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Journal articles on the topic 'African pentecostal churches'
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1
Anderson, Allan. "New African Initiated Pentecostalism and Charismatics in South Africa." Journal of Religion in Africa 35, no. 1 (2005): 66–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1570066052995843.
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AbstractThe new Pentecostal churches in South Africa, while not as numerically significant as those elsewhere in Africa, follow similar patterns. Tracing the rise of white megachurches in the 1980s and the subsequent emergence of black Charismatic churches similar to those found elsewhere in Africa, this article outlines their ambivalent relationship with the apartheid regime and the increasing disillusionment of black Pentecostals in the run-up to the 1994 elections. It traces the roles of Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders in the new South Africa and the impact of African Charismatic preachers from elsewhere, pilgrimages to other Pentecostal centres and other factors of globalization. After a survey of different Pentecostal churches, it discusses how new South African Pentecostals illustrate Coleman's dimensions of a globalized Charismatic Christianity.
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Clarke, Clifton. "Old Wine and New Wine Skins: West Indian and the New West African Pentecostal Churches in Britain and the Challenge of Renewal." Journal of Pentecostal Theology 19, no. 1 (2010): 143–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/174552510x489937.
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AbstractThis article is about the black Pentecostal churches of West Indian and West African origin in the Britain. It explores the challenges and opportunities for renewal and reappropriation that confront transmigration black Pentecostal churches beyond the first and second generation. It looks at the older West Indian Pentecostal churches (New Testament Church of God) and the new West African churches (Redeemed Christian Church of God) and asks, what are the lessons of continuity and renewal that they can mutually teach each other at a time of steady decline of traditional black Pentecostalism and the rise of a new West African Pentecostal brand? It places black Pentecostal movements in Britain within the broader global Pentecostal movement and argues against fragmented identities and historiographies which mitigate against mutual learning and shared experience.
3
Hudson, Andrew Sinclair. "Pentecostal History, Imagination, and Listening between the Lines." PNEUMA 36, no. 1 (2014): 25–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700747-03601003.
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As Pentecostals have historically lived, ministered, and led from the margins, their histories often challenge the historian. Reading the religious and social histories contemporaneous to the beginnings of many pentecostal churches and movements is often not enough to discover the complex tapestry of pentecostal voices. Not only oral but also, and particularly, aural historical elements play a key role in the recovery of the “unheard” protagonists in pentecostal histories. The example of Richard Green Spurling and the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) provides an opportunity to imaginatively reconstruct the influences of African Americans on a white Appalachian Baptist-turned-pentecostal preacher. Investigating sung moments of African American prisoners working on a local railroad could shape the religious pedigree of this classical North American pentecostal denomination. This article will explore pentecostal historiography by investigating Spurling and the sung music of African American prisoners as a case study of imaginatively rereading pentecostal histories.
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Englund, Harri. "CHRISTIAN INDEPENDENCY AND GLOBAL MEMBERSHIP: PENTECOSTAL EXTRAVERSIONS IN MALAWI." Journal of Religion in Africa 33, no. 1 (2003): 83–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006603765626721.
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AbstractRecent scholarship on Pentecostalism in Africa has debated issues of transnationalism, globalisation and localisation. Building on Bayart's notion of extraversion, this scholarship has highlighted Pentecostals' far-flung networks as resources in the growth and consolidation of particular movements and leaders. This article examines strategies of extraversion among independent Pentecostal churches. The aim is less to assess the historical validity of claims to independency than to account for its appeal as a popular idiom. The findings from fieldwork in a Malawian township show that half of the Pentecostal churches there regard themselves as 'independent'. Although claims to independency arise from betrayals of the Pentecostal promise of radical equality in the Holy Spirit, independency does sustain Pentecostals' desire for membership in a global community of believers. Pentecostal independency thus provides a perspective on African engagements with the apparent marginalisation of the sub-continent in the contemporary world. Two contrasting cases of Pentecostal independency reveal similar aspirations and point out the need to appreciate the religious forms of extraversion. Crucial to Pentecostal extraversions are believers' attempts to subject themselves to a spiritually justified hierarchy.
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Nel, Marius. "REMEMBERING AND COMMEMORATING THE THEOLOGICAL LEGACY OF JOHN G. LAKE IN SOUTH AFRICA AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS." Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 41, no. 3 (May 12, 2016): 147–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/2412-4265/400.
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John G. Lake visited South Africa in 1908 as part of a missionary team with the aim to propagate the message of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as experienced at the Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission in 312 Azusa Street, Los Angeles under the leadership of William Seymour, son of African-American slaves. Lake’s missionary endeavours that ended in 1913 established the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa and eventually also the African Pentecostal churches (‘spiritual churches’, ‘Spirit-type churches’, ‘independent African Pentecostal churches’ or ‘prophet-healing churches’) constituting the majority of so-called African Independent/Initiated/Instituted (or indigenous) churches (AICs). This article calls for remembering and commemorating Lake’s theological legacy in South Africa in terms of these two groups of churches.
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Omenyo, Cephas. "From the Fringes to the Centre: Pentecostalization of the Mainline Churches in Ghana." Exchange 34, no. 1 (2005): 39–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1572543053506338.
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AbstractIn this article, the author deals with the unprecedented integration of charismatic features in the ethos of the mainline churches of Ghana which respond to typical African questions thus rejuvenating those churches. He describes and analyses the way the charismatic phenomenon which began in the margins has become a central element of all the mainline historic churches in Ghana. While in the past the African Independent/Instituted churches and later Pentecostal and Neo–Pentecostal churches were noted for charismatic enthusiasm, currently the phenomenon has found its way into the mainline churches thus blurring the sharp distinction between mainline churches and Pentecostals. As a result, there is a major paradigmatic shift in the spirituality, theology, practices and programs of mainline churches in Ghana. Thus the phenomenon can no longer be regarded as peripheral in the life of the older Ghanaian churches.
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Gathogo, Julius, and Margaret W. Gitumu. "Mwendoni-ire Z K”." Jumuga Journal of Education, Oral Studies, and Human Sciences (JJEOSHS) 2, no. 1 (February 20, 2019): 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.35544/jjeoshs.v2i1.13.
