Pentecostals: The Power of the Powerless

Many researchers interpret Pentecostalism in terms of external factors such as European and North American history or economics. In this article Pentecostalism is examined from below, through qualitative interviews with women living in poverty in Santiago, Chile. The analysis shows how Pentecostalism led to a new theology where the believer became the subject of her own life. Social ascent was made through ecstatic experiences of the spirit in a caring community which directed the individual towards “a female ethos.” This subjective change affected social changes in Chile under dictatorship but not in state politics because parts of the Pentecostal hierarchy collaborated with Pinochet.     

“Now you are the body of Christ,and members in particular” (1 Cor. 12:27): Pentecostalism and its Mission

The paper presents Pentecostalism that is primarily a mission movement more than a hundred years old. It reflects on the place and role in World Christianity of this still young and growing church tradition, and the relationships between Pentecostalism and the ecumenical movement. The challenges that Pentecostalism is facing are discussed, with special attention to the Eastern European context.     

OF MIRACLES AND METAPHYSICS: A PENTECOSTAL‐CHARISMATIC AND PROCESS‐RELATIONAL DIALOGUE

This article is comprised of a dialogue between Pentecostal‐Charismatic and Process‐Relational theologies on the perennial issue of miracles. The language of supernaturalism, widely employed by Pentecostal‐Charismatic theologians, is contrasted with the metaphysical naturalism of Process‐Relational theology; it is proposed that a philosophically and scientifically sensitive theology of miracles is possible through a synthesis of both traditions. Themes such as nonmaterialism over materialism, spiritual experience, and prayer for healing miracles are explored. A theology of miracles, mutually informed by both Pentecostal‐Charismatic and Process‐Relational theologies, may focus less on whether or not miracles are possible, but instead focus more on what kind of miracles human beings might value most. By mutually engaging a theology of nonsupernatural, metaphysically grounded miracles, Pentecostal‐Charismatic and Process‐Relational theologians may collaborate to establish the groundwork for creative scientific enterprises, especially in the non‐Western world where Pentecostalism continues to experience its most rapid growth, Such perspectives may eventually lead to cutting‐edge discoveries about the fundamental nature of, and God's interaction with, reality itself. Implications for future research are proposed.     

Just Wars,Holy Wars,and Jihads,edited by Sohail Hashmi,Oxford University Press: New York, 2012, xvi + 434 pp. ISBN 978 019 975503 5, US$35.00 (paperback)

In recent years, academic interest in the nexus between Pentecostalism, economics, and capitalism has grown significantly. Notably, the vast majority of publications that have addressed this interface are to some degree conceptually framed by Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In this article I consider what The Protestant Ethic might contribute to our understanding of the relationship between Pentecostalism and capitalism. First, I assess a particularly noteworthy attempt to draw Pentecostalism into Weber's genealogical account which draws a series of parallels between Pentecostalism and ascetic Protestantism. Second, I discuss the merits of an approach that is not primarily genealogical but remains indebted to the concepts that Weber introduces, elaborating a new affinity between Pentecostalism and capitalism in its present iteration. With this article, I seek to comprehensively extend the scope and sharpen the conceptual underpinnings of future analysis and empirical work in this area.     

Can Anything Good Come Out of Premillennialism? A Response to Robert O. Smith

Abstract :  This review expresses great concern with so-called Christian Zionism. The author explains the confusing push-pull relation of Pentecostalism to Christian Zionism's underlying apocalyptic eschatology, premillennial dispensationalism. He agrees with the thrust of Smith's discussion from a Lutheran perspective of the complex historical, theological, and political dynamics involved in Christian Zionism's formation and development, but accents distinctions between a generally harmless conventional form and a particularly virile fundamentalist form that can be aggressive and possibly even dangerous. Of special concern is articulation of an erudite political ethic informed by the theology of a Christian pneumatic apocalyptic eschatology, faithful to the incoming reign of God taking seriously predictive prophecy. In conversation with Smith, this appreciative response suggests a possible paradigm for positive involvement in political and social aspects of the present world congruent with apocalyptic hope expressed in premillennialist terms.     

Theological Education for a Religiously Radicalized World: An African Pentecostal Assist

The resurgence of Pentecostal Christianity at a time of increased religious radicalization in Africa is a disconcerting development. This problem is further compounded by the dearth of analytical research that explores the role theological education should play in preparing Pentecostalism to engage a religiously radicalized Africa. This paper offers a response in three ways: first, it reviews the legacy of missionary theological education and offers an overview of religion and state relations in Africa. Second, it discusses theological education and the implications of the rise of Pentecostalism in a context of religious radicalization. Third, it outlines how theological education could be reinvigorated to enable Pentecostalism to confront the challenges of religious radicalization in Africa. The paper concludes that theological education is a compelling stimulus that enables African Pentecostalism to promote peaceful coexistence and tolerance in ways that bear witness to the gospel of peace as well as reflect the African agency of faith. 1     

