Global Renewal Christianity: Spirit-Empowered Movements: Past, Present and Future

The radical resurgence of Christianity in non-Western societies has continued to engender creative paradigms and models. Global Pentecostal movements remain one of the most enduring manifestations of this remarkable spiritual zeitgeist. This edited volume presents a robust account of Africa’s indelible contributions to this remarkable phenomenon. It is historical, contextual, and theological. It is a welcome addition to the literature of African Christianity that continues to grow like a pole masquerade. This is a path-breaking and ambitious study of a topic that is germane to theological studies, missions, church history, and cross-cultural engagement.

—AKINTUNDE E. AKINADE

PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY IN QATAR,

EDMUND A. WALSH SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE

It is quite rare to find scholarly material that explores Christianity beyond the dead, mechanical, cerebral, and ritualistic forms that had been accepted as orthodox in the world. It is even harder to read an extensively researched book that supplies an objective, balanced, and incredibly insightful look at the spirituality of original Christianity and God’s plan to reach the world through indigenous Holy Spirit movements in Africa. I have not only learned from, but have also been challenged by, this book. Global Renewal Christianity: Spirit-Empowered Movements Past, Present, and Future, Volume 3: Africa is one of the most thorough works on African Pentecostalism I have ever read!

—MOST REV. DR. CHARLES AGYINASARE

PRESIDING BISHOP, PEREZ CHAPEL INTERNATIONAL,

CHANCELLOR, PAN AFRICAN CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, GHANA

This fine edited volume transports the reader to the various regions of Africa, introducing the Renewalist movements from Egypt to Ethiopia and Nigeria to Namibia and Malawi to Mozambique. In this multidisciplinary collection, the reader will encounter debates about the African origins and character of African Pentecostalism, expositions on the contextual theologies of African Pentecostalism, and explorations of the transnational currents within African Renewalist movements. For years to come, I believe that this book will be consulted in serious studies on Pentecostal, Charismatic, and neo-Charismatic movements in Africa.

—DAVID D. DANIELS III

HENRY WINTERS LUCE PROFESSOR OF WORLD CHRISTIANITY,

MCCORMICK THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

This remarkable and insightful volume consists of a rich collection of essays on Pentecostalism on the African continent written by diverse scholars from a critical theological and historical perspective. Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity has today become the new "mainline’’ church tradition in Africa. This is, therefore, essential reading for scholars and students in African Christianity and anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating Spirit-empowered phenomenon and Africa’s fastest growing religious movement.

—PHILOMENA NJERI MWAURA

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRE FOR GENDER

EQUITY AND EMPOWERMENT,

KENYATTA UNIVERSITY, KENYA

This book offers the reader a compelling account of the histories, theologies, and mission of Pentecostal/Charismatic movements in Africa. This comprehensive and sympathetically objective collection of essays by predominantly African scholars makes a significant contribution to the study of African Pentecostalism. Students of African Christianity will find it an indispensable resource.

—CEPHAS N. OMENYO

PROFESSOR OF AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY AND MISSION, UNIVERSITY OF

GHANA, AND PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY, FACULTY OF THEOLOGY,

UNIVERSITY OF STELLENBOSCH, SOUTH AFRICA

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GLOBAL RENEWAL CHRISTIANITY: SPIRIT-EMPOWERED MOVEMENTS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE, VOLUME 3: AFRICA by Vinson Synan, Amos Yong, and J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Editors

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Scripture quotations marked MEV are taken from the Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Copyright © 2016 by Oral Roberts University d/b/a Empowered21 All rights reserved

Cover design by Lisa Rae McClure

Design Director: Justin Evans

Visit the Empowered21 website at http://empowered21.com/.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

An application to register this book for cataloging has been submitted to the Library of Congress.

International Standard Book Number: 978-1-62998-767-5

E-book ISBN: 978-1-62998-929-7

Contents

Foreword by Dr. William M. Wilson

Foreword by Dr. George O. Wood

Series Preface

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Introduction: From Every Nation Under Heaven: Africa in World Pentecostalism / J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu

Part I: West Africa

1 West African Pentecostalism: A Survey of Everyday Theology / Nimi Wariboko

2 The New Face of African Christianity: David Oyedepo’s Winners Chapel and the Pentecostal Message of Salvation / E. Kingsley Larbi

3 Indigenous Classical Pentecostalism: The Church of Pentecost in Ghana / Opoku Onyinah

4 The Growth and Expansion of Pentecostalism in Francophone West Africa: The Assemblies of God of Burkina Faso / Jean-Baptiste Roamba