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In this article, Professor ZK Mathews is not only seen as a responsible leader in his own right but more importantly, he is seen as a prominent educationist in the complex socio-political situation of apartheid South Africa. “Mwendoni-ire Z K” (beloved ZK) became the first African to obtain a Bachelor of Arts Degree (BA) at the University of South Africa, in 1924. His other public roles as ANC founder, Ambassador, an educationist, activist for social justice, a Pan-Africanist, and an ecumenist makes him one of a kind. As both a community and church leader, the article seeks to assess his display of social responsibility in the dark period of African history when separate development was the vogue. Did he act responsibly in addressing social issues during his heydays? What didn’t he do during his lifetimes? Are there critical communal issues that he failed to do yet he had an opportunity which he did not exhaustively utilize? To this end, this article builds on the premise that the spread of Christianity in Africa, its shape and character, has been the by-product of responsible Leadership, both in the Mission Churches/mainline churches and in the African Instituted Churches, and even from within the emerging afro-Pentecostal churches. Without responsible leadership on the part of the Africans themselves, the spread of Christianity in Africa would have nose-dived. In categorising the three brands of Christianity in Africa, it is critical to acknowledge that, Mission Churches are those that evolved directly from the outreach of Western denominations; afro-Pentecostals are those who consciously or unconsciously allow a measure of dialogue between Pentecostalism and some elements of African culture in their discourses; while African initiated Churches are those Churches which were born in Africa, and were primarily begun by Africans themselves as they protested western intrusion and subjugation of their cultures as Africans. In view of this, ZK is viewed as a responsible leader who confronted social ecclesial matters with a reasonable degree of success.
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Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena. "'Broken Calabashes and Covenants of Fruitfulness': Cursing Barrenness in Contemporary African Christianity." Journal of Religion in Africa 37, no. 4 (2007): 437–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006607x230535.
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AbstractChildlessness is an issue of deep religious concern in Africa. Men, women and couples with problems of sexuality and childlessness make use not only of the resources of traditional African religions but also of the many Pentecostal/charismatic churches and movements that have burgeoned throughout sub-Saharan Africa in the last three decades. Initially this was the domain of the older African independent churches, as far as the Christian response to childlessness is concerned; the new Pentecostals have taken on the challenge too. Based on the same biblical and traditional worldviews that events have causes, these churches have mounted ritual contexts that wrestle with the issues of sexuality and childlessness. In pursuing this salvific endeavor, however, the needs of those who may never have children seem to have been neglected by the churches considered here and represented by the Pure Fire Miracle Ministries, a Ghana/Nigeria charismatic church located in Ghana. is partial approach to 'healing' childlessness has led to one-sided interpretations of what it means to be fruitful and prosperous and deepened the troubles of the childless.
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Biri, Kudzai. "Migration, Transnationalism and the Shaping of Zimbabwean Pentecostal Spirituality." African Diaspora 7, no. 1 (2014): 139–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18725465-00701007.
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This article explores the effects of global expansion and the importance of diasporic transnational connections on the theology and practice of an African Pentecostal church. It takes the case of Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa (ZAOGA), one of the largest and oldest Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe. The growth of this Pentecostal movement, both within and without Zimbabwe, has depended centrally on the homeland church leadership’s capacity to maintain transnational connections with its own external congregations, termed Forward in Faith Ministries International (FIFMI). The article examines how transnational ties, strengthened through the phenomenal exodus from Zimbabwe from 2000 and the associated creation of new diasporic communities, have affected the church’s teaching and practice. Existing literature on globalised African Pentecostal movements elaborates how these churches can provide modes of coping, cutting across geographical and conceptual boundaries to create powerful new transnational notions of community that enable congregants to cope with circumstances of rapid change, uncertainty and spatial mobility. Here, I argue that ZAOGA’s teaching encouraged emigration over the period of the Zimbabwe crisis, but combined this with an emphasis on departure as a temporary sojourn, stressed the morality and importance of investing in the homeland, and promoted a theology of Zimbabwe as morally superior to the foreign countries where diasporic communities have grown up. A sense of transnational Pentecostal religious community has thus developed alongside the circulation of essentialised notions of national cultural difference hinging on derogatory stereotypes of foreigners while elevating the moral supremacy of Zimbabwean nationhood.
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Togarasei, Lovemore. "HISTORICISING PENTECOSTAL CHRISTIANITY IN ZIMBABWE." Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 42, no. 2 (August 22, 2016): 1–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/2412-4265/103.
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This paper is a first attempt to systematically present a history of Pentecostal Christianity in Zimbabwe. The paper first discusses the introduction of the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) in Zimbabwe before moving on to discuss some of the Pentecostal churches born out of the AFM. This is followed by a discussion of the 1980s and 1990s explosion of American type Pentecostal churches and the current Pentecostal charismatic churches that seem to be sweeping the Christian landscape in the country. The paper acknowledges the difficulty of writing a history of Pentecostalism in the country due to a lack of sources. It identifies AFM as the mother church of Pentecostal movements in Zimbabwe, but also acknowledges the existence and influence of other earlier movements. It has shown that the current picture of Zimbabwean Christianity is heavily influenced by Pentecostalism in mainline churches, African Initiated Churches (AICs) and the various Pentecostal movements.
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Olofinjana, Israel Oluwole. "Pentecostal Dynamics of African Initiated Churches." International Review of Mission 108, no. 2 (November 2019): 375–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/irom.12291.
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Olorunnisola, Titus S. "MIGRATION AND THE TRANS-NATIONALISATION OF AFRICAN PENTECOSTALISM IN EUROPE." Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal 7, no. 1 (January 13, 2020): 66–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.71.7163.
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Migration, the movement of people from one geographical location to another is an indispensable component of globalisation which has impacted the latter with visible effects. Neo-Pentecostal Christian movements from different parts of Africa have seized the advantage of both migration and globalization to advance their missionary causes. This has resulted in planting new churches and organization of para-church ministries and outreaches in different parts of Europe and elsewhere.
Using the Critical Integrated Analysis (CIA) method, which seeks to generate data from the existing body of knowledge, the article explored the trajectories of African migration vis-à-vis the penetration of African-led Pentecostal churches in some part of Europe. This process has stemmed encounters between the European and African cultures plus the hurdle of navigating the cultural nuances of the Europeans.
The article discovered that although there are shreds of evidence of growth among African-led migrant churches, more grounds need to be covered. It suggested that migrant churches need to structure their ministries and organisations in ways that propel appropriate cultural engagement with their host communities to enable them to influence and transform their immediate social realities.
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Machingura, Francis. "The Significance of Glossolalia in the Apostolic Faith Mission, Zimbabwe." Studies in World Christianity 17, no. 1 (April 2011): 12–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/swc.2011.0003.
