PentecoStudies

Editorial

2020-10-12T21:39:38+00:00

BUTLER, Melvin L. Island Gospel: Pentecostal Music and Identity in Jamaica and the United States.

2021-06-25T14:19:15+00:00

BUTLER, Melvin L. Island Gospel: Pentecostal Music and Identity in Jamaica and the United States. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2019. 224pp. ISBN: 9780252084720. Pbk. $25.00.

CARTLEDGE, Mark J. The Mediation of the Spirit: Interventions in Practical Theology.

2021-06-25T14:24:42+00:00

CARTLEDGE, Mark J. The Mediation of the Spirit: Interventions in Practical Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015. 199pp. Pbk. ISBN: 9780802869555. £20.99.

FRESTADIUS, Simo. Pentecostal Rationality: Epistemology and Theological Hermeneutics in the Foursquare Tradition.

2021-06-25T14:35:10+00:00

FRESTADIUS, Simo. Pentecostal Rationality: Epistemology and Theological Hermeneutics in the Foursquare Tradition. London: T. & T. Clark, 2020. 228 pp. Hbk. ISBN: 9780567689382. $115.

STEPHENSON, Christopher (ed.). An Amos Yong Reader: The Pentecostal Spirit.

2021-06-25T14:52:28+00:00

STEPHENSON, Christopher (ed.). An Amos Yong Reader: The Pentecostal Spirit. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2020. 342pp. Pbk. ISBN: 9781725250895. £30.00.

VAN DER LAAN, Cornelis. Margaretha Adriana Alt: Mother of the Indonesian Pentecostal Mission.

2021-06-25T15:08:43+00:00

VAN DER LAAN, Cornelis. Margaretha Adriana Alt: Mother of the Indonesian Pentecostal Mission. Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2019. 321pp. Pbk. ISBN: 9781935931836. £15.68.

Provincialism as Asset and Predicament

2021-01-25T21:44:41+00:00

The present article problematizes the dominant image of Pentecostalism as a par excellence global, context-sensitive and anti-nationalist form of Christianity by analysing the development over the last fifty years of the leading Pentecostal church in Greece, where nationalism has strong roots and is closely linked to Orthodox Christianity. It can be established that the church’s adaptation to dominant religious expectations in Greece did ensure its hegemonic position among Greek Pentecostals but it also involved its disconnection from global Pentecostalism. Furthermore, the very success of the church over the first three decades after its establishment stimulated a structural rigidity, which in turn proved to be fatal for its capacity to adapt to an ever-changing social context in Greece. Being neither globalist nor adaptive, the largest Greek Pentecostal church has remained stagnating.

Dreadlocks in the Church of Pentecost

2021-06-25T13:42:39+00:00

This paper discusses a controversy about the acceptance of dreadlocks that arose in the Church of Pentecost (CoP) in 2010. Based in Ghana and espousing a strong holiness ethics, the church had for many years held fast to a condescending rejection of people with locked hair. Originally, this was justified with the association of dreadlocks with “paganism” and mental illnesses. Later, Rastafarianism re-signified dreadlocks as a symbol for yet another religion with which Pentecostalism had no common ground. Yet, through its association with African nationalism and anti colonialism, Rastafarianism also prepared the integration of dreadlocks into broader Ghanaian culture, where they became something of a fashion trend. It was now, and with a missiological motive, that the church started to make overtures toward people with dreadlocks. Under the chairmanship of Opoku Onyinah, the church issued a reform that allowed persons with dreadlocks to freely worship with the church, and in 2015 a special convention was held for people with locked hair. The reform and the convention met a sustained backlash that threatened to split apart the CoP. Relying on ethnographic data collected in Ghana in 2019, this paper traces the cultural and theological reasons for the contention that surrounded the acceptance of dreadlocks in the CoP. The argument is that the challenge facing the CoP is not so much in choreographing a break with the past, but how to uphold a clearly demarcated difference from the “modern world,” a difference that is demanded by holiness born-again theology but is in constant need of adjustment as church seeks to remain relevant in its mission to young people while cultural significations shift.

Pentecostal Theological Education

2020-11-21T14:35:15+00:00

Pentecostalism has a mixed history with theological education. The movement has been shaped by a strong current of anti-intellectualism, but it has also established and supported training institutions from its inception. This article briefly maps out the historical development of Western classical Pentecostal theological education and proposes that many of the existing challenges and tensions have been caused by the movement’s uncritical adoption of Fundamentalist theological norms and a “pick and mix” approach to theological training. This has resulted in incoherences in Pentecostal education, and has also polarized academic theology and the work of the Holy Spirit. The article argues that a coherent Pentecostal theological education should be informed by Pentecostal philosophical determinants. After outlining Pentecostal metaphysics, epistemology and teleology, the article proposes seven theses for Pentecostal theological education in late-modernity. The educational vision that emerges is characterized by holism and a pluralistic Pentecostal hermeneutic.

Migration and Global Pentecostalism in the Greater Stockholm Area

2021-06-25T14:12:39+00:00

Today, roughly 25 per cent of the Swedish population have their immediate roots in a foreign country. In the largest metropolitan area of Sweden, Greater Stockholm, the figure is 33 per cent, and it is even larger in the two other major cities, Gothenburg (35%) and Malmö (44%). This remarkable demographic shift is necessarily influencing the religious landscape. While one major part of the immigration to Sweden is Muslim, the greater number of the immigrants are of a Christian background. Among these, Orthodox and Catholic immigrants from the Middle East have attracted greater attention, while immigrants with a Pentecostal Charismatic affiliation have often been overlooked. This is unwarranted, because the Pentecostal-Charismatic migrants churches are growing rapidly, both in number and in adherents. This is especially the case in Greater Stockholm. Based on original surveys by the author, this article explores migrant Pentecostal churches in Greater Stockholm, presenting their numerical growth, discussing their ethnic and cultural backgrounds as well as their theological orientation, and presenting an analysis of their sociological character in relation to their geographical location. This survey calls into question the stereotypes of Sweden as the epitome of secularization and of its urban centres being “tombs for religion”.