5 Pentecostalism in Cameroon and Nigeria’s Cross-Border Pentecostal Influence / Samson Adetunji Fatokun and Isaac Deji Ayegboyin

Part II: Northeast and East Africa

6 Blessed Be Egypt My People: The Neo-Charismatic Movement in Egypt / Tharwat Maher Nagib Adly Nagib

7 Kenyan Pentecostalism: An Epitome of Theological Shifts Within Pentecostal Christianity / Susan Murimi

8 Pentecostalism in Ethiopia: A Unique Case in Africa / Jörg Haustein

9 Coming of Age: Pentecostalism and Umunthu in Malawi / Harvey C. Kwiyani

10 Pentecostalism in Tanzania and Uganda: A Historical and Theological Perspective / Alfred Olwa

Part III: Southern Africa

11 Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in Zambia: Historical and Theological Developments and Civic Engagement / Naar M’ fundisi

12 The Rural Narratives of a Zimbabwean-Based Religious Movement and the Shaping of African Pentecostal Spirituality / Kudzai Biri

13 Thus Far the Lord Has Brought Us!: Histories and Theologies of Southeast African Pentecostalisms / Chammah J. Kaunda

14 Rising to the Challenge: Pentecostalism in Angola, Botswana, and Namibia / Trad Nogueira-Godsey

15 The Rise of the Megachurches in South Africa / Maria Frahm-Arp

Part IV: Select Theological Themes

16 Nativizing the Gospel: Pentecostalism and Theology in Africa / Joseph Quayesi-Amakye

17 The Spirit and the African Spiritual World / Allan Heaton Anderson

18 Charismatic Renewal and Roman Catholicism in Africa: Challenges and Prospects of Pentecostalism / Donatus Pius Ukpong

19 Nigerian Pentecostalism and Islam: Toward a Pentecostalized Vision of Interreligious Coexistence Through Ubuntu Philosophy / Clifton Clarke

20 The Deregulation of Piety in the Context of Neoliberal Globalization: African Pentecostalisms in the Twenty-First Century / Asonzeh Ukah

21 Foreign on Own Home Front? Ruminations From an African-South African Pentecostal Biblical Scholar / Madipoane Masenya (ngwan’a Mphahlele)

Notes

Foreword

THE WORK OF the Holy Spirit around the world in our lifetime is changing the face of global Christianity. The prayer movements from across Asia, to worship in Africa and Latin America, to church revitalization in Europe and North America and the masses being evangelized daily worldwide give evidence that a significant spiritual shift has taken place. At the heart of this shift are millions of Spirit-empowered believers. This volume of exceptional scholarly analysis, one of four on the global Spirit-empowered movement, helps bring definition, understanding, and depth to the dynamic work that God is doing today.

Spirit-empowered, or renewalist, Christianity continues to expand exponentially. As this growth takes place, the depth of the movement and a clear twenty-first-century hermeneutic must also grow. Isaiah 54:2 provides prophetic encouragement for this increased depth by stating, Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your habitations; spare not, lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes (MEV).

As the tent of Spirit-empowered Christianity grows, the stakes of theological understanding must also deepen. This will allow the movement to withstand the twenty-first-century storms that will rage against us while sheltering those believers in this ever-enlarging tent.

Empowered21 is committed to serving the broad spectrum of Spirit-empowered Christianity including Pentecostals, Charismatics, and every subsequent wave of Holy Spirit expression in the body of Christ. It is with deep gratitude to our editors, Dr. Vinson Synan, Dr. Amos Yong, and Dr. J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, that we publish this exciting volume of essays with the hope that God will use this work to indeed deepen our stakes for the exciting days ahead.

My prayer is that as you absorb this material, God’s presence will overshadow you so you may personally experience the Holy Spirit, who is moving globally today.

Serving a movement, empowering a generation,

—DR. WILLIAM M. WILSON

PRESIDENT OF ORAL ROBERTS UNIVERSITY

GLOBAL COCHAIR OF EMPOWERED21

Foreword

IN HIS VISION, John the Revelator saw a great multitude which no one could count, from all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out with a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ (Rev. 7:9–10, MEV).

What was for John a revelation of the end times is increasingly for us a picture of the present. No longer is it possible—if, in fact, it ever was!—for Western Christians to speak of the faith of Jesus Christ as a European and North American faith. Instead, we must speak of global Christianity, for the faith has gone out from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

In the last one hundred years, global Pentecostalism has been used by God to advance the good news of the kingdom of God within every nation, tribe, people, and language. The volume you are reading is proof of that. It is one of four volumes assaying the past, present, and future of global Pentecostalism.