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This study seeks to look at the meaning and significance of Glossolalia 1 in the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe. 2 This paper has also been influenced by debates surrounding speaking in tongues in most of the Pentecostal churches in general and the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe in particular. It was the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) that brought Pentecostalism to Zimbabwe. 3 The paper situates the phenomenon of glossolalia in the Zimbabwean socio-economic, spiritual, and cultural understanding. The Pentecostal teachings on the meaning and significance of speaking in tongues have caused a stir in psychological, linguistics, sociological, anthropological, ethnographical, philological, cultural, and philosophical debates. Yet those in the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe argue that their concept of glossolalia is biblically rooted. Surprisingly non-glossolalist Christians also use the Bible to dismiss the pneumatic claims by Pentecostals. The emphasis on speaking in tongues in the AFM has rendered Zimbabwean ‘mainline’ churches like Anglicans, Catholics and Methodists as meaningless. This is the same with African Indigenous Churches which have also been painted with ‘fault-lines’, giving an upper hand to AFM in adding up to its ballooning number of followers. This is as a result of their restorationist perspective influenced by the history of the Pentecostal Churches that views all non-Pentecostal churches as having fallen from God's intentions through compromise and sin. The AFM just like other Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe exhibit an aggressive assault and intolerance toward certain aspects of the African culture, which they label as tradition, 4 for example, traditional customs, like paying homage to ancestral spirits (Kurova Guva or bringing back the spirit of the dead ceremony), and marriage customs (polygamy, kusungira or sanctification of the first born ritual). The movement has managed to rid itself of the dominance of the male adults and the floodgates were opened to young men and women, who are the victims of traditional patriarchy. Besides glossolalia being one of the pillars of AFM doctrines, the following also bear some importance: personal testimonies, tithing, church weddings, signs/miracles, evangelism and prosperity theology.
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Gilliland, Dean S. "How “Christian” Are African Independent Churches?" Missiology: An International Review 14, no. 3 (July 1986): 259–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009182968601400301.
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The article recognizes the impact that independent churches are having on the formation of Christianity on the African continent. Failure to recognize these churches arises from issues that are related to the historical missionary movement. A responsible theological evaluation of these churches must be done. Superficial acceptance is as intolerable as unfair condemnation. A grid for typing the wide-ranging movements is as follows: (1) Primary-evangelical Pentecostal, (2) Secondary-evangelical Pentecostal, (3) Revelational-indigenous, (4) Indigenous-eclectic. Classification of the churches into these groups utilizes African religious phenomena as well as normative Christian factors such as the role of Scripture, the place of Christ, and the sacraments.
15
Fagunwa, Omololu. "African Pentecostalism and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: The Supernatural Amid the Fearful and Implications for the COVID-19 Pandemic." Christian Journal for Global Health 7, no. 5 (December 21, 2020): 52–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.15566/cjgh.v7i5.455.
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Infectious outbreaks that lead to epidemics and pandemics are dreaded because of the adverse health, economic, and social effects. The 1918 pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza virus killed 40 million people worldwide. Like the case of COVID-19, the pandemic of 1918 kept Christians, as well as people of other faiths, from worshipping together. However, African indigenous Pentecostal movements and groups emerged in various part of the continent around the same time. This period was the time of huge Pneumatic experience and spiritual awakening. The Pentecostals devoted themselves to building their faith and ceaseless prayer during that time, and this has become the foundation of the doctrine and theological instructions of most African Initiated Churches. Because are no studies that consider the 1918 flu pandemic and Pentecostal response in Africa, this study was undertaken. The time of the 1918 pandemic appeared to be a good opportunity for spiritual awakening. Intense prayer prevailed during those times and teaching and exposition about prayer formed the core of the theology of most African Initiated Churches. Pandemics often bring devastation but could also be an opportunity for spiritual awakening through prayer, love in action, social justice, compassion and care.
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Ireland, Jerry M. "African Traditional Religion and Pentecostal Churches in Lusaka, Zambia: An Assessment." Journal of Pentecostal Theology 21, no. 2 (2012): 260–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/17455251-02102006.
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This study seeks to discover how African Traditional Religion (ATR) is viewed by Pentecostal church leaders in Lusaka, Zambia. The convenience sample focused on fourteen Pentecostal churches of various denominational affiliations within the city of Lusaka, Zambia. A thirty-one-item survey tool, the Assessment of Traditional Religious Practices (ATRP), was developed and administered to 128 leaders regarding the prevalence of traditional religious practices among their congregants. The ATRP also assessed how these leaders typically respond to concerns related to ATR within their ministerial context. Findings indicated that traditional beliefs and practices continue to persist, though at nominal levels, within these churches. More importantly, a majority of these leaders feel adequately equipped to handle issues related to ATR because they understand their ministerial calling in terms of spiritual empowerment. The study concludes that the challenges presented by ATR regarding Christian discipleship continue to persist in local Pentecostal churches. However, leaders have employed a practical theological understanding of Pentecostalism, allowing them to overcome many of these same challenges.
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Haugen, Heidi Østbø. "African Pentecostal Migrants in China: Marginalization and the Alternative Geography of a Mission Theology." African Studies Review 56, no. 1 (April 2013): 81–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/asr.2013.7.
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Abstract:The city of Guangzhou, China, hosts a diverse and growing population of foreign Christians. The religious needs of investors and professionals have been accommodated through government approval of a nondenominational church for foreigners. By contrast, African Pentecostal churches operate out of anonymous buildings under informal and fragile agreements with law-enforcement officers. The marginality of the churches is mirrored by the daily lives of the church-goers: Many are undocumented immigrants who restrain their movements to avoid police interception. In contrast to these experiences, the churches present alternative geographies where the migrants take center stage. First, Africans are given responsibility for evangelizing the Gospel, as Europeans are seen to have abandoned their mission. Second, China is presented as a pivotal battlefield for Christianity. And finally, Guangzhou is heralded for its potential to deliver divine promises of prosperity. This geographical imagery assigns meaning to the migration experience, but also reinforces ethnic isolation. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews, participant observation, and video recordings of sermons in a Pentecostal church in Guangzhou with a predominately Nigerian congregation.
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Cazarin, Rafael. "The Social Architecture of Belonging in the African Pentecostal Diaspora." Religions 10, no. 7 (July 18, 2019): 440. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel10070440.
