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Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Moved by the Spirit
Pentecostal Power & Politics after 100 Years
April 2006 marked the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles, an event often cited as the birth of modern pentecostalism. Since then, pentecostalism has emerged as one of the fastest-growing Christian movements in the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the "global South," which comprises the nations of Africa, Central and Latin America and most of Asia, where pentecostalism is reshaping the religious, political and economic landscapes. On April 24, 2006, the Pew Forum, together with the USC Annenberg Knight Program in Media and Religion and the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture, held an event to examine pentecostalism's impact on global politics and its relevance to U.S. foreign policy concerns. Speakers at the event included: Anthea Butler, Assistant Professor of Religion, University of Rochester; Paul Freston, Byker Chair in Christian Perspectives on Political, Social & Economic Thought, Calvin College; and Donald Miller, Firestone Professor of Religion, University of Southern California. Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, was the moderator. Following are edited excerpts from the discussion.
LUIS LUGO: It is interesting to see how the local newspaper of record, the Los Angeles Daily Times, as it was called in those days, described the events on Azusa Street back in April of 1906. I'm reading here from an April 18, 1906 article entitled, in the best tradition of impartial journalism, "Weird Babble of Tongues." It was the custom in those days to have three bullet points, which essentially summarized the article, and the three bullet points are these: "New sect of fanatics is breaking loose; Wild scene last night on Azusa Street; Gurgle of wordless talk by a sister."
The first paragraph: "Breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal could understand, the newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles. Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street near San Pedro, and devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories, and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal. Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howling of the worshippers who spend hours swaying back and forth in nerve-racking attitude of prayer and supplication. They claim to have the gift of tongues and to be able to comprehend the babble. Such a startling claim has never yet been made by any company of fanatics even in Los Angeles, the home of almost numberless creeds." That was 1906.
A more recent Los Angeles Times piece from earlier this year adopted a slightly different tone in suggesting that pentecostalism "may surpass the movie business as Los Angeles' most influential export." One wonders whether it hasn't done so already. Without question, the single most dramatic shift in the world religious scene in the last 100 years has been the explosive growth of pentecostalism and associated renewalist movements, which now command a following of between 250 million and 500 million people worldwide. That is up to a quarter of world Christianity.
The 2006 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches points out that the fastest-growing denomination in this country last year was the Assemblies of God. Nowhere is this growth more evident and dramatic than in the global South, where pentecostalism is literally reshaping the social, political and economic landscapes of Latin America, Africa and many parts of Asia.
Pentecostals historically have tended to focus on individual spiritual conversions and experiences rather than on social causes, but as you will hear today, that is beginning to change, especially in the developing world. There, pentecostal churches are creating social programs that provide food and shelter for the hungry and the homeless, and establishing schools and daycare centers.
Pentecostals also have become increasingly involved in politics in countries as diverse as Brazil, Guatemala and Zambia. These developments, not surprisingly, have led to greater social and political tension with Catholicism in Latin America, for instance, with Islam in Africa and elsewhere and with Hinduism in India.
Three very knowledgeable experts will explore these and other issues associated with the global pentecostal movement.
Pentecostalism's Historical Roots
ANTHEA BUTLER: Pentecostalism has come into vogue. Authors like Harvey Cox and Phil Jenkins are writing popular books or academic studies on its impact in the Southern Hemisphere, or on social and cultural issues. My contribution to our discussion today will be to lay a historic foundation, to look at the beginning of the Azusa Street revival to see if there is anything that we can actually point to that might - as pentecostals might say - prophesy what global pentecostalism is today.
I think that we can best see pentecostal actions moving historically through time in pentecostal beliefs. Three specific areas of belief form the foundation for this social and political orientation: One, an end-time Messianic apocalyptic vision. That is, we expect Jesus to return soon. We are in the end of times and because the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh - and this is the book of Joel, chapter two - this orients us to evangelism; it is a missions-oriented impulse.
