African Pentecostalism And Eschatological Expectations

The Pentecostalisation of African Christianity has been called the “African Reformation” of the past thirty years. African Pentecostalism is a diverse movement characterised by its emphases on Spirit baptism, divine healing, charismatic worship and eschatological expectations. This work investigates its eschatological systems in terms of its unrealised expectation of the second coming of Christ, and suggestions are presented for the movement to keep its eschatology at the heart of its impetus. This is accomplished through a hermeneutical awareness of the distinctiveness of Pentecostalism as a restorationist movement. Written for pastors, church leaders and believers, this book discusses the literalistic way of reading the Bible in most of the classical Pentecostal components of African Pentecostalism, supporting their premillennialist and even dispensational eschatological views. It suggests a new Pentecostal hermeneutics developed by scholarship in the past forty years, in line with significant elements of the way in which early Pentecostals read the Bible. This new hermeneutical awareness implies new and exciting ways of thinking about eschatology that will enrich and enlighten African Pentecostalism in its hope for the second coming of Christ.

African Pentecostal Theology: Modality, Disciplinarity, and Decoloniality explores research methodology, theological disciplines, and contextualization as important aspects in the process of studying Pentecostal theology in an African context. Mookgo Solomon Kgatle outlines different data collection and data analysis methods, including the skills of interpreting and presenting research findings in a responsible manner. This book illustrates that Pentecostal theology, given its pneumatological approach, goes beyond conventional theological disciplines in transdisciplinary research. The development of knowledge in African Pentecostal Theology should recognize African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS), African oral and traditional cultures, and African indigenous languages to be relevant to Africans. Pentecostal theologians from different theological disciplines in Africa and globally will find this book a worthwhile read.

The face of African Christianity is becoming Pentecostal. African Pentecostalism is a diverse movement, but its collective interest in baptism in the Spirit and the result of Pentecost in daily living binds it together. Pentecostals read the Bible with the expectation that the Spirit who inspired the authors will again inspire them to hear it as God's word. They emphasize the experiential, at times at the cost of proper doctrine and practice. This book sketches an African hermeneutic that provides guidance to a diverse movement with many faces, and serves as corrective for doctrine and practice in the face of some excesses and abuses (especially in some parts of the neo-Pentecostal movement). African Pentecostalism's contribution to the hermeneutical debate is described before three points are discussed that define it: the centrality of the Holy Spirit in reading the Bible, the eschatological lens that Pentecostals use when they read the Bible, and the faith community as normative for the interpretation of the Bible.

The distinct subjects of eschatology and gender equality have seen an explosion of interest in recent decades, particularly within Pentecostal scholarship. Pentecostalism is regarded ideally as both an eschatological and egalitarian movement. However, many Pentecostals have lamented the inconsistency between the early egalitarian impulse of the movement and its current restrictive practices. This situation has been described as the so-called Pentecostal “gender paradox,” referring to the conflicting freedoms and limitations experienced by Pentecostal women. Pentecostals have also recognized the waning eschatological fervor within the movement and its shifting eschatological convictions, leading to calls to rediscover the eschatological heart of the movement. Despite the renewed interest in both eschatology and women's equality, little research has been done to put these two areas into conversation with each other: eschatological convictions are often absent in the debate on gender roles in the church. For Pentecostals, eschatology has often been about urgency in “saving souls” rather than attending to social issues, but could Pentecostal eschatology be the key to (re)discovering greater equality for women in the church? Is the waning of both eschatology and women's equality within Pentecostalism potentially interrelated? For over one hundred years the role of women in Pentecostalism has been debated without a firm consensus. By examining gender solely through an eschatological lens in history, Scripture, and praxis, this work provides a valuable and creative contribution to one of the most important theological and global issues of our time, women's (in)equality. This book is also one of the first comprehensive studies to approach a single social issue solely through an eschatological lens and to provide attention to developing a thorough and methodologically connected eschatological praxis. By uncovering the unified eschatological-egalitarian narrative thread within both the Pentecostal and biblical story, this work suggests that the present end of women's inequality begins with fidelity to the future eschaton of gender equality.

Africans’ prevailing interest in the prosperity gospel is not only connected to the influence of American prosperity teachers reaching a worldwide audience through their imaginative use of the media, but is also related to the African worldview and African traditional religion, and its lasting influence on contemporary Africans and the way they think about prosperity, as well as their interest in prosperity in post-colonial Africa. The research from a classical Pentecostal perspective about the impact of the prosperity message on Africa is necessary, timely, and relevant because of its influence in the African Pentecostal movement and its potential to harm the faith of believers, leading to the potential disillusionment of Christian believers who put their trust (and money) in formulas and recipes that seemingly only work for others, especially the prosperity leaders who lead by example with incredulous riches and wealth.

This book explores recent developments in South African Pentecostalism, focusing on new prophetic churches. The chapters engage with a number of paradigm shifts in Christology, identified as complementing Christ, competing with Christ, removing Christ and replacing Christ. What are the implications of these shifts? Does it mean that believers no longer believe in Christ but in their leaders? Does it shift believers’ faith towards materiality than the person of Christ? This volume will be valuable for scholars of African Christianity and in particular those interested in the neo-prophetic movement and Christology in a South African context.

Pentecostals emphasize that God is still the Healer of all illnesses, implying that God answers all prayers. What about those who are not healed? How do we explain suffering? Why does a good God allow suffering? Is God not powerful enough to prevent it? In this publication, the author reconsiders these questions from a Pentecostal hermeneutical perspective to develop a novel way to think about God’s involvement with suffering among people. His experimental theology speculates how a Pentecostal ethos accommodates a theodicy that acknowledges suffering and God’s involvement in people’s lives. Although the book is a theologically constituted attempt, anyone can follow and understand its arguments. It concludes with alternative views of suffering, evil, God’s loving attention to people, the doctrine of original sin, and Satan. The author also suggests some ways to respond to suffering.

In the last fifty years, the history of World Christianity has been disproportionally shaped, if not defined, by African Pentecostalism. The objective of this volume is to investigate and interrogate the critical junctures at which World Christianity invigorates and is invigorated by African Pentecostalism. The essays of the thinkers gathered here examine the general relationships between World Christianity and Africa and the specific interplays between World Christianity and African Pentecostalism. Scholars from multiple disciplines, continents, and countries evaluate how the theological scholarship and missional works of eminent African intellectual Johnson Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu have contributed to the scholarly understanding of how Global Christianity has been mediated by its reception in Africa. They also investigate how African Pentecostalism has been shaped by its contact with the diverse forms of Christianity in Africa and the rest of the world. With contributions from: Opoku Onyinah Harvey C. Kwiyani Kirsteen Kim Craig S. Keener Charles Prempeh Kenneth R. Ross Trevor H. G. Smith Vivian Dzokoto Chammah J. Kaunda Felix Kang Esoh Patrick Kofi Amissah Caleb Nyanni Marleen de Witte Oluwaseun Abimbola Philomena Njeru Nwaura Faith Lugazia Dietrich Werner Allan H. Anderson