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From megachurches in movie theatres to prayer groups held in living rooms, Pentecostals worldwide are constantly carrying out religious activities that ultimately aim to integrate diverse worshippers into the kingdom of God. Born-again Christians refashion their ‘ways of being’ by breaking down and re-establishing the interpersonal relationships shaped and changed by emerging diasporic modernities. I examined some of these changing ways of being by comparing the discursive practices of African Pentecostal pastors in Johannesburg (South Africa) and Bilbao (Spain). These case-studies demonstrate how these migrant-initiated churches create a ‘social architecture’, a platform on which African worshippers find social and spiritual integration in increasingly globalized contexts. I argue that the subdivision of large congregations into specialized fellowship groups provides African migrants with alternative strategies to achieve a sense of belonging in an expanding diasporic network. Their transformative mission of spiritual education, by spreading African(ized) and Pentecostal values according to age, gender, or social roles, helps to uplift them from being a marginalized minority to being a powerful group occupying a high moral ground.
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Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena. "“To the Ends of the Earth”: Mission, Migration and the Impact of African-led Pentecostal Churches in the European Diaspora." Mission Studies 29, no. 1 (2012): 23–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157338312x638000.
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Abstract The rise of immigrant churches and African-led churches in the Diaspora is one of the most important developments to occur in world mission at the end of the 20th century. Most of these churches are made up of Africans who felt left out in the historic churches of the West. A number of these are of Pentecostal/charismatic persuasion and have developed into some of the most dynamic religious communities in the countries where they exist. Additionally, a new type of African-led church has emerged in the diaspora in Europe. This article is a case study of two well-known African diaspora mega-churches in Europe, the Church of the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for all Nations based in Kyiv, Ukraine led by Sunday Adelaja, and the London-based Kingsway International Christian Center led by Matthew Ashimolowo. Using the conversion narratives of the born-again experience and the subsequent redemptive uplifts that people testify to have experienced through these churches, the article discusses the importance of these developments within the context of mission and migration in the diaspora.
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Meyer, Birgit. "Christianity in Africa: From African Independent to Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches." Annual Review of Anthropology 33, no. 1 (October 2004): 447–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.143835.
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Omenyo, Cephas N., and Wonderful Adjei Arthur. "The Bible Says! Neo-Prophetic Hermeneutics in Africa." Studies in World Christianity 19, no. 1 (April 2013): 50–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/swc.2013.0038.
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The neo-prophetic churches, the most recent expression of Pentecostalism, currently experiencing stupendous growth, do more contextual or inculturation hermeneutics than did earlier Pentecostal movements. They have, as their pillars, African biblical hermeneutics (shaped by elements in the African context) and global Pentecostal hermeneutical paradigms (also shaped by Pentecostal beliefs). In relying on these two pillars, they have appropriated western biblical hermeneutical tools, categories and methods in the African milieu; hence their appeal to a large number of contemporary African Christians.
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Asamoah-Gyadu, Kwabena. "Pentecostalism in Africa and the Changing Face of Christian Mission." Mission Studies 19, no. 1 (2002): 14–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157338302x00161.
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AbstractThird World Christianity has been experiencing exponential growth since the turn of the twentieth century. Nowhere is this renewal in Christianity more visible than Africa, where religious innovations led by indigenous Christians have mostly been Pentecostal in character. The Pentecostal movements leading the current renewal of Christianity in African countries like Ghana are autonomous, independent of both the established historic mission denominations and the older classical Pentecostal churches like the Assemblies of God. Ghanaian Pentecostalism in its various streams has adapted the global Pentecostal culture to suit the needs of the local context in ways that have changed the nature and direction of Christian mission. The traditional themes of healing, deliverance, prosperity and empowerment associated with the global Pentecostal movement have been synthesized with traditional worldviews, giving Pentecostal Christianity an added relevance in African context. This has yielded massive responses. In Pentecostal movements under discussion, therefore, one finds the ingenious ability of indigenous Christians to appropriate a phenomenon of global significance for local consumption.
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Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena. "United Over Meals Divided at the Lord’s Table: Christianity and the Unity of the Church in Africa." Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies 27, no. 1 (January 2010): 16–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265378809351452.
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Christianity in Africa owes its massive growth of the last 50 years to the Independent and Pentecostal/ charismatic churches. The relationships between these churches and the older mission-founded churches are strained. Ethnic and social factors contribute to the divisions. Christian unity in Africa will require conversion to Christ. The strong African tradition of communal life is destroyed by external forces and inter-African conflicts in which members of the same churches have fought one another. Healing is only possible through reconciliation, which calls for conversion from the sin of breaking the community and neglecting the sanctity of human life. The Global Christian Forum offers a new model of working towards Christian unity, which may be particularly meaningful for Africa.
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Kangwa, Jonathan. "Prophecy, Divination and Gender Justice in the Lumpa Church in Zambia." Feminist Theology 27, no. 1 (September 2018): 75–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0966735018794485.
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This article examines the role of Prophecy and divination in the success of the Lumpa Church of Alice Mulenga Lenshina in Zambia. Concurring with James Amanze (2013), the article argues that the rapid growth of Christianity in Africa is to a large extent due to its engagement with prophecy and divination. Strong growth in African Christianity takes place mainly in the African Initiated Churches (AICs) which are Pentecostal-charismatic in their outlook. In these Churches the emphasis is on the prophetic ministry of the Church, evident in the performance of divination, healing and in predictions of the future. A good example is the Lumpa Church of Lenshina. Taking this Church as a case study, the article argues that Lenshina’s success and that of her Church are based on the fact that divination, prophecy and a search for gender justice were taken seriously.
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Attanasi, Katherine. "Professional Women in South African Pentecostal Charismatic Churches." Pneuma 33, no. 2 (2011): 282–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/027209611x575087.
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Padwick, T. John. "‘The Spirit Alone’: Writing the Oral Theology of a Kenyan Independent Church." Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies 35, no. 1 (January 2018): 15–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265378818767677.
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There are few accounts of the theologies of African Independent Churches (AICs), or of how such texts might be developed from what is an essentially oral phenomenon. In consequence, AIC students encounter difficulties in obtaining theological training appropriate for their churches. This article is an interim report on the process of recording such a theology – that of the Holy Spirit Church of East Africa. Based on insights from recent scholars in the fields of African Pentecostal theology, and contextual and local theologies, together with the work of practitioners in the network of the Organization of African Independent Churches, the article proposes a methodology for recording the faith of a predominantly oral church. It then describes a workshop held by the church in 2016, with attention to the ways in which this methodology was worked out in practice. The article explores some of the issues raised by academic engagement with an oral community of faith, and suggests one means by which the lack of dialogue between AIC oral theologies and theologies of the western academic traditions might be addressed.
