Pentecostals after a century : global perspectives on a movement in transition

230 Pages·1999·4.1 MB·English

by  Hollenweger

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Pentecostals after
a Century
Global Perspectives on a Movement
in Transition
I j
Edited by jfl
Allan H. Anderson and
Walter J. Hollenweger
C0RDA8C. BURNETT IJBPARY
ASSEMBLIES OF GOD THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 760-IS
Journal of Pentecostal Theology
Supplement Series
15
Editors
John Christopher Thomas
Rickie D. Moore
Steven J. Land
Sheffield Academic Press
Sheffield
Pentecostals after
a Century
Global Perspectives on a Movement
in Transition
Edited by
Allan H. Anderson and
Walter J. Hollenweger
Sheffield Academic Press
Copyright © 1999 Sheffield Academic Press
Published by
Sheffield Academic Press Ltd
Mansion House
19 Kingfield Road
Sheffield SI I 9AS
England
Typeset by Sheffield Academic Press
and
Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain
by Cromwell Press
Trowbridge. Wiltshire
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 1-84127-006-7
CONTENTS
Foreword by Harvey Cox 7
Acknowledgments 13
List of Contributors 15
ALLAN ANDERSON
Introduction : World Pentecostal ism at a Crossroads 19
WALTER J. HOLLENWEGER
The Black Roots of Pentecostalism 33
ERROL OLIVER
Response 45
ROBERT BECKFORD
Black Pentecostals and Black Politics 48
ROSW1TH gerloff
Response 60
roswith Gerloff
Pentecostals in the African Diaspora 67
JOSEPH ALDRED
Response 87
ALLAN ANDERSON
Dangerous Memories for South African Pentecostals 89
Patrick Kalilombe
Response
6 Pentecostals after a Century
JUAN SEPULVEDA
Indigenous Pentecoslalism and the Chilean Experience 11 1
J. ANDREW KIRK
Response 135
Lee Hong Jung
Minjung and Pentecostal Movements in Korea 138
bae hyoen Sung
Response 161
Walter j. hollenweger
Rethinking Spirit Baptism: The Natural and the Supernatural 164
Richard Massey
Response 173
WALTER J. HOLLENWEGER
Crucial Issues for Pentecostals 176
MARTIN ROBINSON
Response 192
LYNNE PRICE
Scholarship and Evangelism: Oil and Water? 197
ALLAN ANDERSON
Global Pentecostalism in the New Millennium 209
Index of Authors 224
FOREWORD
Harvey Cox
I am still trying to explain to polite but puzzled inquirers who identify
me with The Secular City, a book I wrote nearly 35 years ago, how and
why I became interested in Pentecostalism. Isn’t this, they ask. a com­
plete about-face, a sort of scholarly equivalent of eating crow? I do not
deny having changed my mind over three and a half decades. Only dead
people have not. But as I think about my own spiritual and intellectual
trajectory, my interest in the fastest growing Christian movement in the
world seems more like a natural development than a retraction. The
thesis of my earlier book was that God, despite the fears of many reli­
gious people, is also present in the ‘secular’, in those spheres of life that
are not usually thought of as ‘religious’. Have not Pentecostals vigor­
ously reclaimed many of these spheres as places where we are invited,
on a daily basis, to ‘walk with God’? The Secular City was also, at
points, a severe criticism of the traditional churches for ignoring the
marginated populations of the world. Pentecostalism continues this vig­
orous critique, and appeals to millions of people the other churches
have consistently failed to reach. Finally, I argued in The Secular City
that there was a kernel of truth in the overblown claims of the so-called
(and now forgotten) ‘death of God’ theologians. They saw, in a
somewhat sensational way, that the abstract deity of western theologies
and philosophical systems had come to the end of its run. Their forecast
of what would come next was dramatically mistaken, but the volcanic
eruption of a Christian movement that relies on the direct experience of
the Divine Spirit rather than on archaic creeds and stately rituals seems
to corroborate their diagnosis while it completely undercuts their pre­
scription.
In a nutshell, my interest in Pentecostalism arises from my recogni­
tion that this powerful moving of the Spirit, so thoroughly documented
by this excellent book is responding to many of the conditions I wrote
8 Pentecostal* after a Century
about so many years ago. Neither as a Christian nor as a scholar can I
ignore what is going on before our eyes as the twentieth century draws
to a close. My response to people who are surprised at my interest in
(and affection for) Penlecostals is to express my surprise that they are
not interested. Even if they are non-believers, 1 point out to them that
there is much that Pentecostalism can teach us about our common fu­
ture. I say this because I believe Pentecostalism represents a dramatic
example of a much larger development. After all, even sceptics simply
cannot ignore a religious movement that already encompasses 400
million people and is multiplying geometrically every day.
Indeed, by now, even the most casual observers of the world religious
scene have begun to suspect something of more than passing impor­
tance is going on. Maybe they have seen, or at least heard about, Robert
Duvall’s brilliant film The Apostle, which portrays—honestly and not
dismissively—an American Pentecostal preacher. Or this suspicion
might dawn when they see the picture of a worried looking Pope John
Paul II with the caption ‘Losing His Flock?’ on the cover of a weekly
news magazine which reports that the pope is desperately worried about
the millions of Brazilians and other Latin Americans who are quitting
the Roman Catholic Church to join some other—usually a Pente­
costal—church. Or they might discover the astonishing fact that the
largest single Christian congregation in the whole world—which I
visited a few years ago—is the Yoido Full Gospel (Pentecostal) Church
in Seoul, Korea. Or they might notice the sober projections by eminent
sociologists that—given current growth curves—by early in the next
century, Pentecostals in all their variegated manifestations may out­
number both Catholics and Protestants.