I said that John’s end-times vision is increasingly a picture of the present for us, but that adverb reminds us that there is still work to do. May God use this scholarly volume to inform and inspire a new generation of Spirit-empowered leaders to take the good news about His Son into every global nook and cranny, so that today’s unreached may become tomorrow’s white-robed, palm-waving praisers of Jesus Christ! Then, and only then, will John’s vision be realized in full.

—DR. GEORGE O. WOOD

GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT OF THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD (USA)

CHAIRMAN OF THE WORLD ASSEMBLIES OF GOD FELLOWSHIP

GLOBAL COCHAIR OF EMPOWERED21

Series Preface

THE EMPOWERED21 MOVEMENT had its origin in a vision given to Robert Fisher concerning a fitting celebration of the centennial of the Azusa Street revival that began in 1906. To plan for the event, Fisher organized the Center for Spiritual Renewal in 2000 in Cleveland, Tennessee. Unfortunately he passed away before the event took place, and his friend Billy Wilson was asked to complete the plans for the celebration and lead the conference. The celebration, which met in the Staples Center in Los Angeles in April of 2006, was a resounding success as more than fifty thousand persons attended the various events that were celebrated in several Los Angeles venues.

After the Azusa Street celebration in 2006, the center began a connection with Oral Roberts University (ORU) when Wilson and his friend Mart Green were chosen to lead the Board of Trustees of the university. From this association came a vision for another meeting on the campus of ORU. Although the meeting was under the auspices of ORU, the Center for Spiritual Renewal was chosen to administer the event. Called the Global Congress on Holy Spirit Empowerment, the Tulsa meeting drew ten thousand persons to the campus in April 2010.

In preparing for the Tulsa meeting, Mart Green and his associates conducted a broad ranging survey of the young people of the next generation to find out what term best described the Pentecostal/Charismatic renewal in their minds. In the end the word empowered won out over the terms Pentecostal, Charismatic, or full gospel. Also, since everyone wanted to look toward the future instead of the past, the numeral 21 was added, referring to the twenty-first century. Thus the term Empowered21 (or E21) was born.

The vision statement of Empowered21 is powerful and pointed: That every person on earth would have an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ through the Power and Presence of the Holy Spirit . . . by Pentecost 2033. Its mission statement proclaims that: Empowered21 will help shape the future of the Global Spirit Empowered movement throughout the world by focusing on crucial issues facing the movement and connecting generations for intergenerational blessing and impartation. Thus the major focus is on what is called the Nextgen (next generation) in order to continue the spiritual grace of the Pentecostal/Charismatic renewal into future generations. Underlining all the efforts of this vision is a prayer for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the twenty-first century. These themes have permeated all the events and planning sessions of E21 from the beginning.

At the early years of the E21 movement Wilson led seventeen unique conversations with some five hundred church leaders and scholars from fifty-four nations and fifteen universities with the goal of answering the questions What does it mean to be Spirit empowered in the twenty-first century? and What steps can be taken to engage new generations in the Spirit-filled experience? Armed with the wealth of knowledge from these conversations, E21 conducted two major events on university campuses.

The first was the aforementioned Global Congress on Holy Spirit Empowerment, which drew ten thousand persons to Oral Roberts University in April 2010 where 210 workshops produced a futuristic book edited by Vinson Synan titled Spirit-Empowered Christianity in the 21st Century (Charisma House, 2011). The second was a meeting at Regent University in 2012 in conjunction with the Society for Pentecostal Studies, which emphasized the convergence of Spirit-empowered generations and movements. More than five hundred leaders registered for this event.

During this time the E21 movement was organized on an international scale with a global cabinet and eleven regional cabinets around the world. Included in these groups were leaders from most of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements in the world. The first global gathering after the American events at ORU and Regent University was the E21 Asia Congress held in Jakarta, Indonesia, in October 2011, which drew some fifteen thousand persons.

Other plans for the future include worldwide celebrations on Pentecost Sunday each year to celebrate the birthday of the church and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room (Acts 2). On Pentecost Sunday 2012 many thousands gathered in local celebrations around the world. Totally ecumenical, the vision is to see Pentecost Sunday rise to the level of Easter and Christmas as great days to make a common witness to the world.

An important part of the E21 vision has been to gather scholars from around the world to study the past, present, and future of the Empowered movements on every continent and from as many nations as possible. To accomplish this goal, three meetings convened before the final one in Jerusalem in 2015. One was held in Oxford, England, in 2012 under the leadership of Dr. Harold Hunter. Another took place in Sydney, Australia, in 2013, where the focus was on Asia. Vinson Synan and Amos Yong directed this latter consultation and those that followed. The third meeting was in Quito, Ecuador, in 2014, where the focus was on Latin America. The last meeting of scholars was in Jerusalem in 2015 in the culminating congress where thousands of people gathered for one of the largest Christian meetings held in the Holy Land in modern times. Here the scholars read papers focusing on Africa, North America, and Europe.

