Global Pentecostalism

香港五旬節會創立於 1907 年，是最早的華人五旬節派教會，也是土生土長自立教會。然而，研究中國五旬節運動的學者，沒有視之為華人自立五旬節派的重要個案；研究中國教會自立運動的學者，探討「本土基督教」或「屬靈派」的時候，則沒有視之為研究個案。本文以香港五旬節會為研究個案，聚焦於該會創立後首二十年，即莫禮智領導時期（1907-1926），探討該會複雜的華洋關係。本文指出︰ 1. 該會對西方傳教士的態度，往往糾結於彼此合作與劃清界限之間，反映五旬節運動相關的自立教會，並非一定排外。2. 該會複雜的華洋關係，反映「華洋相對」的進路局限，因為教會自立涉及種種教會發展爭議，民族議題的確重要，但絕非唯一議題。

The Hong Kong Pentecostal Mission, being the first Chinese Pentecostal Church founded in 1907, is an independent indigenous church. However, both scholarly treatments in Chinese Pentecostalism and Chinese church independence do not treat this mission as a significant case study. This article examines the Sino-Foreign relation in the early time of the Hong Kong Pentecostal Mission, namely the period of Mok Lai Chi's leadership (1907-1926). This article points out that 1) It is improper to regard all Chinese indigenous independent churches with Pentecostal influence as anti-foreign because the Sino-Foreign relation of the Hong Kong Pentecostal Mission was complicated – collaboration and conflict were co-existent. 2) This case reveals the limitation of the 'Sino-Foreign' perspective within the studies in Chinese church independence since the national issue was not the sole consideration guiding the development of the Hong Kong Pentecostal Mission.

Emmett contributes to missional pentecostal historiography through bringing a pre-eminent figure in early British Pentecostalism into the limelight. He shows how Pentecostalism in Belgian Congo was pioneered by W.F.P. Burton alongside local agency. Central to Burton’s contradictory and complex personality was a passionate desire to see the emancipation of humankind from the spiritual powers of darkness believing only Spirit-empowered local agency would enduringly prove effective.

Burton’s faith believed for Spirit intervention in church communities converting lives, bringing physical healing and transforming regions. In the maelstrom following Congolese Independence, Burton’s belief in his own brand of indigenisation made him an outlier even among Pentecostals. Burton’s pentecostal faith engendered an idealism which frustratingly conflicted with those not sharing it in the way he pursued it. This book thus serves Pentecostals and historians by clarifying Burton’s ideals and revealing the reasons for his frustrations.

This thesis presents the history of Oneness Pentecostalism in the Philippines for the first time. It traces the origins, development and current state of this movement. This work will attempt to supply that information, and do so in a manner that recognizes the vital roles of the Filipinos. It argues that schism within the movement was unavoidable due to historical and cultural predispositions of the Filipinos when combined with the paternal methods of the missionaries, and the schismatic nature of Pentecostalism. Important leaders are examined and presented with heretofore-unpublished details of their lives and works, including missionaries and national leaders such as Diamond A. Noble and Wilde Almeda. Some of the many organizations are studied from the perspective of schism and success, and a summary of the entire movement is offered with an analysis as to why people have migrated into it and within it. It attempts to present a way of understanding Oneness Pentecostalism in the Philippines through the examination of schism; understanding that may contribute to a global understanding of the Oneness movement, or even of Pentecostalism as a whole.

This thesis presents the history of Oneness Pentecostalism in the Philippines for the first time. It traces the origins, development and current state of this movement. This work will attempt to supply that information, and do so in a manner that recognizes the vital roles of the Filipinos. It argues that schism within the movement was unavoidable due to historical and cultural predispositions of the Filipinos when combined with the paternal methods of the missionaries, and the schismatic nature of Pentecostalism. Important leaders are examined and presented with heretofore-unpublished details of their lives and works, including missionaries and national leaders such as Diamond A. Noble and Wilde Almeda. Some of the many organizations are studied from the perspective of schism and success, and a summary of the entire movement is offered with an analysis as to why people have migrated into it and within it. It attempts to present a way of understanding Oneness Pentecostalism in the P...

