The empirical chapters are book ended by an introduction that sets the context for the many different expressions of Pentecostalism around the world, and a conclusion that draws out important theoretical implications for understanding Pentecostalism as a global phenomenon in the twenty-first century. Miller, editor University of Southern California. Don't have an account? Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use for details see www.
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Finding libraries that hold this item Amazing as it might have seemed a generation ago, we now have to reckon Pentecostal Christianity as one of the most successful and transformative global movements of the twentieth century. Fortunately, the topic has attracted some really first class scholarship, which is amply represented in Spirit and Power. This is a rich and multi-faceted collection of studies.
Readable and, often, inspiring. These valuable essays explicate this fastest growing segment of Christianity-renewalists. This volume sets the standard for a more sophisticated, multidimensional, and diverse comprehension of the growth and impact of global Pentecostalism. You may have already requested this item.
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