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How and why is Christianity's center of gravity shifting to the developing world? To understand this rapidly growing phenomenon, Donald E. Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori spent four years traveling the globe conducting extensive on-the-ground research in twenty different countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. The result is this vividly detailed book and accompanying DVD, which together contain the most comprehensive information available on Pentecostalism, the fastest-growing religion in the world. Rich with scenes from everyday life, the book and DVD dispel many stereotypes about this religion as they build a wide-ranging, nuanced portrait of a major new social movement. The DVD features footage of Pentecostal religious worship, testimony, and social activism, and includes interviews with Pentecostal pastors and leaders from around the world.
African Pentecostalism: An Introduction
by: Ogbu Kalu
publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, published: 2008-03-31
ASIN: 0195339991
sales rank: 396209
price: $17.64 (new), $17.69 (used)
Across Africa, Christianity is thriving in all shapes and sizes. But one particular strain of Christianity prospers more than most -- Pentecostalism. Pentecostals believe that everyone can personally receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit such as prophecy or the ability to speak in tongues. In Africa, this kind of faith, in which the supernatural is a daily presence, is sweeping the continent. Today, about 107 million Africans are Pentecostals -- and the numbers continue to rise. In this book, Ogbu Kalu provides the first ever overview of Pentecostalism in Africa. He shows the amazing diversity of the faith, which flourishes in many different forms in diverse local contexts. While most people believe that Pentecostalism was brought to Africa and imposed on its people by missionaries, Kalu argues emphatically that this is not the case. Throughout the book, he demonstrates that African Pentecostalism is distinctly African in character, not imported from the West. With an even-handed approach, Kalu presents the religion's many functions in African life. Rather than shying away from controversial issues like the role of money and prosperity in the movement, Kalu describes malpractice when he sees it. The only book to offer a comprehensive look at African Pentecostalism, this study touches upon the movement's identity, the role of missionaries, media and popular culture, women, ethics, Islam, and immigration. The resulting work will prove invaluable to anyone interested in Christianity outside the West.
This book considers whether Pentecostalism will remain a vibrant religious force in the land of its birth (the U.S.), and if so, what forms it will take. The contributors represent a variety of disciplinary and methodological approaches in answering these questions, often concluding that U.S. Pentecostalism(s) are in decline but able to reform.
Combining personal stories and sound scholarship, Paul Alexander, a young scholar with a Pentecostal background, examines the phenomenal worldwide success of Pentecostalism. While most other works on the subject are either for academics or believers, this book speaks to a broader audience. Interweaving stories of his own and his family's experiences with an account of Pentecostalism's history and tenets, Alexander provides a unique and accessible perspective on the movement.
The Pentecostal movement has had an incredible impact on the shape of worldwide Christianity in the past century. Estimates are that Pentecostals and charismatics make up approximately one-fourth of Christians worldwide, and the numbers are only expected to grow. With these developments comes the need for thoughtful Christians of all persuasions to better understand Pentecostal theology. In fact, Amos Yong believes that Pentecostal theology can be a great gift to the church at large. Yong presents a thoroughly Pentecostal theology of salvation, the church, the nature of God, and creation. He also provides a fascinating survey of the state of worldwide Pentecostalism, examining how Pentecostal theology is influencing Christian churches in other countries.
Pentecostalism is the fastest expanding religious movement in the world today. Allan Anderson makes more visible its "non-Western" nature, without overlooking the importance of the movement emanating from North America. Concentrating on its history and theology, Anderson reflects on the movement's development and significance throughout the world. He explores those theological issues that helped form a distinctive spirituality and relates them to different peoples and cultures.
"A great read for anyone wanting to thnk about how to interpret contemporary religious trends, and for those versed in Euro-American forms of Pentecostalism to consider how non-Western variations may challenge and expand the theoretical repertoire on the subject." -- Religious Studies Review
"" -- African Studies Review
Over the past two decades, Latin American and African societies have experienced the phenomenal growth of Pentecostal movements. This book examines the subject from different perspectives, taking into consideration the important transnational character of such movements and their tendency to foster identities which transcend the national and cultural context in which they begin.
Today pentecostalism claims nearly 500 million followers worldwide. An early stronghold was the American South, where believers spoke in unknown tongues, worshipped in free-form churches, and broke down social barriers that had long divided traditional Protestants. Thriving denominations made their headquarters in the region and gathered white and black converts from the Texas plains to the Carolina low country.
Pentecostalism was, in fact, a religious import. It came to the South following the post-Civil War holiness revival, a northern-born crusade that emphasized sinlessness and religious empowerment. Adherents formed new churches in the Jim Crow South and held unconventional beliefs about authority, power, race, and gender. Such views set them at odds with other Christians in the region. By 1900 nearly all southern holiness folk abandoned mainline churches and adopted a pessimistic, apocalyptic theology. Signs of the last days, they thought, were all around them.
The faith first took root among anonymous religious zealots. It later claimed southern celebrities and innovators like televangelists Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, T. D. Jakes, and John Hagee; rock-and-roll icons Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard; and, more recently, conservative political leaders such as John Ashcroft.
With the growth of southern pentecostal denominations and the rise of new, affluent congregants, the movement moved cautiously into the evangelical mainstream. By the 1980s the once-apolitical faith looked entirely different. Many still watched and waited for spectacular signs of the end. Yet a growing number did so as active political conservatives.
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The Rev. Charles P. Henderson is a Presbyterian minister and
Executive Director of CrossCurrents.
He is the author of God and Science (John Knox Press, 1986).
A revised and expanded version of the book is appearing here. God and Science (Hypertext Edition,
2005).
He is also editor of a new book, featuring articles by world class scientists and theologians, and illustrating the leading views on the relationship between science and religion: Faith, Science and the Future (CrossCurrents Press, 2007).
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