In the end, four volumes of the papers read in these gatherings will be published and edited by Synan and Yong. They will be on Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America, and will be published by Charisma House in Lake Mary, Florida. Many of the papers published in these volumes were initially presented in the above-mentioned conferences and consultations, but not all. Those who could not attend the conferences or consultations were invited to write specifically for the project. Most of the chapters across the volumes were intended thus to be read, although a few were written to be presented and heard and have retained their oral character (which will be easily identifiable as such in what follows). In all cases, scholars with a PhD or its equivalent and a recognized publication record were invited, although in a good number of cases our first choices were not able to participate because of other commitments or circumstances. In most cases, scholars are also personal participants in Pentecostal, Charismatic, or renewal movements, although again, not all. In any of the latter cases, of course, authors were invited because of their recognized capacity to present and discuss Pentecostal/Charismatic movements with sympathetic objectivity.

This mix of both confessional Pentecostal/Charismatic insiders and outsiders may result for some readers in a certain sense of unevenness as they move from chapter to chapter in each volume. Some writers write more from a first-person perspective, while others remain more distant. A few approached their task more pastorally, while many more academically, in overall orientation. Last but not least, many of the latter remain more descriptive in their approach while others are more normative with regard to the theology, practice, and mission of Spirit-empowered churches and communities. The editors hope that such a combination of voices, stances, and dispositions will introduce readers to the broad spectrum of Pentecostal/Charismatic scholarship. Outsiders might come to appreciate the animating concerns of Pentecostal/Charismatic scholars who are in touch with pastoral and ecclesial realities and challenges, while readers who are lay and ecclesial leaders, pastors, and bureaucrats (used here descriptively rather than pejoratively) in the Spirit-empowered renewal movement worldwide may perhaps also glean something useful from their academic colleagues.

The editors are hopeful that these volumes will be of wide-ranging benefit to readers from both of these domains in part because of the conceptual layout for the project. The task presented to each of the invitees was to write about the history and theology of Pentecostal/Charismatic or renewal movements in a specified region or country. With this, some assessment of theological orientation and development was expected, as well as analyses of opportunities and challenges lying ahead of these movements, especially on the theological front. Most chapters in these volumes follow this general format, although not all.

The Empowered21 movement, under the able leadership of Billy Wilson and the many worldwide leadership groups that he has gathered, seems poised to bring more coordination to all the Spirit-filled Pentecostal and Charismatic movements in the world to a level that has not been seen heretofore. In the long run, it is hoped that this set of books produced by these scholars will be a permanent and important milestone in the history and theology of the Empowered21 movement from the vantage point of the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Acknowledgments

MANY FRIENDS CONTRIBUTED to making this book a reality. First, we thank the Empowered21 leadership team whose vision brought this and the other books in the series into being. They include Billy Wilson, Mart Green, Ossie Mills, Assif Reid, Robin Cole, and their colleagues. Also, special thanks are due to Tessie DeVore and Charisma House, publisher of the book; and to Mike Schatz, Adrienne Gaines, Debbie Marrie, and others for their help with the publication process.

This Africa volume owes much to the leaders of Empowered21, who provided facilities and support for the scholars to meet in the Pais Arena in Jerusalem as a track at the Jerusalem 2015 Empowered21 Global Congress. Special thanks go to Ossie Mills for site planning and Assif Reid for overseeing the scholars’ track. Vinson Synan organized the African scholars’ track at the congress, and Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu cochaired its sessions. Above all, thanks to the authors of the following pages, whose excellent research and writing make this important book such a great contribution to the study of current Spirit-empowered movements across the globe.

Contributors

Allan Heaton Anderson (DTh, University of South Africa) is professor of mission and Pentecostal studies and director of the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom.

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu (PhD, University of Birmingham) is dean of the faculty at Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Ghana.

Isaac Deji Ayegboyin (PhD, University of Ibadan) is professor of church history and African Christianity and current head of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

Kudzai Biri (PhD, University of Zimbabwe) is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies, Classics, and Philosophy at the University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe.

Clifton Clarke (PhD, University of Birmingham) is associate professor of intercultural studies and world Christianity at Regent University’s School of Divinity, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Samson Adetunji Fatokun (PhD, University of Ibadan) is professor of church history, doctrinal theology, and Pentecostal studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

Maria Frahm-Arp (PhD, University of Warwick) is lecturer in religion studies at the University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Jörg Haustein (PhD, University of Heidelberg) is senior lecturer in religions in Africa at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, England.

