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Book Reviews / Pneuma 32 (2010) 123-175
David Westerlund, ed., Global Pentecostalism: Encounters with Other Religious Traditions (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2009). x + 302 pp., $89.50, cloth.
Studies of Pentecostalism have mushroomed in recent years, and there are books that intro- duce and raise awareness of the movement, explain its rapid growth, especially in the global South, and consider its social and political impact. Few, if any, take a religious studies approach as this book does. Pentecostalism is a highly diverse and widespread movement with a strong missionary inclination. Thus, over the century or so since it first arose, it has encountered and interacted in a particularly dynamic way with many other religious tradi- tions, both Christian and non-Christian. A religious movement with missionary zeal is rarely inclined to reflect on its interconfessional and interreligious relations. While Pente- costals have been getting on with living their faith and sharing it with their neighbours, how have they actually interacted with different faiths on the ground? What attitudes do Pentecostal believers and churches exhibit toward other faith groups? What do they appro- priate from other traditions, and what do they discard or oppose? These are very important questions, and this book tries to answer them, but the fi eld of investigation is vast, covering virtually every faith tradition and all Pentecostal movements worldwide. This single volume merely scratches the surface and, without limitations on geography or religion, covers a bewilderingly diverse set of contexts.
The text of this edited work has its origins in a conference in Sweden in 2007, to the papers of which have been added further invited contributions. The book is divided into three main parts: (I) Africa, (II) Asia and Europe, and (III) Latin America, each with fi ve papers. Although combining Asia and Europe seems at first sight to have been done merely to achieve numerical balance, in fact four of the fi ve chapters do cross the continental boundary and show how artifi cial it is, especially when it comes to religion. The omission of a section on North America is a serious one because the USA is the unmentioned ele- phant in the room in several chapters that deal with prosperity theology and the cultural norms espoused by neo-Pentecostalisms. It also shows that that the focus is on newer move- ments rather than on classical Pentecostalism, and on those that seem more exotic in the West. The quality of the papers is generally very good, and they have been well edited, especially considering the varieties of English in use by the very international group of contributors. The nature of the chapters varies a great deal, however, and some are not clearly focused on what is usually called religion. It is not possible to summarize the whole book, so I will off er brief samples of a few chapters.
In chapter 4, Asonzeh Ukah and Magnus Echtler provide a fascinating study of the interface between traditional Nigerian witchcraft and Pentecostal Christianity by analyzing videos produced from the ministry of former witch Helen Ukpabio. The authors draw important conclusions about female empowerment in the struggle between Pentecostal Christianity and the witches. In the next chapter, Ukah turns his attention to another aspect of the Nigerian religious context — Islam. Focusing on a particular church example, he exposes the contradiction between a theology of religions that demonizes Islam, on the one hand, and the practical realities of needing Muslim support and the danger of antago- nizing Muslims, on the other.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/027209610X12628362888153
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Book Reviews / Pneuma 32 (2010) 123-175
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A chapter by Allan Anderson introduces the second part of the book, on Asia and Europe. As the author of the most authoritative recent introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge University Press 2004), Anderson’s infl uence is apparent throughout the book, especially in its working defi nition of Pentecostalism and its recognition of the signifi cance of the move- ment’s local contextuality. He presents a refreshingly honest portrayal of the motives and attitudes of early Pentecostal missionaries of European descent who worked in Asia, which were often characterized by “religious intolerance and bigoted ignorance” (126). As Ander- son also convincingly explains, however, Pentecostals were able to relate more closely than most Protestant Europeans to the popular religiosity of Asia because they shared its world- view of spirits and cosmic forces. The fact that they treated popular spiritual experience as real — although demonic — goes a long way toward explaining the proliferation of local forms of Pentecostalism throughout the Majority World.
Torsten Löfstedt’s study of the newly renamed Russian Church of Evangelical Christians brings to wider attention a church and a region of the world often neglected in studies of world Christianity. Löfstedt gives a careful account, based largely on documentation not available in English, of the way this Pentecostal church’s self-presentation has developed in a context dominated by the Russian Orthodox Church so that it now promotes itself as an indigenous Russian form of Christianity in continuity with the historic Christian tradition. This chapter is followed by an excellent summation and collation of research on the Chris- tian revival among the Roma (commonly known as gypsies) and its social eff ects by David T urf ell. I found the chapter on the “resurgence of neo-Pentecostalism and Shamanism in contemporary Korea” disappointing. It is too ambitious in scope and misleading in some of its assertions.
The section on Latin America includes a fascinating analysis by Virginia Garrard-Burnett of the transformation of a small town by a Pentecostal movement and of the ambiguous eff ects of spiritual warfare practices. T ere is also an excellent piece on the way the conserva- tive morality of Latin American Pentecostalism tends to benefi t rather than suppress women. It is written authoritatively by Elizabeth E. Brusco, an expert in the fi eld.
In his helpful introduction, David Westerlund emphasizes how the various forms of Pentecostalism have been shaped by their encounters with religious others. On the basis of this initial survey, there is little to say except that there is a great deal of diversity in intra- and interreligious relations and that a great deal more investigation is called for before patterns can be identifi ed. However, Anderson’s observation that Pentecostal success is due to willingness to engage with local spiritual forces does seem to be born out by these exam- ples. In their interaction with cosmic rather than metacosmic dimensions of religion, Pen- tecostals bring new perspectives on interreligious relations that are well worth exploring further. I thoroughly recommend this book as an addition to libraries of Pentecostal stud- ies, but its broad brief and high price will probably dissuade many individual scholars from purchasing a copy.
Reviewed by Kirsteen Kim
Associate Senior Lecturer
Leeds Trinity University College, Leeds, UK
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