Book Reviews

A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States , by Helen A. Berger
Religion in the News:Faith and Journalism in American Public Discourse , by Stewart M. Hoover
Seventh-Day Adventism in Crisis: Gender and Sectarian Change inan Emerging Religion , by Laura L. Vance
Prophetic Pentecostalism in Chile: A Case Study on Religion and Development Policy , by Franz Kamsteeg
Process, Praxis, and Transcendence , by James L. Marsh
Sociology and the World's Religions , by Malcolm Hamilton
American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving , by Christian Smith
Journeys to the Spiritual Lands: The Natural History of West IndianReligion , by Wallace W. Zane
Sacred Companies: Organizational Aspects of Religion And Religious Aspects of Organizations , edited by N.J. Demerath III, Peter Dobkin Hall, Terry Schmitt, and Rhys H. Williams
The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns , by Robert A. Emmons
Becoming Religious: Understanding Devotion to the Unseen , by Susan Kwilecki
     

Holm's Use of Role Theory: Empirical and Hermeneutical Considerations of Sacred Text as a Source of Role Adoption

Holm's essay, Pentecostalism: Conversion and Charismata, is critiqued in terms of a perceived inadequacy in discussing Nordic Pentecostalism, conver- sion, and the charismata. It is suggested that the strength of Holm's essay resides in its presentation of Sunden's role theory. The essay has much heuristic merit in light of theoretical possibilities that could be investigated. Holm is seen as not perceiving the implications of his own presentation.     

Pentecostal Gift to Christian Unity: Its Possibility in the New Global Context

Church unity has been much discussed, particularly around the centenary of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference. Pentecostalism, as a new player in today's global Christianity, comes with its unique potential toward church unity and corporation. This study identifies three such gifts: numerical growth, spontaneous ecumenicity through worship, and missional cooperation. The study concludes with a self‐critical caution for fellow Pentecostals and the world church so that these gifts would be strengthened.     

The Pentecostal movement in North America and beyond

Pentecostalism began in North America and spread across the globe. It grew out of the ferment of American religious life and manifested elements of Wesleyan Methodism and Holiness theology. The Azusa Street revival after 1906 facilitated its world‐wide dissemination. After the 1960s the charismatic movement or ‘second wave’ provided further momentum to the movement, and this was supplemented by indigenous Pentecostalism in the developing world.     

Healing the Curse of the grosero Husband: Women’s Health Seeking and Pentecostal Conversion in Oaxaca,Mexico

Drawing on anthropological research in Oaxaca, Mexico, this article describes the role of health seeking in women’s experiences with Pentecostal conversion. The present study confirms that Pentecostalism’s promise of reforming problematic male behavior is a significant draw for women. Women’s stories of conversion are strikingly consistent in their accounts of male drinking, womanizing, and domestic violence. However, the findings also demonstrate that when efforts to domesticate men fail—and they often do—women still find significant ways in which Pentecostalism addresses suffering. The study provides a unique contribution to the literature by exploring that paradox in detail.     

Multiple Modernities: The Role of World Religions in an Emerging Paradigm

This article contributes to the emerging multiple modernities thesis and its treatment of world religions. Using a cross-continent comparison of evangelical Pentecostalism, it argues that religion can have cross-cutting implications for modernity’s extension in the Global South. The social patterns and networks of national evangelical Pentecostal communities in different contexts vary, allowing them to help modernizing societies pursue unique goals and identities. However, Pentecostalism also introduces remarkably similar sets of formal organizations to its host societies, which are maintained by isomorphic pressures operating in transnational organizational fields. Religion thus promotes heterogeneity and homogeneity in modernizing contexts. These findings further nuance the multiple modernities thesis and show the potential utility of the thesis for the sociology of religion.     

The Cultural Revolution and the Emergence of Pentecostal-style Protestantism in China

This article seeks to locate the manifested Pentecostal characteristics of Chinese Protestantism in the context of an individualistic and feminised religious arena during China's Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Life-story interview data collected in south-eastern China reveal that the unavailability of religious authorities during the Cultural Revolution brought about a decentralised and experiential Protestant religious form, demonstrating a cultural pattern similar to that of Pentecostalism. This religious form was particularly successful in attracting women and communicating across cultural frontiers, thus contributing to Protestant breakthroughs in rural areas. Nevertheless, without institutionalising a Pentecostal doctrine and practice, this Pentecostal-like religiosity would be subject to further change with the return of religious authorities after the 1980s. I propose an analytical tool that I call ‘practice-led Pentecostalism’ for grasping this fluid religious dynamic.     