Chammah J. Kaunda (PhD, University of KwaZulu-Natal) is a Zambian postdoctoral research fellow in Christian spirituality at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa.

Harvey C. Kwiyani (PhD, Luther Seminary) is lecturer in African Christianity, mission, and leadership at Church Mission Society, Oxford, United Kingdom.

E. Kingsley Larbi (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is founder and chancellor of Regent University College of Science and Technology, Accra, Ghana.

Madipoane Masenya (ngwan’a Mphahlele) (PhD, University of South Africa) is professor of Old Testament studies at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa.

Naar M’fundisi (PhD, University of Birmingham) teaches religious education, philosophy, and health/social care in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Susan Murimi (PhD, Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission, and Culture) is an adjunct lecturer in theology at Daystar University, Nairobi, Kenya.

Tharwat Maher Nagib Adly Nagib (PhD student, Regent University) is lecturer in Wesleyan and Pentecostal studies at Faith Bible College, The First Pentecostal Seminary, and Veritas College International, Cairo, Egypt.

Trad Nogueira-Godsey (PhD, University of Cape Town) is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

Alfred Olwa (PhD, Moore College) is senior lecturer and dean of Bishop Tucker School of Divinity and Theology, Mukono, Uganda.

Opoku Onyinah (PhD, University of Birmingham) is chairman of the Church of Pentecost, Accra, Ghana.

Joseph Quayesi-Amakye (PhD, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) is senior lecturer and acting dean of the School of Theology and Missions, Central University, Dansoman-Accra, Ghana.

Jean-Baptiste Roamba (PhD, Regent University) is senior pastor of Central Assembly of God in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and member of the National Executive Board of the Assemblies of God, Burkina Faso.

Vinson Synan (PhD, University of Georgia) is emeritus professor of Christian history at Regent University’s School of Divinity, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Asonzeh Ukah (PhD and Dr. Habil., University of Bayreuth) is senior lecturer of African Christianity at the University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

Donatus Pius Ukpong (PhD, Pontifical Urban University) is senior lecturer and acting head in the Department of Religious and Cultural Studies, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria.

Nimi Wariboko (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is the Walter G. Muelder Professor of Social Ethics at Boston University School of Theology, Boston, Massachusetts.

Amos Yong (PhD, Boston University) is professor of theology and mission at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Introduction

From Every Nation Under Heaven: Africa in World Pentecostalism

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu

THE FOCUS OF this introductory essay is not to summarize points available from the works of the individual contributors. Rather, it reflects on the importance of Pentecostalism in Africa through the nonquantitative indices in the various write-ups. The histories of Pentecostalism from the different African contexts represented here are important for what they reveal about the experiences of ordinary people who were inspired to establish Spirit-empowered movements. Pentecostal growth and expansion has very often been a lay endeavor involving Christians from the margins of church life. Allan H. Anderson explains the impact of the laity on Pentecostalism as one of the main reasons for its success.¹ There was no need for a theologically articulate clergy, because cerebral and clerical Christianity had, in the minds of many people, already failed them.

In Africa, even in cases where the groundbreaking work is traceable to a visiting foreign Pentecostal preacher, a local Christian community has facilitated the eventual spread of the movement. Most importantly, in many cases, the movement starts from the periphery of more established church communities, showing how, by the workings of His Spirit, God has been consistent in using the foolish and weak things of the world to shame the wise and strong (1 Cor. 1:26–29).

This introduction is deliberately titled From Every Nation Under Heaven because of the firm theological conviction that the original, biblical Pentecost was meant to be an inclusive process for the nations. Pentecost was both an event and a process in which the promise of God held true for Jews, Gentiles, and those who were far off, as the Lord our God would call (Acts 2:39). In biblical terms, three key words underlie the self-definition of Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity, and these may be identified as promise, fulfillment, and experience. The belief is that the promise of the Spirit that was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost is what is now being experienced in the church, bringing together the different Spirit-empowered communities and movements that can be classified using the conjoined expression Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity.

Here, in discussing the importance of Africa in world Pentecostalism, we begin with the Acts of Apostles, where Luke provides a list of the representative nations and peoples that were present:

Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya near Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own languages the mighty works of God.