The second area of belief is the restoration of the apostolic age. In other words, things that happened in Jesus' time happen right now. In 1906, there was an expectation that these things would occur, signs and wonders from forerunners to the end of the kingdom, that would help people focus on social mores and concerns like temperance, purity, interracial harmony, the breaking of gender barriers; things happening in the last days that would not be like the days before. Pentecostalism around the world today is looked at as a force for individual change - social, health, AIDS, addictions and the like - and, of course, for economic change. We can look at these signs that the early pentecostals in 1906 looked to as a restoration of the apostolic age and begin to see these things in global pentecostalism today.
Finally, the third area of belief is the egalitarian and democratic focus: The Spirit is poured out on all flesh - male, female, black, white, red, yellow or brown. Everyone can receive this gift. And not only can everyone receive this gift, but the boundaries of nationalism, gender and race are broken. And we can see today in global pentecostalism how these things work themselves out among countries and specific peoples.
Early pentecostals also did not have a sense of denominational boundaries. This was a movement; not a church. As such, it operated beyond the normal boundaries and confines.
The social and political posture of the Azuza Street movement was rooted in a biblical but not a fundamentalist orientation - and there is a big differentiation there; because something is biblical does not mean that it's fundamentalist. They looked to the Bible as a template for reading the signs of the times and interpreting their place within the world and the pentecostal experience.
It is within that context, then, that the actions of early pentecostals, politically and socially, can be seen as both complementary and contradictory to many of the things that we see in global pentecostalism today: a concern for social issues gleaned from prophetic beliefs and biblical justice, yet acquiescing to social norms when confronted; an orientation to engage the political and social forces of government on the basis of biblical focus and social injustice, but also a willingness to assist the government to the right intervention; an ability to cross social and denominational boundaries because of the imminent return of Christ, yet raising boundaries to protect fledgling pentecostal communities; and removal of boundaries in worship, yet raising those same worship barriers to create difference and dissension.
In sum, the mainstream pentecostal movement was a bundle of contradictions and complexities, all mediated by the social and political constraints of the vocations of the various participants who visited and promoted the revival. Much like the multiplicity of global pentecostalism, one sometimes knows what pentecostalism is or what pentecostal behavior is if you see it, but defining the minutiae is another task altogether.
In order to set the stage, let me briefly tell you the history of pentecostalism. The revival began among a group of African Americans at the Bonnie Bray house at 216 North Bonnie Bray Street. The house still exists today. If you want to take a tour, there are people there almost around the clock, and you'll be able to go in and look at some of the original furnishings.
The revival broke out on April 8, 1906, amongst a small group of African Americans led by a man named William J. Seymour, who had traveled to Los Angeles to preach the message of Pentecost that he had learned from Charles Parham, who has sometimes been called the projector and founder of pentecostalism. Within a week, over 300 people began to meet there. The porch fell in on the last night. The Los Angeles Police Department came because people were speaking in tongues in the street, and they arrested them on a 72-hour psychiatric hold. The police told the gatherers that they would need to move, and they moved to 312 Azusa Street a week later, first meeting there on April 16, 1906.
The article that Luis read from appeared on a crucial date, because April 18 was also the day the San Francisco earthquake happened. Somebody, two days beforehand, had predicted at the meeting that God was going to do a great shaking. The confluence of this pentecostal experience with the actual event of the earthquake set the revival on its course and began to bring people there in large numbers.
The babble that the reporter wrote about in the Los Angeles Daily Times was tongues, and speaking in tongues is the first and foremost sign that pentecostals look to as a way to prove both A. a sanctification experience, and B. an end-time focus. Early pentecostals thought of tongues-speaking as not just glossolalia, as we term it in religious language, but xenoglossolalia, actual languages. So for the participants at the Azusa Street revival, tongues was not just a spiritual language, as some pentecostals talk about it now, but also an actual language that would help them spread the gospel to people of other nationalities. Plans abounded at the mission among Chinese, Mexicans and others who claimed they could hear messages from God in their own languages.
Xenoglossolalia was a new boundary breaker, a form of incipient global focus present at the beginning of the revival. This gift was for a purpose: to evangelize the world. And those who believed that they had the gift of tongues - that it was an actual language - set out for mission fields in Asia, Africa and Europe. I don't need to tell you that many missionaries who found themselves on the shores of Africa or China were very upset to find out that those tongues they spoke were not actual languages.