"A obra é composta de treze capítulos. Inicia com dois
textos analíticos. No primeiro deles, Cleonardo Mauricio
Junior e Roberta Bivar Carneiro Campos refletem sobre as
maneiras como indivíduos imbuídos de fé religiosa se movem
em direção às “border zones” transnacionais, ora borradas
ora mais definidas. O foco repousa nas experiências
que tornam os crentes pentecostais imbuídos do desejo de se
moverem transnacionalmente, aceitando o comissionamento
de expandir sua fé globalmente, na interação com a liderança
pentecostal. Neste sentido, reforça-se a importância
da circulação do carisma pentecostal e das relações entre o
compartilhamento do carisma e a construção de vocações
transnacionais, incidindo nessas relações, uma chave para a
compreensão da expansão do pentecostalismo global..."
(Trecho do Prefácio)

This is the final installment of a two part series regarding a theology of Pentecostal social concern. Pentecostal social concern goes well beyond feeding programs and disaster relief and must include dealing with long term issues such as unjust social structures, health care and environmental concerns. To even scratch the surface of these issues is well beyond our ability here. The articles that follow, however, deal broadly with the issue of unjust social structures, which are particularly relevant to the poor—a category that includes most Pentecostals in the Majority World.

The subject of conversion has engaged sociologists in Israel and around the world for decades. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism etc. all have their own understanding of conversion. In this paper it is a tongues speaking Charismatic who is under investigation.  Among the issues discussed are:
(1) The relationship between macro-historical changes and personal redefinition.
(2) The role of “crises”, whether personal or societal, in the conversion process.
(3) Does the emphasis on “narratives” preclude a discussion of the crucial rule of “ritual” in conversion?
(4) As opposed to “access to wider values,” how do conversions often reflect a choice to join smaller more particularistic associations such as “deviant” groups and “local” churches?
The study looks at a case study of Edi Nachman a  tradition Baptist turned Spirit filled Charismatic Evangelical  whose conversion the author argues is revivalistic a category which has come under some challenge in recent scholarship. Lofland and Stark, Rambo, Heirich, Harding and Beckford all have their perspectives on what is conversion.

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.

Il saggio fa parte degli atti del convegno di studi "I pentecostali in Italia", promosso dalla Facoltà pentecostale, tenutosi a Battipaglia (SA) dal 5 al 6 dicembre 2019. In particolare presenta i primi esiti di una ricerca iniziata alla fine del primo semestre del 2019 e tuttora in corso. L'obiettivo è cercare di delineare il volto dell'attuale pentecostalesimo italiano, unitamente alle linee di sviluppo emergenti. A questo scopo è stato somministrato a pastori, leader e responsabili, un questionario di carattere quantitativo appositamente elaborato, che  ha consentito di ottenere un campione formato da oltre 8.000 fedeli e circa 10.000 aderenti, appartenenti a 17 chiese, distribuite in 8 regioni dal nord al sud del Paese. Alla luce di questi primi dati quantitativi perciò, abbiamo provato a rileggere alcuni paradigmi, preconcetti e modelli applicati al pentecostalesimo italiano, con l'intento di riuscire a delinearne l'evoluzione passata, descriverne il volto attuale e intercettarne le possibili traiettorie future.

This annotated list of references presents the writings on F.F. Bosworth that are biographical, critical, and devotional in nature. The list includes books, news reports, articles, and audio recordings.

NOTE: This list does not include the articles on Bosworth that are written by Roscoe Barnes III. For a full list of Barnes’ work on this Pentecostal pioneer, see https://ffbosworth.strikingly.com or visit https://independent.academia.edu/RoscoeBarnesIII .

The nexus between Pentecostalism and migration has been studied extensively and in divergent terms. One line of research has looked at churches founded by migrants as home away from home, helping migrants to settle in a new place and at the same time connecting them back to where they came from. Another strand has rather highlighted incorporation into a global Christendom and engagement in global spiritual warfare. Whereas the first line of research is often phrased in terms of diaspora and religion, the second one views Pentecostalism as producing globality on its own terms. With this article, we attempt to contribute to this discussion by asking how deterritorialized belonging is produced in daily Pentecostal practices. What is made present when a home is made absent? What kind of attentive practices create the presence of the Holy Spirit? In thinking with the notion of hodological care, we argue that Pentecostal churches founded by Gha-naian migrants in Southern Africa and Europe create belonging not to a " home " but to connections. They thereby produce forms of de-dia-sporization, which could be seen as belonging through disconnecting.

A new prosperity gospel is emerging in the Philippines. We call it the prosperity ethic. Its dimensions set it apart from the previous incarnation of the prosperity gospel, which emphasized tithing and confessing. Specifically, the prosperity ethic values upward mobility and uses biblical principles for the acquisition of practical skills to become rich. We make our case by drawing on the writings of Bo Sanchez and Chinkee Tan, two of the most influential prosperity-oriented preachers in the country. The prosperity ethic has three dimensions: the morality of wealth (believing right), the prescribed mindset (thinking right), and the practical skills to accumulate wealth (doing it right). In the latter part we explain the rise of the prosperity ethic by relating it to major shifts in the economy since the 1990s. For sanctifying individual hard work and desire, the new prosperity gospel is emblematic of neoliberal Christianity in the Philippines today.