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Rey, Jeanne. "Mermaids and Spirit Spouses: Rituals as Technologies of Gender in Transnational African Pentecostal Spaces." Religion and Gender 3, no. 1 (February 19, 2013): 60–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18785417-00301005.
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This article aims to approach the construction of gender in transnational spaces by focusing on the ritual practice of African Pentecostal migrants in Europe and in Africa. One dimension of African Pentecostalism is its insistence on the practice of exorcism called ‘deliverance’ where malevolent spirits are expelled from one’s body. Within the Pentecostal demonology, several categories of spirits carry implications for how gender is constructed. This article will analyse effects of the appearance of these spirits on the construction of gender among Ghanaian and Congolese Pentecostal churches in Geneva and in Accra. It will show that variations in the appearance of spirits within rituals can be interpreted as a negotiation of gender roles in a migratory context. Shifts in Pentecostal demonology can therefore be interpreted as a response to the reconfiguration of gender roles associated with the broader gender context and work opportunities in Europe.
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Adebayo, Rufus, and Sylvia Zulu. "Christian Communication, Forms, Secularity, and Dimensions of Language in a Multifaceted Cultural Setting." African Journal of Inter/Multidisciplinary Studies 3, no. 1 (2021): 91–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.51415/ajims.v3i1.914.
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Christian communication and the various dimensions of language are profoundly connected and interchangeably used in a multifaceted cultural setting. Christian churches in South Africa, similar to any other African countries, profess their philosophies, passions, and beliefs to multi-cultural congregations through the use of sacred languages and communication. This study posits that the uprising of Pentecostal churches has paved the way for nonspiritual dialectic languages and has also greatly lessened spiritual communication. As a result, the study highlights the relationship between language and religious communication among Pentecostal churches in a culturally diverse environment. This study employs a qualitative approach, through the gathering and categorisation of information between 20 churches located in Durban, South Africa to recognise Christian communication and the influence of secular linguistic features and their relationships with spirituality. This study has found that there are different forms and secular dimensions of language which differ from spiritual language and Christian communication. The study reveals that as modern Christian churches emerge, a revolutionised communication has evolved as compared to the language of orthodox churches. The study recommends that the use of language for religious communication and discourse should necessitate expounding spiritual values and courses of action.
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Auvinen-Pöntinen, Mari-Anna. "Pneumatological Challenges to Postcolonial Lutheran Mission in the Tswana Context." Mission Studies 32, no. 3 (October 15, 2015): 353–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733831-12341414.
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This article analyses pneumatological thinking as it appears in postcolonial mission in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Botswana (elcb), thereby engaging with challenges being posed by the new Pentecostal Churches and African Independent Churches in the region.1 These “spiritual churches” are attracting increasing numbers of worshippers with the result that the Lutheran Church is currently facing the dual challenge of both the new phenomenon and the historical colonial heritage of the missionary era. Pneumatological thinking in theelcbis examined from an epistemic point of view, and the difficulties and strengths in both the postcolonial Lutheran mission and the new religiosity are evaluated.
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MAXWELL, DAVID. "HISTORICIZING CHRISTIAN INDEPENDENCY: THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT c. 1908–60." Journal of African History 40, no. 2 (July 1999): 243–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s002185379800735x.
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Scholarly study of Christian independency in southern Africa began with the publication of Bengt Sundkler's Bantu Prophets in 1948. A rich literature subsequently followed, much of it deploying his now classic typology of Ethiopian and Zionist Churches. Nevertheless, the historical study of independency has been limited. As one scholar has recently observed, historians have tended to focus on the Ethiopian-type churches, leaving the study of the Zionist-type to anthropologists and missiologists. The neglect of Zionist-type churches by historians meant that early studies on this form of Christianity were historically weak. Missiologists distorted the whole area of inquiry with theological concerns, at first raising the spectre of syncretistic heresy, and more recently making claims about indigenous authenticity. Anthropologists initially viewed independent churches as fascinating examples of cultural resilience. The movements were seen as sources of community, loyalty and security in the face of the atomising and anomic experience of urbanization; or as foci for ‘the process of modification and adaptation’ taking place throughout rural society. But anthropologists rarely paid attention to independency's origins. Where historians did engage with Zionist-type independency, they did so through the spectacles of nationalist historiography in order to demonstrate independency's supposed proto-nationalist character.By adopting an international and regional perspective, this article provides an account of the historical origins and early evolution of these churches. Where scholars in the past have tended to disaggregate the movement, essentializing its later racial and geographical boundaries, this paper will draw the early history of the movement together, illuminating its common origin and global character. The basic ingredients of this account have been available in the work of Walter Hollenweger, Jean Comaroff, Sundkler's later book, and more recently, studies by Jim Kiernan and David Chidester. Nevertheless, the historical implication that so-called African independent churches emerged out of the global pentecostal movement continues to be ignored.The purpose of demonstrating the origins of southern African pentecostalism is not to make the now commonplace historical and anthropological critique of authenticity, although those pursuing a theological agenda which distinguishes African Independent Churches as a separate category of Christianity would do well to pay heed to that critique. Neither is it assumed that analysis of origins explains the meaning and appeal of different southern African pentecostal movements and denominations. Rather, this paper demonstrates that pentecostalism is a global phenomenon: a collection of vital and powerful idioms about illness and healing, evil and purity which make striking resonances with peoples sharing common historical experiences of marginalization from established religion and from the values of twentieth-century industrial capitalism. At the same time pentecostalism has also exhibited a remarkable capacity to localize itself, taking on very distinct meanings in different local contexts. At the heart of this paper lies a comparative analysis of the radically different responses which the movement engendered from the South African and Southern Rhodesian states.
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Mildnerová, Kateřina. "African Independent Churches in Zambia (Lusaka)." Ethnologia Actualis 14, no. 2 (December 1, 2014): 8–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/eas-2015-0001.