So in a sense, then, you could look at early pentecostals as being focused on a global world mission. For some, their mission's activity was about going out into the world. For others it was to influence political focus. John G. Lake was one apostolic missionary who went to South Africa and found himself in a very interesting conversation with Louis Botha about the homelands and the natives, and he suggested that perhaps they might want to do what the Americans had done in putting Native Americans on reservations.
Another focus of pentecostalism is, in a sense, the breaking of gender barriers. Women at the revival were allowed to speak. People like Florence Crawford ended up actually leaving their husbands and children in order to go out and minister.
Third, are racial relations. You hear about whites and blacks mixing at Azusa Street. William Seymour was committed to this interracial revival. Sometimes people left the revival and went back to the South and tried to change the social mores. G.B. Cashwell, for instance, had a baptism experience that initially scared him: "There were blacks who laid hands on me, but I shuddered and left the revival because I could not stand their hands upon me." But later when he found himself back in his hometown, Cashwell tried to change the social mores. Unfortunately, society moved in and kept the focus away from that.
So what can we glean from early pentecostalism? The egalitarian nature of the Azusa Street Mission allowed many from different denominations to come in the doors and receive the baptism. But at the core of the movement is a global focus. The things that concerned early pentecostals -- whether economic, social or political concerns or the evangelistic thrust of xenoglossolalia -- brought Azusa Street Mission people into contact with the rest of the world.
Though often classed as unhistorical, pentecostals connected themselves to history when it counted for them: the hope of the power of the Spirit to change the world they inhabited into the Kingdom of God, where the pains of the world - disease, hunger and privation - give way to a new world where boundaries would be immaterial and suffering would cease. It is in this vein, then, that we must look at those aspects of global pentecostalism that continue to resonate for people around the world, no matter what class, status or ethnicity.
Pentecostalism's Political Impact
PAUL FRESTON: To understand the political impacts and potential of pentecostalism worldwide we'd have to understand something of its spread. I would tend to go with the lower estimates of numbers of pentecostals in the world. Even so, that's quite an impressive number. And the vast majority of them, of course, are in the global South. They may be 4 or 5 percent of the world population, which doesn't sound like very much, but you have to remember that their numbers are fast growing through evangelism and through high birth rates in many parts of the world.
There have been two main areas of impressive pentecostal growth from non-Christian religions - Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of East Asia - and one area of growth from Catholicism, Latin America. Today major centers of pentecostalism include Brazil, which probably has the largest community of pentecostals in the world, Chile, Guatemala, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Korea, the Philippines and China.
Is pentecostalism then, in any sense, an American religion? Well, yes, if one attributes relative importance to what happened at Azusa Street a hundred years ago, which I would say was due largely to the networks of missionaries and of immigrants it managed to establish. But remember that this was the underside of American religion, far from centers of power and wealth, and it was often, in fact, exported by non-Americans. Also, of course, there were similar phenomena going on elsewhere in the world at the same time, which were less able to globalize their influence.
Pentecostalism grows today almost entirely through indigenous initiatives, not through American televangelists, whatever they may say about themselves. You will have noticed, of course, that there were no Venezuelan pentecostals anxious to assassinate President Hugo Chávez because Pat Robertson told them to.
The characteristics of global pentecostalism that are important for its political impact include the fact that it's very institutionally divided; it's disproportionately amongst the poor in already poor countries; it's nontraditional; and it often lacks international contacts, which gives it a certain invisibility and is why it's often missed by Western academia and media. Pentecostalism, in short, is world Christianity distant from power and wealth, associated largely with poverty. And global pentecostalism is usually not at all dependent on Western pentecostalism.
It's no use, therefore, to try to understand pentecostalism through the category of fundamentalism, whether understood in its historical American Protestant sense or the contemporary usage of American fundamentalism and Hindu fundamentalism. It's a different sort of religiosity, and it relates differently to global trends. As a large and rapidly growing religion, especially among the world's poor, its political doings may in the long run be almost as important as those of Islam.