—ACTS 2:9–11, MEV

The presence of Egypt and Libya on the list means Pentecostalism has never been alien to the African experience. The encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is further evidence of that fact (Acts 8:26–40). Perhaps except for North Africa, represented by Egypt, in almost every account of Pentecost we have in this volume, the types are clear and follow a certain order: first, indigenous, independent Spirit-empowered movements; second, classical Pentecostal denominations coming from the West; and third, new Pentecostal or Charismatic churches and movements of the late twentieth century. The typology constituting the third category, that is, the neo-Pentecostals, has three main groups in it: the new urban-centered Charismatic prosperity-oriented churches; transdenominational fellowships, like the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International; and renewal movements within historic mission denominations.

ITINERANT CHARISMATIC PROPHETS AND INDIGENOUS PENTECOSTALISM

The essays in this volume clearly indicate that in spite of the common theme of the experience of the Spirit, we cannot talk about a monolithic type of Pentecostalism in Africa. In religious studies, quantitative data can be spurious and very deceptive, but even without specific numbers, statistical estimates clearly show that Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity has become the new mainline church tradition in Christian Africa. Indeed, Harvey Cox, in Fire From Heaven, actually referred to the older African independent/initiated churches (AICs) as Africa’s own version of the worldwide Pentecostal movement.² They pioneered the recovery of primal spirituality encapsulating primal speech in tongues-speaking, primal piety in trances, dreams and visions, and primal hope in the expectation of miracles, supernatural interventions from beyond, and the second coming of Christ. Close to a century after early-nineteenth-century mission work began with Portuguese Roman Catholic missions across the continent, African Christians, under the influence of indigenous Charismatic prophets, took their spiritual destiny into their own hands. Indigenous prophets, including William Wade Harris of Liberia, Garrick Sokari Braide of the Niger Delta, Isaiah Shembe of South Africa, and Simon Kimbangu of the Belgian Congo, charismatized the religious landscape, converting hundreds of thousands to Christianity. In the fashion of what we read in the Acts of the Apostles, prospective converts traded in their traditional gods, shrines, charms, and amulets in dramatic conversions to Christianity. One observer of the Harris phenomenon in the then Gold Coast (Ghana, since 1957) said of it, This is not a revival; it is a Pentecost. Its orbit is worldwide. . . . It fills one with awe to hear some of these converts pray.³

A number of these early prophets were simply itinerant evangelists. It was their converts and followers who later constituted themselves into independent churches when their innovative pneumatic spirituality seemed to clash with the ordered and cerebral liturgies of the historic mission denominations. In the early 1920s, the Methodist Church of the Gold Coast, for example, described speaking in tongues, healings, visions, and trance experiences that characterized the prayer movement of one of its catechists in terms of occult activities. The result was that the catechist, William Egyanka Appiah, was dismissed and subsequently led his sympathizers to form the Army of the Cross of Christ Church, where the so-called occult activities were fully integrated into Christian worship.⁴ Those experiences were replicated throughout early-twentieth-century Africa. In spite of the importance of classical Pentecostal denominations from the United States and Europe in the evangelization of Africa, historically it has been extremely difficult for Western church historiography to accept the possibility that in both its indigenous and contemporary forms, Pentecostalism in Africa has mostly developed independently of developments in the West.

The ministries of the early-twentieth-century African prophets we have named above were characterized by the same pneumatic phenomena that are spoken about in euphoric terms as emanating from Azusa Street in 1906. In Western Pentecostal scholarship, unfortunately, non-Western expressions of Spirit-inspired Christianity do not usually qualify as Pentecostal. It has left a huge question mark on the faith of such movements as Africa’s older independent churches, whose spirituality, although manifestly Spirit-inspired, has consistently been excluded from Pentecostal typologies. In much of the literature, they were marginalized in the historiography of world Pentecostalism for being unbiblical, irrational religious enthusiasts devoid of historical tradition and for wallowing in folk religiosity.⁵ Except for southern Africa, the classical AICs, as they came to be called in the academic literature, are no longer paradigmatic of Christianity in Africa. Nevertheless, their main theological contributions of Spirit-inspired oral liturgical forms, existential soteriology, gender sensitivity, and the mainstreaming of Charismatic experiences in worship remain undeniable. Their use of sacramentals—anointing oils, holy water, blessed handkerchiefs for the mediation of spiritual power, and the perception of the Charismatic leader as the custodian of special anointing—has been reinvented within modern Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity, creating theological and ecclesiological continuities between the two traditions.