Inquiry of Pentecostalism Regarding Pneumatology: A Theological Suggestion of a Feminist Perspective

This article revisits the legacy of the Pentecostal movement in Korea based on pneumatology and reflects on the issues of Pentecostalism from a feminist perspective. It elaborates on (1) the patriarchal top‐down hierarchy by personal cult, (2) gender injustice, and (3) the dualistic conflict of ideology. Pentecostalism is an important trend in World Christianity and in the Korean landscape of Christianity in particular. In terms of impact on society, Pentecostalism is more influential compared to Minjung theology, and these two streams have common interest regarding marginalized people. Given global challenges and growing economic disparity, it is also relevant to promote cooperation between the evangelical and ecumenical movements. To promote a new paradigm of mission and evangelism in the 21st century in the Korean context, we need to improve several aspects thereof in terms of justice, peace, and integration of creation. In this era of liberal market capitalism, when human individualization and economic inequality are accelerating, what we need is a purpose for common goodness that is based on the incarnation of God's love and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Our perception of pneumatology should be constructively oriented toward justice and life for conviviality instead of the divinization of human beings.     

‘Delivered By the Power of God’: Toward a Pentecostal Understanding of Salvation

Abstract: The quest to find a doctrinal framework that faithfully reflects Pentecostalism continues among Pentecostal theologians. Among the variety of proposals offered, a consensus has emerged on the centrality of the doctrine of salvation for a Pentecostal theology. Using theological models as a methodological approach, the claim is made that a Pentecostal theology best functions within a model of salvation that can be expressed in terms of two dominant metaphors: acquisition of God's life and deliverance. Consequently, a Pentecostal understanding of salvation concerns the ongoing deliverance from sin in all of its permutations through the increasing acquisition of God's triune life.     

Pushing Pentecostalism toward the respectable: on the mainstreaming of a countercultural religious movement in Chile

ABSTRACT

Pentecostalism used to be the stigmatized religion of the marginal sectors of Chilean society and has often been interpreted by scholars in terms of symbolic protest. However, a new generation of Pentecostals is now attempting to redefine their religion as more legitimate and respectable. This process involves attempts at gaining more public recognition and it implies revisiting Pentecostal stylistic and religious practices. Many younger Pentecostals tend to distance themselves, both from certain kinds of emotional expressions and from what they perceive as the rigid formalism of classical Pentecostalism. This is prevalent, both in Pentecostal worship which carefully balances effusiveness and liveliness with control, and in testimonies of younger Pentecostals who tend to downplay the sensationalist aspects of conversion (as caused by an instant revelation) and rather portray it as a gradual process of maturation. My paper explores how mainstreaming processes unfold at different levels and occasionally cause tensions among Chilean Pentecostals.     

Critical Dogmatics as Paradigm

Theology as “critical dogmatics” points to a way forward between naturalism and constructivism in thought “after modernity.” It urges neither pre‐critical dogmatics nor modern systematizing, but a proposal for a pragmatic and hermeneutical theology making a single claim to truth about God as the One determined to redeem and fulfill the creation through the missions of God's Son and Spirit. This article clarifies the difference between Rudolph Bultmann's program of demythologization, and more generally, dialectical theology's antinomy of “the word of God and the word of humans,” and the sense of “deliteralization” in the strong trinitarian personalism of critical dogmatics.     

The Way of Salvation in Luther's Theology: A Feminist Evaluation

Abstract : Luther's understanding of salvation can be summed up with the phrase “justification by grace through faith.” The doctrine of justification is the focal point for all theological categories in Luther's theology, including salvation. That said, this article examines various ways grace or salvation is understood to be conveyed in Luther's theology through: the cross, the resurrection or through God's election and covenant with humankind. Throughout the article, it evaluates these foci for salvation in terms of their ability to speak gospel to women's lives today. In particular, it evaluates the appropriate usage of Luther's epistemology of the cross.     

When the Common Good Takes the Grand(est) Stage The Cosmic Common Good: Religious Grounds for Ecological Ethics,Daniel P. Scheid,Oxford University Press, 2016 (ISBN 978‐0‐19‐935943‐1), xvi + 248 pp., hb £19.99

Rooting itself in Catholic social teaching rather than theology of creation, this book develops a novel approach to Catholic ecological ethics. It argues that the traditional conception of the social common good should be fully broadened to encompass all creation, including abiota. Furthermore, the book suggests a comparative‐theological approach to ecological ethics through careful conversations with Buddhist, Hindu, and American Lakota conceptions and practices. While its vision of the cosmic common good at times appears too inclusive and perhaps ‘too good to be true’, this book is a valuable contribution to Christian ecological ethics and includes a fresh comparative‐theological take on ecological questions.     

Your Body is a Temple: Conversion Narratives in African-Led Eastern European Pentecostalism

The word conversion has a multitude of meanings within religions. For Pentecostal Christianity in particular it is spoken of essentially as an external act of religious change. In Pentecostalism, therefore, to convert is to move to the Christian faith and it usually implies making a personal decision for Jesus Christ. In the Church of the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for all Nations, a majority of its members have gone through this transition and in the process presented their human bodies to God as temples within which His Spirit now comes to dwell. The metaphor of the body is particularly strong in Pauline thought and it is one that enables a useful appreciation of conversion in Pentecostal spirituality.