So what are the political impacts in the global South? In the past it was often said that pentecostalism necessarily leads you to be apolitical, and that proves to be wrong. There is increasing involvement of pentecostals in politics, in Asia to a certain extent, in Africa quite a lot and in Latin America especially. The positions adopted have been extremely diverse and the record very mixed. Pentecostalism's fragmentation means that its direct political impact is always smaller than might be hoped or feared. No pentecostal neo-Christendom potentially dangerous to democracy is really feasible. In any case, a very small minority of pentecostals have theocratic political projects similar to those of militant Islamists.
Also, it doesn't seem to be true that Third-World pentecostals will automatically line up with the First-World Christian right on many issues. While they may do so on abortion and homosexuality - though without making those questions so central - they are far more fractured on questions of gender and economics, and distant from the Christian right on geopolitical issues. The results for democracy are paradoxical. Totalitarian regimes or movements are firmly resisted, as are non-Christian religious nationalisms, but authoritarian regimes that do not impinge on freedom of religion may not always be.
Being so fragmented, pentecostalism is less useful during phases of democratic transition. But during the more extended periods of democratic consolidation, it helps to incorporate marginal social actors and instill the confidence and skills that strengthen democratic culture at the level of civil society. However, pentecostal churches may be extremely wrapped up in the apocalyptic mentality that regards the world as hopeless. Such a mentality is, at best, not helpful to democratization. But that withdrawal mentality is now less common, especially in churches at a slightly higher social level. One now sometimes finds the opposite of that: a triumphalist mentality that says we are the children of God; therefore we should be governing.
In some places, it's better-off charismatics, used to having a political role in society, who entertain such ideas - for example, in Zambia, where a charismatic president declares Zambia to be a Christian nation, though without establishing any church or any legal discrimination against non-Christian religions. In other places, it's more the older, lower-class pentecostal churches that have grown so much that their leaders have become ambitious and tried to transform their religious leadership into political leadership, either simply to strengthen their own churches as institutions by milking the state, or by dreaming of exercising political power for themselves. That dream obviously does have serious anti-democratic potential, but in practice it doesn't happen, because they don't control the votes of their members like they think they do. In any case, the churches are too divided among themselves.
So the direct effect of pentecostalism on politics may be less than is hoped or feared. Very often also, Third-World pentecostals are cut off from the history of Christian political reflection. In some countries, the result has been damage to the public image of pentecostals, associating them with political naiveté and vulnerability to manipulation and even with corruption and hunger for power. But the growing involvement in social projects sometimes leads to more critical political involvement, oriented more to the good of society as a whole. In fact, one can even see, to a certain extent, a shift to the left, or at least to the center left, particularly in parts of Latin America. In part, this is due to the sudden shifts in the politics of the Catholic Church, no longer seen as occupying the left so much and therefore opening space for another religion to do that.
There are also, of course, the class aspects; one finds, for example, that pentecostals in Venezuela tend to be quite favorable toward Hugo Chávez. Greater involvement in social projects, as I've said, leads to a new perception of social reality, the realization of how many things need to be dealt with at a more-than-purely-individual level. Also, increasingly, pentecostalism's attraction as a religion of personal salvation means that you have more and more left-wing militants converting to pentecostalism and continuing to be left-wing militants.
Pentecostals are often quite nationalistic. Why wouldn't they be? And in some cases, pentecostalism has been embraced by ethnic minorities with their own political agendas. At the level of civil society, very often the impact is very different from that at the macro level of political parties and parliaments. For example, in Brazil it's often commented that in the shantytowns, the favelas, really only two things function: organized crime and the pentecostal churches.
As to the relevance of global pentecostalism to U.S. foreign policy, if foreign policy and security concerns mean any questioning of the immense power differential between the United States and other countries in the world, then I would say, yes, pentecostal growth will have some implications for that. If it means will there be pentecostals blowing up buildings in Los Angeles next week, no, probably not. Pentecostalism sees itself, amongst other things, as a recovery of primitive Christianity. And primitive Christianity, of course, was largely pacifist.
There are marginal theocratic tendencies among pentecostals in some parts of the world. However, since they don't have a Sharia to implement, their ideas of theocracy generally boil down to little more than their supposed God-given right to rule. There have been incidents such as in Nigeria where pentecostals - and Christians in general - are involved in a fight with Muslims for control of a very important nation state. There have also been recent cases of pentecostal vigilantism in parts of Central America. Also some involvement of pentecostals in armed separatist movements in Asia and Africa, based perhaps more on ethnicity and region than on religion.