PNEUMATIC CHRISTIANITY/CONTEMPORARY PENTECOSTALISM

Precisely because scholars of Pentecostalism have often failed to recognize this fact—sometimes for good reason—I use the expression pneumatic Christianity in this introductory essay to refer to any form of Christianity that values, affirms, and consciously promotes the experiences of the Spirit as part of normal Christian life and worship. This allows me to bring into the discussion not only movements in Africa that scholars delineate as Pentecostal or Charismatic, but also the many indigenous expressions of Christianity from non-Western contexts that privilege the experiential presence of the Spirit in the faith. Many of these movements may not necessarily call themselves Pentecostal, but the vernacular expressions used to capture the theology of their experiences suggests a discernment that the Spirit was at work in these ministries. It means that in Africa, the history of what has come to be known as Pentecostalism within the different streams of world Christianity started with these older independent or spiritual churches. That they did not describe their initiatives as Pentecostal must not be taken to mean that they do not belong to that category, because there is really no vernacular translation for the biblical expression Pentecost from which the word Pentecostalism is derived.

Part of the significance of pneumatic Christianity may be seen in the fact that even in the secularizing West, it is the Christian communities that privilege the experiences of the Spirit in worship that are keeping the faith alive. Immigrant communities from Africa constitute many of these congregations.⁶ Significantly, a number of these are of non-Western origins. In Beyond Christendom, Jehu Hanciles, writing on migration and African Christianity, noted that the expansion and impact of Pentecostal/charismatic movements are most commonly shaped by individual or spontaneous initiatives that discountenance rigid institutional or denominational control mechanisms.⁷ It is the lay participation through the experiences of the Holy Spirit that allows Pentecostalism to travel and spread without inhibitions. In Africa today, even churches that trace their roots to the work of German and English missions from London, Hamburg, Basel, and Bremen are all turning to Charismatic renewal in the search for contextual relevance. The argument of contemporary Charismatic movements has been that the absence of the dynamic presence of the Spirit from the church, particularly in its older Western forms, turns it into something other than a place to encounter God. In qualitative terms, the impact of Pentecostalism on the African religious landscape, according to the essays in this volume, has occurred through the following: the integration of Charismatic experiences into church life; exuberance and vitality; infectious, dynamic, and electronically driven worship; high public visibility through numbers and megasize cathedroms; innovative media programs; high-profile, charismatically gifted leadership; gender inclusivity based on spiritual experience; and, within the public and social spheres, politically active leaders and involvement in university education.⁸

African Pentecostalism has, in many respects, been very progressive. Today, Nigeria’s Covenant University, owned by David O. Oyedepo’s Living Faith Church Worldwide, also known as Winners Chapel, and the Central University College, owned by Mensa Otabil’s International Central Gospel Church, are some of the best such private universities in Africa. The media programs of the new Pentecostal leaders are available and accessible worldwide through satellite television and the mass circulation of prerecorded sermons on various portable electronic devices. During a century of growth, speaking at international evangelistic healing crusades has ceased to be the preserve of North American televangelists. Bishop Charles Agyinasare of Ghana, whose ministry receives some more attention later, is now acknowledged as Ghana’s Morris Cerullo. Powerful and dramatic healings characterize his crusades, and he has ministered on every continent, including holding mass evangelistic meetings in Nigeria’s Islamic regions, Pakistan, and Kiev in the Ukraine. We know quite a bit about African Pentecostal churches of the classical type, and so these reflections are deliberately giving disproportionate attention to the new Charismatic churches. Writing on the public significance of these contemporary Pentecostal movements, using Ghana as a representative sample, Paul Gifford notes:

Nobody in Ghana is unaware of the shift. Everyone is aware of the charismatic prayer centers, their all-night prayer services, their crusades, conventions, and Bible Schools, their new buildings . . . their car bumper stickers and banners, and particularly the posters that everywhere advertise an enormous range of forthcoming activities. Everyone is aware of their media efforts. Above all everyone knows of the new religious superstars.⁹

The essays in this volume show that the African Pentecostal context is one in which the Bible has retained its authority and sanctity as the Word of God. Indeed, in some indigenous Pentecostal movements, the Bible is not simply text but also a sacred symbol that is potent for certain therapeutic rituals. The African context is also one in which things of the spirit and religious experience—defining factors in Pentecostal religions—have always been privileged over cerebral forms of piety. Additionally, in matters religious, that which is spiritual always has a certain resonance with African religio-cultural worldviews. It is thus not surprising that in essays covering the various African regions, the primal imagination has never been excluded from Pentecostal spirituality. Christianity of the historic Western mission kind tended to be a system of ideas, but religion in Africa, including much of indigenously initiated Christianity, is pneumatic in orientation. If healing, prophecy, and prosperity within contemporary Christianity have therefore found a home in African Pentecostalism, it is not simply because they are biblical concepts, important as that may be. It is also because these phenomena strike response chords within the African primal or religio-cultural imagination.