This research investigates a commonly held view in certain peri-urban areas around Chimoio, Mozambique, that German Pentecostal pastors and missionaries, as well as German communists, have been operating as witches from the 1990s until the present time. Drawing on ethnographic material (1999–2016), the chapter explores the popular perception that these ‘Germans’ (alemãos) were promulgating an egalitarian value of sameness and an ethos of purity: gradually, however, they came to be regarded as witches, engaged in nocturnal bloodsucking and undertaking savage hunts for children who were subsequently kidnapped or devoured. Drawing on colonial era cases and comparing the material with other African as well as Melanesian cases, the chapter also relates these ideas about the violence of German witches to long-standing experiences of enslavement, domination and violence, which involve dynamics of memorialization common across both Africa and Melanesia.

As Keith Hart (1986) articulated in his neat phrase ‘two sides of the coin’, money and the state are inextricably intertwined. However, academic discussions of the state tend to fall under the heading of ‘governance’, with implicit reference to democratic ideals, while money is regarded as ‘economics’, a field dominated by ideas of the market. In this paper, I use material from U-Vistract, a mass Ponzi scam to show how quasi-magical ideas of money and wealth have grown out of the disillusioning experience of the state in its failure to deliver ‘development’. These imaginings of prosperity entail a different kind of state, based on the moral reform of Christian citizens and political leaders and the reorientation of the banking system to deliver benefits to ordinary people. As the Royal Kingdom of Papala, U-Vistract sought to be seen to be like a Christian state and so deceived its investors into thinking that they were participating in a moral project that would allow them to redress the short-comings of the Papua New Guinean state. As the scam took on the appearance of the state, so the state came to be seen as a scam.

Driven by the impact of global poverty, large numbers of documented and undocumented workers from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa have migrated to countries in the Middle East. Many of these workers are Pentecostals. The paper will provide a country by country survey of Pentecostalism in the Middle East and report on the findings of ethnographic research on transnational Pentecostals in the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula.

"This book is about the life and ministry of Bosworth (1877-1958), a Pentecostal pioneer, musician, famous healing evangelist, and the author of Christ the Healer. He reportedly led over a million people to Christ, and was considered by scholars and ministers alike to be one of the most successful healing evangelists of his era.

His writings on divine healing influenced many church leaders of his day, as well many who claim healing ministries today. While many people are familiar with his book, Christ the Healer, few know much about the man behind the book.

F.F. Bosworth is the first book to offer a critical analysis of Bosworth's life and ministry from the beginning to the end. The purpose of this work is to explore his life and ministry in order to identify and analyze some of the factors that contributed to his success as a famous healing evangelist."

John G. Lake hearing what he understood was the voice of Jesus Christ in the Christian saved him and the life of his wife and saved them from a terrible accident.  Lake was a man who saw many things in his ministry that defy explanation by the modern scientific method. They have not yet comprehended what happened to him. He appears in the book God's Generals by Roberts Liardon and Defining Moments, by Bill Johnson, and other important works regarding the Charismatic Church.

This chapter appears in the edited volume 'Pentecostal Megachurches in Southeast Asia'. Drawing from the experience of Jesus is Lord (JIL), one of the biggest Charismatic groups in the Philippines, the chapter presents how megachurch Christianity undergoes indigenization. Some of its key findings are as follows: Indigenization takes shape in the form of JIL's religious nationalism. It is active in national politics, having fielded its own candidates in the country's top positions. Furthermore, the chapter shows how megachurch Christianity is not necessarily taking shape among aspirational middle class. That megachurches attract the middle class is a point that is repeatedly rehearsed in the literature.

Copyright (c) 2018 by Roscoe Barnes III
#FFBosworth

Before he became a famous leader in the charismatic movement, Ern Baxter was a campaign manager for William Branham. But something happened that prompted him to part ways with Branham. Baxter and F.F. Bosworth were two of the most prominent leaders to work with Branham.

This blog post features an interview of Baxter by the Rev. Dewey Friedel. It reveals, among other things, Baxter's serious concerns about Branham's doctrine and "supernatural" gift of healing. Baxter said he was "disturbed" by Branham's teachings on faith and he questioned the source of Branham's power. The interview is believed to have taken place in the early 1990s. It was published as a book titled, Life on Wings.