But with regard to international terrorism, there is really no pentecostal equivalent. Some scholars have expressed the fear that African Christianity might have a serious terrorist potential. The tendency of some pentecostal groups to consider religious opponents as demon-possessed could well be explosive, and there is also a worrying tendency in some new theologies toward a return to ideas of territoriality and even to a rule of the saints. However, it should be remembered that pentecostal Christianity, as compared with Islam, has had a very different historical relationship to the state, to territory and to the use of force.
Far from being a constituency for international terrorism, does global pentecostalism constitute an extension of American soft power? Once again, I'm dubious. The war on terror, and especially the war in Iraq, has revealed a deep fissure within global pentecostalism. Before the invasion of Iraq, a television program in Brazil featured several Brazilian pentecostal congressmen discussing this issue. However conservative the political parties that these congressmen represented, and, if you'll pardon the expression, however wild and woolly some of the churches that they were involved in, all of them, to a man, were unanimous in condemning the imminent invasion.
While not monolithic, the majority current in Brazilian pentecostalism seems far closer on these questions to Christian currents in the United States that might be labeled mainstream. As for Spanish-speaking Latin America, a surprising diversity of churches made official pronouncements against the war, including many usually thought of as politically conservative. In addition, a very conservative South African Christian political party, based mostly among white and black charismatic churches, the African Christian Democratic Party, opposed the imminent invasion of Iraq in no uncertain terms. The ACDP, they said, rejects, from a Christian perspective, the American civil religion that says America is pre-destined by God to save the world.
We thus see how risky it is to read Third-World pentecostalism either through the lens of contemporary Islamic politics, or through the lens of the American religious right. It is not now, nor is it likely to become, either the next constituency of recruits for geopolitical terrorism or an extension of American soft power.
Progressive Pentecostalism
DONALD MILLER: About five years ago, I was with a good friend, Ted Yamamori, who was then president of a large nongovernmental organization. We were sitting in a café in Manila and decided that we would like to do a research project that would focus on fast-growing churches that were in urban areas in the developing world and that also had very strong social ministries within their own community. We wrote to about 400 experts to recommend congregations and, to our surprise, about 85 percent of those recommended were either pentecostal or charismatic.
So we decided we would write a book on what we are calling progressive pentecostals. These congregations are not necessarily progressive in the political sense, but they are progressive in the sense that they are really moving beyond an other-worldly preoccupation with the imminent return of Christ. Not that they've abandoned this idea, but they are equally concerned with following Jesus' example of ministering to those who are sick, addressing the problems associated with poverty, confronting societal injustice and so on.
Let me turn directly to our research findings. We found a very wide spectrum of social ministries in the 20 developing countries where we did case studies. The spectrum ranged from very individualistic interventions to approaches that incorporated a public health model
For example - and this probably was true even from the earliest days of pentecostalism in 1906 - there were mercy ministries, namely, projects focused on providing food to people who were hungry, clothing to people who needed clothing, shelter for those who were homeless and so forth. Also, we found a number of pentecostal churches around the developing world that were responding to particular crises. Whether it be floods or famines or earthquakes, pentecostals were there providing emergency services of one sort or another.
We also, in a very interesting way, found a number of pentecostal churches that were entering the sphere of education. Rather than children going to schools with 100 children in a classroom, they were trying to create model schools with 30, 40 or 50 children in a classroom. Also, a number of these churches were involved in preschool education of various sorts. In addition, many of these churches had drug treatment programs, some of which very much draw upon supernatural powers related to the Holy Spirit for assisting people in getting off drugs.
Moving into the social arena, many of these churches are also starting health clinics, often very affordable ones. Some of them are partnering with NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] on various kinds of economic development projects, particularly micro-credit loans that start small businesses within the community.
Progressive pentecostalism is an emergent movement. I do not know what percentage of the movement this slice may represent, but my guess is 10 percent or something in that neighborhood are pentecostal churches that are really engaging their communities, moving beyond simply their own religious community.
What are the elements contributing to this social engagement? One interesting comment I received from someone I interviewed in Argentina was that liberation theology, typically associated with the Catholic tradition, opted for the poor, but the poor opted for pentecostalism.