AFRICA AND THE CHANGING PENTECOSTAL SCAPE

These essays draw attention to Africa as an important geographical, religious, and cultural context in the development of Pentecostalism as a world religion. When at the Empowered21 world Pentecostal gathering in Jerusalem in May 2015 Pastor Enoch A. Adeboye, leader of Nigeria-based Redeemed Christian Church of God, mounted the podium as plenary speaker, it was a modest but an important recognition by organizers that African voices are no longer marginal to world Pentecostalism. It is impossible to talk about contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa without reference to the name of the late Benson Idahosa. Paul Emeka used a study of the Benson Idahosa Factor in Nigerian Pentecostalism to demonstrate how the linkage with twentieth-century North American televangelism enabled him to reshape contemporary Pentecostalism in Africa:

He brought the prosperity gospel, the episcopal polity, televangelism, mega-church projects, and theological education that sponsored a large group of African students who spread the faith and deliverance theology throughout the continent. The watershed was the Fire Conference organized by Reinhard Bonnke in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1984 under the theme Africa shall be saved. Four thousand evangelists from forty-four African countries participated in a tent supplied by Kenneth Copeland at a cost of one million dollars. Idahosa was the African among the keynote speakers.¹⁰

The influence of foreigners, especially North Americans on African Pentecostalism, is undeniable, as we see from the experience of Idahosa in the quotation above. In the past, the continent played host to a number of classical Pentecostal churches, but that sort of mission has seen a reversal with African-founded and African-led contemporary Pentecostal denominations making waves in virtually all of Europe and North America. Perhaps a more concrete indicator of this importance may be found in the numbers of academic publications that have been dedicated to the study of Spirit-empowered Christianity in Africa.¹¹ This attention could not have been otherwise when the skylines of South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana have all been transformed by expensive, megasized Pentecostal cathedroms that were formerly associated with North America. In Ghana, the Church of Pentecost, an indigenous classical Pentecostal denomination, has just completed the building of a five-thousand-seat conference center named Jesus Town, with accompanying hostel and dining facilities all within a single geographical location. The largest Pentecostal gatherings anywhere in the world now take place in Nigeria under the leadership of Adeboye and David O. Oyedepo at Winners Chapel. Consider the following observation in John D. Y. Peel’s foreword to Asonzeh Ukah’s study on Adeboye’s Redeemed Christian Church of God:

The center of all RCCG’s activities is the Redemption Camp, a 10 square kilometer site on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway . . . this has grown to the scale of a small town with all modern facilities, a high school and a university, its own drainage system, electricity and water supplies, banks and supermarkets, houses built by wealthy members . . . and at the center of it an auditorium that will seat half a million people. Here takes place every month the famous Holy Ghost Night, at which divine miracles and blessings are outpoured. A place where God reveals his dominion, a place where the kingdom of heaven is reproduced on earth.¹²

The important thing is that the resources were raised through local tithers, showing how indigenous and independent African Pentecostalism has become! When Ghana’s Mensa Otabil holds his end-of-year Crossover services at the Accra sports stadium, he takes in more people than any visiting North American healing evangelist does today. Those who have followed the religious thought of Pastor Mensa Otabil of Ghana’s International Central Gospel Church would also know that his work Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia is written to affirm the important place that the black race occupies in God’s economy of salvation and empowerment:

I believe what we are seeing is the beginning of more fundamental and foundational changes. There is a shaking in the land! God is going to visit the black peoples of this world to bring them out [of] the state they are in, into their portion. . . . There is the sense of urgency and a feeling of an appointment with destiny among black people. It is a feeling that makes you know that your time has come and God is bringing to fruition the days of intense intercessions, for his justice to prevail.¹³

God’s justice in this context means the African would no longer be subservient to the West in matters physical and spiritual. It is a mind-set that informs the motivational messages of today’s African Charismatic leaders. Mensa Otabil is only the most popular among a number of such contemporary Pentecostal pastors who have adopted a new way of preaching that uses the Bible to affirm the black race and to offer practical information for empowerment, development, and improvement. The other key voice here is Matthew Ashimolowo, whose slogan Raising Champions and Taking Territories summarizes what this new motivational gospel is about. This explains, in part, why contemporary Pentecostalism appeals a lot to the upwardly mobile youth, who may be looking for new sources of inspiration within the religious sphere.

As should be clear by now, African Pentecostalism, including the neo-Pentecostal or Charismatic movements, ought to be understood within the context of global developments. This is important because the contemporary Pentecostal movements that receive disproportionate attention here have never defined their efforts in purely local terms. That would be too limiting of their calling and transnational aspirations, as seen in the worldwide peregrinations of leaders and the choices of names and symbols. Each of these groups,