There is indeed something noteworthy going on, and it is not just
‘religious’. No thoughtful person, believer or non-believer, can deny it.
Still, amazingly, many continue to do so. Why? As ebullient as they are
in their song and praise, Pentecostals still represent a quiet revolution.
They are not headline grabbers. They do not issue death decrees. They
are not allied to surging nationalist movements. They do not take credit
for kidnapping hostages or bombing airliners. Consequently, the spec­
tacular growth of their churches does not often heave into public view.
Still, not only are they continuing to grow, I believe their growth holds
within it a host of significant clues to the meaning of the more general
global spiritual resurgence we are now witnessing.
Lots of people, of eourse. have tried to fathom the meaning of thi >
revival, and some have even focused on the Pentecostal movement as a
prime example. Earnest sociologists, puzzled psychologists, and dili­
gent anthropologists have all taken their turns. But the picture they
paint is often confused and contradictory. They point out that Pente-
costalism seems to spread most quickly in the slums and shantytowns
of the world's cities. Is it then a revival among the poor? Well, they
concede, not exclusively. Its message also appeals to other classes and
stations. Its promise of an unmediated experience of God, and of health
and well being now, not just after death, attracts a wide variety of
seekers.
But whom does it attract, and why? Again, as the contributors to this
volume demonstrate, the picture is not uniform. Pentecostals vary in
colour and gender and nationality. They may be teenagers or old folks,
though young adults lead the way. They may be poverty stricken or
perched somewhere in the lower ranges of the middle class: there are
not many well-to-do. They are what one writer calls the ‘discontents of
modernity’, not fully at home with today’s reigning values and life­
styles. Another scholar even describes the movement as a ‘symbolic re­
bellion’ against the modern world. But that does not quite jibe either,
for the people attracted to the Pentecostal message often seem even
more dissatisfied with traditional religions than they are with the mod­
ern world that is subverting them. For this reason, another writer de­
scribes them as providing a ‘different way of being modem’. Both may
be right. Refugees from the multiple tyrannies of both tradition and
modernity, Pentecostals are looking for what it takes to survive until a
new day dawns. Is there anyone who does not find a little of this wist­
fulness within? I certainly do.
But how much does all this tell us? Are sociological or psychological
analyses really enough to explain such a phenomenon? One historian
has called the Pentecostal surge the most significant religious move­
ment since the birth of Islam or the Protestant Reformation. But these
previous historic upheavals have for centuries defied attempts to explain
them in merely secular categories, however sophisticated. The present
religious rebirth, for which Pentecostalism is such a dramatic example,
also seems to slip through such conceptual grids. More and more, even
the most sceptical observers are beginning to concede that—whether
for weal or for woe—something more basic is underway.
10 Pentecostals after a Century
One of the first things I learned when 1 was writing Fire From Heav­
en and managed to visit congregations on four continents, was that the
movement looks and feels quite different to outsiders than it does to
insiders. The many millions of people who are ‘inside’ see themselves
as grateful beneficiaries of a wondrous stirring of the Spirit, an out­
pouring that has already radically transformed their own lives and is
certain to change many more. They believe the message they bear is
good news for a desperate age and that it marks a welcome new gift of
grace and wholeness for the world.'! cannot fully accept the totality of
their interpretation of what their faith means, but that does not mean
their interpretation is just to be seen as a curiosity. It is a key feature of
the picture. This means that in trying to grasp the meaning of Pente-
costalism as a suggestive clue to large religious and cultural changes,
we must listen to both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ voices. That is the great
strength of the present volume.
The most important thing I learned as I came to know the world­
wide Pentecostal movement is that it represents a clear signal that a big
change is on the way for humankind, [it is a change, furthermore, that
will not be confined to some special religious or spiritual sphere. Grant­
ed, there are many reasons to doubt whether such a metamorphosis is
actually at hand. It is true that in philosophy and literary criticism,
something called ‘postmodernism’ is the rage. But intellectuals like to
imagine themselves on the cutting edge, and post-modemism could be
one more pedantic self-delusion. Gurus and crystal gazers talk about a
‘New Age’, but they sound suspiciously like the ageing hippies who, 30
years ago, were hailing the imminent dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
The ‘new world order’ President Bush’s ‘Desert Storm’ was supposed
to introduce has turned out to be a mirage, and elsewhere in the inter­
national political arena we seem to be reeling backward to an era of
ethnic and tribal blood letting, not moving into anything very new at all.
There is every reason to share the scepticism of Ecclesiastes about
whether there is ever any ‘new thing under the sun’.
Still, despite the overheated atmosphere that will no doubt excite
even more apocalyptic fantasies as 2000 CE arrives, the question stub­
bornly persists. Do the Pentecostal movement and the global religious
stirring of which it is undoubtedly a part signal something larger and
more significant that is underway?
I think so. As a life-long student of religions—Christian and non-
Christian. historical and contemporary, seraphic and demonic—I have