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ABSTRACT The African Independent churches (AICs) in Zambia, as elsewhere in Africa, from their very beginning formed a protest movement against the cultural imperialism undertaken by the missionary representatives of the historic mission churches and also played an important role in the anti-colonial political struggles. In Zambia, the early AICs were closely related to witchcraft eradication movements such as the Mchape, or socially and politically oriented prophet-healing churches such as The Lumpa church of Alice Lenshina. Since the 1970s and in particular in the 1990s the Christianity in Zambia has been significantly marked by the proliferation of the African Independent Churches - both of Pentecostal and prophet-healing type. These churches that started mushrooming particularly in urban settings became part of the strengthening charismatic movement, particularly within Protestantism. A typical feature of AICs is focus on spiritual healing and religious syncretism - the local traditional customs and beliefs in dangerous ghosts, ancestral spirits, or witches are placed within the biblical religious framework where the Holy Spirit (Muzimu Oyela) is considered to be the only source of healing whereas other ‘inferior spirits’ are labelled as demons. The traditional methods of healing are creatively combined with Christian healing by means of prayers, spiritual blessings, laying on of hands on patients and demon exorcism - it is believed that only a body rid of bad spirits can receive the Holy Spirit, and thus be healed. The paper draws on both secondary literature concerning African Independent Churches and primary data issued from fieldwork in Lusaka (2008-2009).
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Adedibu, Babatunde. "Origin, Migration, Globalisation and the Missionary Encounter of Britain's Black Majority Churches." Studies in World Christianity 19, no. 1 (April 2013): 93–113. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/swc.2013.0040.
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Britain's Christian landscape has a definitive imprint of African and Caribbean Christianities. The growth and proliferation of Black Majority Churches in Britain in the last one hundred years attest to the tenacity and gradual acceptance of the Pentecostal stream within Britain's chequered church history. Religion is now a major motor in migration as most migrants now sacralise their migration and place minimal emphasis on economic motivations. In spite of their religious subscriptions, African and Caribbean Christians also carry their socio-cultural backpacks to the West. This has resulted in the emergence of Christianities that are reflective of African and Caribbean cosmologies. This article gives an overview of the origin of Black Majority Churches in Britain and the role of globalisation and migration in identity formation within these churches whilst also examining the distinctive socio-religious praxis of the amazing Black church movement in Britain.
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Engelke, Matthew. "Past Pentecostalism: Notes on Rupture, Realignment, and Everyday Life in Pentecostal and African Independent Churches." Africa 80, no. 2 (May 2010): 177–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/afr.2010.0201.
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Pentecostal studies has been one of the most vibrant areas of research in Africa for over twenty years, but is it time we started to look past Pentecostalism? Using some of the most important work in this tradition as a point of departure, this article offers both a critique of and supplement to the Pentecostal literature. It focuses in particular on how we should understand the relationship between Pentecostalism and African Independency by pushing the debates on how to frame their oft-shared desire to ‘break with the past’. Every rupture is also a realignment and how each is conceptualized and understood is a matter not only of discourse but decisions and dilemmas faced in everyday life.
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Darkwa Amanor, Kwabena. "Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches in Ghana and the African Culture: Confrontation or Compromise?" Journal of Pentecostal Theology 18, no. 1 (2009): 123–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/174552509x442192.
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AbstractThe paper establishes the reality of conflict between Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches in Ghana and the African culture. It examines the history of this conflict since the early days of Christianity in Ghana as well as the causes of the conflict. It also looks at the effects of the conflict on the dialogue expected between Christianity and the African culture, mediation efforts by third party governance and civil society organizations, and the theological implications of the antagonism for the Christian engagement with other non-Christian religions, especially, Islam, which shares Africa with Christianity.
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Benyah, Francis. "Church Branding and Self-Packaging: the Mass Media and African Pentecostal Missionary Strategy." Journal of Religion in Africa 48, no. 3 (December 5, 2018): 231–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340139.
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AbstractThe use of the mass media has become a contemporary and fast-growing religious phenomenon within Pentecostal and charismatic churches. By drawing implications on the use of modern media technologies, this article presents a popular case of a Charismatic church in Ghana and shows how the idea of branding evolves around the use of the mass media. This article argues that the branding of the leaders’ personality and the church is a marketing strategy aimed at attracting more people into the church.
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Engelke, Matthew. "Discontinuity and the Discourse of Conversion." Journal of Religion in Africa 34, no. 1-2 (2004): 82–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006604323056732.
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AbstractThis paper focuses on the conversion narrative of a man in the Johane Masowe weChishanu Church, an apostolic church in Zimbabwe. Taking up recent discussions within anthropology on Pentecostal and charismatic churches, the author shows how apostolics talk about conversion as a distinct break with 'African custom'. It is argued that anthropologists of religion need to take such narratives of discontinuity seriously because they allow us to understand better the dynamics of religious change.
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de Witte, Marleen. "Pentecostal Forms across Religious Divides: Media, Publicity, and the Limits of an Anthropology of Global Pentecostalism." Religions 9, no. 7 (July 16, 2018): 217. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel9070217.
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Scholars of Pentecostalism have usually studied people who embrace it, but rarely those who do not. I suggest that the study of global Pentecostalism should not limit itself to Pentecostal churches and movements and people who consider themselves Pentecostal. It should include the repercussions of Pentecostal ideas and forms outside Pentecostalism: on non-Pentecostal and non-Christian religions, on popular cultural forms, and on what counts as ‘religion’ or ‘being religious’. Based on my ethnographic study of a charismatic-Pentecostal mega-church and a neo-traditional African religious movement in Ghana, I argue that neo-Pentecostalism, due to its strong and mass-mediated public presence, provides a powerful model for the public representation of religion in general, and some of its forms are being adopted by non-Pentecostal and non-Christian groups, including the militantly anti-Pentecostal Afrikania Mission. Instead of treating neo-Pentecostal and neo-traditionalist revival as distinct religious phenomena, I propose to take seriously their intertwinement in a single religious field and argue that one cannot sufficiently understand the rise of new religious movements without understanding how they influence each other, borrow from each other, and define themselves vis-à-vis each other. This has consequences for how we conceive of the study of Pentecostalism and how we define its object.
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Nnamani, Amuluche-Greg. "The Flow of African Spirituality into World Christianity." Mission Studies 32, no. 3 (October 15, 2015): 331–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733831-12341413.