Indeed, I think there is something to be said for that idea because there is, in a religious economy sense, a lot of competition within different elements of the Christian communion, particularly in various parts of Latin America, but also, to some degree, in other parts of the world.
Another important element, in my opinion, is that the pentecostal leadership is not removed from the people. Someone I interviewed in Kenya said that the shepherd, referring to the clergy, smells like the sheep; meaning a lot of the clergy within these pentecostal movements are not highly educated, they don't have seminary degrees, they very much are connected to the people to whom they are ministering. They know their problems, they know their pain and they are committed to helping them move from a position of scarcity into one of greater affluence.
There's another element that has struck me over and over again in traveling around the world, and that is how innovative, creative and entrepreneurial many pentecostals are. In fact, on occasion, I felt these people were megalomaniacs of one sort or another in terms of their goals and ambitions. But a couple of years later, when I went back and visited the same congregations, they had, in fact, realized many of the social projects they had envisioned.
Why is this focus on social ministries emerging with greater force at this moment in the history of pentecostalism? Even though pentecostalism has its roots with the very poor, there is a growing middle class in many of these countries. And my own sense is that as people are becoming better educated, they're starting to think in a more holistic way about, not only their own lives, but about their communities and about solutions to problems. So, rather than thinking simply in highly individualistic ways - how can I feed this person? - they are beginning to think increasingly in structural terms. This, again, is not all of pentecostalism, but it's the particular slice I have looked at.
Also, it's no secret that there's been an exponential increase in the number of global NGOs - organizations like World Vision, Food for the Hungry, Compassion International and so forth. And in many countries, I've observed growing partnerships between these NGOs, a number of whom are very sophisticated in terms of their development theories, and pentecostal churches. I think the presence of NGOs is starting to have a very direct impact on pentecostal social engagement. And pentecostals don't live in isolation. They often attend the same conferences and events and read some of the same media as evangelicals do. And, of course, there is a fairly significant element of evangelicalism engaged in social ministries.
To switch gears here for a moment, there's another way of thinking about pentecostal social development. It has a lot of parallels to the sociological literature that has been referred to as the Protestant Ethic Thesis, which is related to the growth of capitalism. Let me just give a pentecostal angle to that notion. One of the first things that happens to a new convert to pentecostalism, particularly to the men, is that they give up, or at least are told to give up, womanizing, gambling, alcohol, drugs -- if they're using drugs -- and so forth. What is the impact of that, particularly in relatively poor communities? One result is that people actually end up having surplus capital, at least when compared with their neighbors who are continuing those practices. Where does that surplus capital go? It ends up being invested in their own small businesses - and I could give a lot of examples of that. It ends up being invested in the education of their children. In short, pentecostals - and this also certainly applies to Mormons and other groups, so it's not exclusive to pentecostalism - end up having a competitive economic advantage when compared with those who are not abiding by these particular prescriptions.
There are other interesting angles. Pentecostals very much believe that one should not be involved in promiscuous affairs, that young people should have sex only in marriage and that young women, in particular, should delay sexual debut and delay having children, which often results in their having more education, allowing them to be involved in better employment. And that also, I believe, is one of the reasons we're witnessing upward social mobility in a number of pentecostal communities.
So far, I've said nothing about the goal of theology, but obviously theology is extremely important within pentecostalism. One thing I heard, sitting through thousands of hours of sermons, were preachers telling congregants, "You are made in the image of God; you have value; you have dignity." In one vivid example, I went to a rather small church of indigenous people in Guatemala, and, repeatedly, the preacher, who was a local person, was saying, "Stand up for your rights." It had a very progressive political quality to it. I think that there are significant implications, then, for the possibilities not only of self-worth, but also for the evolution of democratic reform within various countries.
I'll just end by saying this: What I've observed in my research is that pentecostals often are creating alternative institutions. They are creating alternative schools, alternative forms of medical care. To the extent that they're political, in a number of instances, it is their conviction that they're actually building a whole new generation of people who potentially could be involved in the political realm, but in a non-corrupt and more morally praiseworthy way. To the extent that this will actually occur, I guess time will tell.