For more information on F.F. Bosworth, follow the Bosworth Matters blog at: http://ffbosworth.strikingly.com

#ChristTheHealer #BosworthMatters

Recent scholarship on Pentecostalism in the global South gives the impression of a singular trajectory of inexorable growth. In this chapter, I offer a counternarrative, not in denial of the widely reported statistical evidence but in affirmation of the ambivalence with which individuals behind the statistics experience novelty. In so doing, I bring existential insights to bear on such themes as rupture and discontinuity, which already, but inadequately, suffuse studies of Pentecostal conversion. Ethnographic evidence from northern Mozambique suggests that the “backsliding into heathenism” Pentecostal leaders decry is experienced locally as a capacity, a capacity for mobility and mutability, for shifting places and altering identities. The refusal of ordinary men and women to settle has long frustrated government administrators and religious reformers alike. It threatens to bewilder scholars as well unless we learn to think beyond the classificatory schemes outsiders so readily deploy and insiders so assiduously avoid.

The State of Israel was consolidated in the early twentieth century as the homeland of the Jewish people. While nominally secular, it also acknowledged in law and practice the complex , possibly inextricable relationship between ethnic, religious and national or genealogical forms of imagining what it means to be a Jew in the modern world. In one celebrated Supreme Court case, it was made clear that a "Jew," for purposes of immigration, could not include someone who clearly identified in a religious sense with Christianity. Yet the demography of Israel has been changing through mass immigration (especially from the USSR and Ethiopia) as well as strong foreign missionary efforts. In the Ethiopian case, tens of thousands of individuals immigrated over the last two decades who were considered by the state to be descendants of converts to Orthodox (or Protestant) Christianity: their case was normalized, from the state's point of view, by encouraging them to undergo a state-sponsored "return to Judaism" program that brought ethnic and religious grounds of identification back into synch. Yet this has remained contested and conflictual at both the policy level and the level of everyday, vernacular experience of Ethiopians. Moreover, a smaller but even more challenging group of Ethiopians, from the state's point of view, have begun, with other Jewish Israelis, to embrace various forms of Messianic Judaism and charismatic Christianity in Israel--making a frontal collision with the state's basic imaginary almost inevitable. My paper, grounded in ethnographic fieldwork among both groups of Ethiopian-Israelis,  begins to pry apart the  tortured relationship between Christianity and Jewishness in the Ethiopian case: its corollaries in everyday religion, distinctive practices of aversion or mimesis, and its explosive political implications for Israeli self-understanding.

Les Églises pentecôtistes, si elles mobilisent de nombreux chercheurs, n’ont jamais véritablement été étudiées, du moins en Afrique subsaharienne, sous l’angle de la place qu’elles font ou qu’elles refusent de faire aux morts. Cet article aborde ce thème à partir du cas des milieux pentecôtistes, et plus largement évangéliques 5, du Sud-Bénin, où la conversion évangélique, revendiquée comme une nouvelle naissance, débouche en
effet sur un véritable basculement du statut des défunts.

In this this paper I account for the emergence of current religious discourse and practice, usually called Evangelio, among the Takshek Toba of Eastern Formosa (Argentina), through a double historical and ethnographic perspective. I show the influence both Catholic and Protestant missions and the national state had in the constitution of indigenous churches, as well as their critical view of ancient culture, shamanism, and social life. In addition, I inquiry into the way the Toba being-in-the-world is assessed today. The latter, strongly anchored in what could be labelled "evangelical-being," synthetizes the historical processes already mentioned. Moreover, it illustrates an interesting case for comparative studies in the region and other areas of South America.

Gambling and financial investment have a long shared history, with many convergences and many
moments where each has defined the other as its opposite. In the contemporary Pacific, not least among
evangelical Christians, gambling is often understood as wasteful entertainment and even as an irresponsible
vice. Investment on the other hand is seen as a productive activity for both individuals and
society at large. These moral concerns draw on discourses of proprietorship of the self, of money and of
risk. This paper explores moral attitudes to gambling/investment among middle-class investors in a mass
Ponzi scheme in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and charts new valorizations of risk and investment as
components of the construction of modern ‘financial selves’.
Keywords: gambling, investment, fraud, Christianity, Papua New Guinea.

A book review of the pivotal book written by the Bethel Pastor  revivalist Bill Johnson. The book is a powwerful insight into the powerful culture transforming vision of the Charismatic Church in the 21st century. The vision being the expectaion of a billion soul revival expected sometime soon.

Copyright (c) 2019 by Roscoe Barnes III

#FFBosworth

This blog post presents an analysis of an unfavorable comment made about F.F. Bosworth. The comment, which suggests he made exaggerated claims about his meetings in South Africa, is attributed to Donald Gee. The comment appears as a footnote in C. Douglas Weavers' book on William Branham. Weaver cited Gee's book, Wind and Flame, as the source for the notation.

For more information on F.F. Bosworth, follow the Bosworth Matters blog at: http://ffbosworth.strikingly.com.

#ChristTheHealer #BosworthMatters #BosworthMention