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Much of the spirituality peculiar to African Christians bears traces of the influence of African Traditional Religions (atr). Prayer traditions like incantations, melodious choruses and appeal to spirits, typical of atr, have infiltrated the religious life of African Christians both at home and in Diaspora, amongst Christians in the mainline churches as well as in the African Independent Churches. Though the flow of African spiritual heritage into Christianity happened in the early history of Christianity, it accelerated in the lives of slaves in diaspora in the West Indies, the Americas and Europe. Today, the process continues amongst African migrants fleeing the unbearable political and economic strangulations in Africa; they migrate with their culture and spirituality and impact on Christianity worldwide. It is the intent of this paper therefore to explore how the African mystic sentiment, frenzied excitement and spirit-laden spirituality, which combine the sacred and the secular in practical life, influenced Christian worship and thought down the ages and, in recent times, contributed to the emergence of the Pentecostal and charismatic spirituality.
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Fatokun, Samson Adetunji. "The 'Great Move of God' in an African Community: A Retrospect of the 1930s Indigenous Pentecostal Revival in Nigeria and Its Impact on Nigerian Pentecostalism." Exchange 38, no. 1 (2009): 34–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157254309x381156.
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AbstractThe paper examines the 1930s Pentecostal revival in Nigeria that brought Nigerian Pentecostalism onto the global scene. The study is approached from a socio-historical perspective, drawing data from archival search, oral interview and bibliographical search. Among other things, the research brings to the fore the remote and immediate impact of the revival on the Nigerian Church and State. More importantly, the paper locates the rapid growth of Pentecostalism in Nigeria (particularly the much proliferation of churches in the southwest) in the aftermath effects of the 1930s' indigenous Pentecostal revival. That notwithstanding, the paper denounces the undue emphasis on material prosperity which forms the nucleus of Pentecostal crusades/revival in contemporary time and calls on all stake holders to go back to the 'rock from which they were hewn' and purify Pentecostalism in Nigeria of all questionable characteristics.
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Matikiti, Robert. "Moratorium to Preserve Cultures: A Challenge to the Apostolic Faith Mission Church in Zimbabwe?" Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 43, no. 1 (July 13, 2017): 138–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/2412-4265/1900.
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This historical study will demonstrate that each age constructs an image of Jesus out of the cultural hopes, aspirations, biblical and doctrinal interfaces that make Christ accessible and relevant. From the earliest times, the missionaries and the church were of the opinion that Africans had no religion and culture. Any religious practice which they came across among the Africans was regarded as heathen practice which had to be eradicated. While references to other Pentecostal denominations will be made, this paper will focus on the first Pentecostal church in Zimbabwe, namely the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM). Scholars are not agreed on the origins of Pentecostalism. However, there is a general consensus among scholars that the movement originated around 1906 and was first given national and international impetus at Azusa Street in North America. William J. Seymour’s Azusa Street revival formed the most prominent and significant centre of Pentecostalism, which was predominantly black and had its leadership rooted in the African culture of the nineteenth century. Despite this cultural link, when Pentecostalism arrived in Zimbabwe from 1915 onwards, it disregarded African culture. It must be noted that in preaching the gospel message, missionaries have not been entirely without fault. This has resulted in many charging missionaries with destroying indigenous cultures and helping to exploit native populations for the benefit of the West. The main challenge is not that missionaries are changing cultures, but that they are failing to adapt the Christocentric gospel to different cultures. Often the gospel has been transported garbed in the paraphernalia of Western culture. This paper will argue that there is a need for Pentecostal churches to embrace good cultural practices in Zimbabwe.
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Pijl, Yvon van der. "Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity: African-Surinamese Perceptions and Experiences." Exchange 39, no. 2 (2010): 179–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/016627410x12608581119830.
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AbstractPentecostal-Charismatic Christianity (P/C) is one of the fastest-growing religions worldwide. Some scholars connect P/C’s success with broad processes of globalization. Others try to unravel more personal dynamics of conversion. This article seeks to understand both global forces and local cultural reasons to believe. It focuses first on the remarkable paradox that explains the movement’s popularity among African-Surinamese (Caribbean) believers: what appears as P/C’s rejection of their traditional religious system turns out to be a reinterpretation of beliefs and practices. From this line of argument I argue that P/C actually enables people, by ways of demonization, to express their spirituality and translate magico-religious conceptions into an acceptable framework. In conclusion, I put this Pentecostal paradox into larger perspective, stressing similarities with other religious movements and exposing an eclectic attitude towards religion that does not only meet personal belief experiences, but also challenges the hegemonic position of established Christian churches in Suriname.
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Cooper, Melinda. "The Theology of Emergency: Welfare Reform, US Foreign Aid and the Faith-Based Initiative." Theory, Culture & Society 32, no. 2 (January 27, 2014): 53–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0263276413508448.
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This article addresses the rise of faith-based emergency relief by examining the US President’s Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS (PEPFAR), a public health intervention focused on the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that the theological turn in humanitarian aid serves to amplify ongoing dynamics in the domestic politics of sub-Saharan African states, where social services have assumed the form of chronic emergency relief and religious organizations have come to play an increasingly prominent role in the provision of such services. In the context of an ongoing public health crisis, PEPFAR has institutionalized the social authority of the Pentecostal and charismatic churches, leading to a semantic confluence between the postcolonial politics of emergency and the Pentecostal/Pauline theology of kairos or event. Far from being confined to the space of foreign aid, however, the faith-based turn in humanitarianism is in keeping with ongoing reforms in domestic social policy in the United States. While on the one hand the sustained welfare programmes of the New Deal and Great Society have been dismantled in favour of a system of emergency relief, on the other hand the federal government has intensified its moral, pedagogical and punitive interventions into the lives of the poor. The wilful transfer of welfare services to overtly religious service providers has played a decisive role in this process. The article concludes with a critical appraisal of the links between African and North American Pentecostal-evangelical churches and questions the revolutionary mission ascribed to Pauline political theology in recent political theory.
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Asamoah-Gyadu, J. "‘Function to Function’: Reinventing the Oil of Influence in African Pentecostalism." Journal of Pentecostal Theology 13, no. 2 (2005): 231–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0966736905053249.
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AbstractThis paper explores the practices, teachings, positive benefits, problematic aspects and perils associated with anointing with oil in recent African Pentecostal/charismatic ministries and churches. With particular focus upon the author’s first-hand encounters with these phenomena in Ghana and Nigeria, various anointing practices and teachings are commended and critiqued in terms of biblical precedents and sacramental theological insights.
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Onyinah, Opoku. "Matthew Speaks To Ghanaian Healing Situations." Journal of Pentecostal Theology 10, no. 1 (2001): 120–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/096673690101000107.
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AbstractThis paper attempts to address the current approach to healing among Ghanaian Pentecostal/Charismatic churches. It traces the origins of the approach to the Ghanaian traditional practices, links it with the African Initiated churches and demonstrates that its current position was strengthened by the impact of the ministries of some evangelists in Ghana. Since there are some major problems with the current approach, lessons are drawn from Jesus's healing methods in the gospel of Matthew for the Ghanaian situations.
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Attanasi, Katherine. "Pentecostal Theologies of Healing, HIV/AIDS, and Women’s Agency in South Africa." PNEUMA 37, no. 1 (2015): 7–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700747-03701024.
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This article examines the gendered implications of healing theologies in black South African pentecostal churches dealing with the HIV/AIDS crisis. Lived theologies of healing enhance women’s flourishing by providing or encouraging medical, social, and psychological support. However, pentecostal theologies of healing can impede women’s flourishing by creating a burdensome sense of responsibility in which women blame themselves for not being healed. More disturbingly, many women consider prayer as the most faithful or most feasible strategy for HIV prevention. This article identifies women’s constrained choices as a theological imperative for Pentecostalism to address gender inequality.
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Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena. "Learning to Prosper by Wrestling and by Negotiation: Jacob and Esau in Contemporary African Pentecostal Hermeneutics." Journal of Pentecostal Theology 21, no. 1 (2012): 64–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/174552512x633303.
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Pentecostalism in Africa has evolved as different streams characterized by particular modes of articulating the Christian message. The older independent churches were known for their emphasis on healing and prophecy and the classical Pentecostals talked much about speaking in tongues and holiness. Although these themes are present in contemporary Pentecostal discourse the new churches are best known for their messages of empowerment and prosperity that are meant to address the aspirations of Africa’s upwardly mobile youth. Using the writings of two of the movements most influential leaders from Ghana, this article discusses the ways in which the story of the Patriarchs, especially Jacob, has been reinterpreted to fit into the message of upward mobility and the principles that are meant to lead up to it. It is argued here that although the authors did not intend to misapply Scripture, by reinterpreting the schemes of Jacob in terms of the principles of success, they fail to take account of the element of ‘grace’ which is able to turn the worst of sinners into saints. Jacob did not succeed because he applied the principles of success but because God touched him with his grace during the time of wrestling with the angel.
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Schliesser, Christine. "On a Long Neglected Player: The Religious Factor in Poverty Alleviation." Exchange 43, no. 4 (December 22, 2014): 339–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1572543x-12341336.
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Much of poverty alleviation theory and practice fails to sufficiently consider the following crucial factor: the religious dimension. This paper elaborates this thesis by focusing on the African context and the valuable resources African religious communities and movements can provide in the struggle against poverty. One particularly influential streak of present-time African religiousness serves as a case study: the so-called ‘Prosperity Gospel’ as part of Pentecostal Christianity. The author first argues for the continuing formative influence of religion on African conceptions of self, other, and world. Secondly, she provides a critical assessment of the impact of Pentecostalism and the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ on poverty alleviation. In comparison with secular ngos, Pentecostal churches emerge as the more effective agents of change. A third part situates the insights gained into a wider perspective, seeking ways to integrate the religious factor into a more holistic conception of and engagement against poverty
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Duffuor, Amy, and Alana Harris. "Politics as a Vocation: Prayer, Civic Engagement and the Gendered Re-enchantment of the City." Religion and Gender 3, no. 1 (February 19, 2013): 22–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18785417-00301003.
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Drawing upon extensive oral history interviews and long scale participant observation in two London churches, an ethnically diverse Catholic parish in Canning Town and a predominantly West-African Pentecostal congregation in Peckham, this article compares and contrasts differing Christian expressions and understandings of ‘civic engagement’ and gendered articulations of lay social ‘ministry’ through prayer, religious praxis and local politics. Through community organizing and involvement in the third sector, but also through spiritual activities like the ‘Catholic Prayer Ministry’ and ‘deliverance’, Catholics and Pentecostals are shown to be re-mapping London – a city ripe for reverse mission – through contesting ‘secularist’ and implicitly gendered distinctions between the public and private/domestic, and the spiritual and political. Greater scholarly appreciation of these subjective understandings of civic engagement and social activism is important for fully recognizing the agency of lay people, and particularly women often marginalized in church-based and institutional hierarchies, in articulating and actuating their call to Christian citizenship and the (re)sacralization of the city.
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Droll, Anna Marie. "“Piercing the Veil” and African Dreams and Visions." PNEUMA 40, no. 3 (October 16, 2018): 345–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700747-04003003.
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Abstract Pentecostal scholarship is conscientiously examining gaps in Western theology in regard to pneumatology. This article describes the phenomena of pentecostal dreams and visions (D/V s) in the African context as significant to that dialogue, pointing to their spiritual value in many African churches. I suggest that they can be seen as existential samples of the pneumatological imagination as put forth by Amos Yong and also as described by Nimi Wariboko. I use Yong’s theology to argue that the pneumatological imagination in African contexts readdresses the experience of D/V s, which are normative phenomena in indigenous religions, through the hermeneutical interplay of Spirit-Word-community. I also suggest that the experience of D/V s satisfies Wariboko’s definition of grace, that they are subject to his politics of spiritual warfare, and that their interpretation and application exemplify the transformation of “ontological and epistemological coordinates of existence” by “piercing the veil” of phenomenality for the experience of the noumenal.
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Müller, Retief. "African Indigenous Christianity of Pentecostal Type in South Africa in the Twentieth Century and Beyond." Theology Today 75, no. 3 (October 2018): 318–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0040573618791746.
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Movements of reform and reformation have been highly significant in the history of Christianity for various reasons. Yet is it fair or appropriate to ascribe the term reformation to churches or groups not obviously belonging to the sixteenth-century series of events and movements usually associated with that term? This article engages with this question, especially in reference to the phenomenon of twentieth-century African Indigenous Christianity (AIC), which is often associated with terms such as African Initiated Christianity, and African Pentecostalism. I focus on South Africa as my context of reference. From this perspective I will more generally make the case that if the historical construct of reformation as a concept beyond sixteenth-century Northern and Western Europe could be useful at all, it will be in the ways in which one is able, or not, to draw parallels with some of the social consequences of those original movements. I am particularly interested in the relation between reformation and democracy. Therefore, my analysis of AIC history in South Africa is informed by the works of Witte, Woodberry, and McGrath.