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Book Reviews / Pneuma 34 (2012) 95-159
Roger G. Robins, Pentecostalism in America (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010). xiii + 163 pp., $34.95 hardback.
Roger G. Robins’ Pentecostalism in America is an excellent overview of one of the twentieth century’s most important religious movements. Ranging from pentecostalism’s nineteenth century roots to its twenty-first century incarnations — from Phoebe Palmer’s holiness meetings to “Sarah Palin 2012” t-shirts — Robins combines careful synthesis of the now-vast literature on pentecostalism with smart analysis. Along the way he also entertains with sharp wit and clear prose.
Robins’ purpose is to show the pentecostal movement’s “fraught pilgrimage into the evangelical wing of the American mainstream and the movement’s irrepressible adaptabil- ity” (xii). He argues that the movement was bound together by “a common past, distinctive practices, a core of shared assumptions, and a gripping certainty that every living day gleams as resplendent with power and promise as those recorded in the pages of Holy Scripture.” To make his arguments, he begins by summarizing the many streams that fed into pentecostal- ism during the first decades of the twentieth century. Writing in the shadow of Grant Wack- er’s definitive Heaven Below (2002), he introduces the many key issues, characters, and denominations that made up classical pentecostalism. He also focuses on pentecostals’ rela- tionships to the world wars and to the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. He explains that early pentecostalism succeeded because practitioners spread their gospel “along the byways with which they were familiar,” they witnessed and encouraged radical physical experiences, and they were relentless. “Pentecostals rose early, went hungry, and stayed up late in service to their cause. They knew that a righteous God, a Coming King, and perishing souls were counting on them” (32). But pentecostal growth was not all sunshine and roses. They also “practiced the ecclesial art of multiplying by dividing” (64). Indeed, schism and division has characterized the movement throughout its history.
The second part of the book traces the mid-century growth of classical pentecostalism and also analyzes the development of new movements including the Charismatic renewal. Robins highlights the importance of healing ministries as well as pentecostalism’s move into the mainstream of American Evangelicalism as illustrated by pentecostals’ acceptance into the National Association of Evangelicals. Oral Roberts serves as a pivotal character in this section, with his “uncanny knack for changing with the times” (86). The rise of the Jesus People also serves as an important pivot. The movement’s “frank supernaturalism, its prim- itivist urge to restore apostolic Christianity, its millenarian expectation, and its Spirit-cen- tered openness to tongues, healing, and other charismatic gifts” (99) represented the close relationship between pentecostalism and mainstream cultural trends.
In the final section of the book, Robins turns to issues in recent pentecostalism including race. While he notes differences among white, black, and Latino expressions of faith throughout the book, his discussion of the civil rights movement brought these differences into clearer focus. On the one hand, Robins argues that faith healers “led the way on civil rights” by integrating their meetings and openly condemning segregation. However, “the major white Pentecostal denominations . . . equivocated or fell silent at the onset of the civil rights movement.” African American pentecostals, in contrast, “rolled up their sleeves and joined the fray” (110). Rogers concludes, “the differing responses of black and white
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/157007412X621950
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Book Reviews / Pneuma 34 (2012) 95-159
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Pentecostals to the Civil Rights Movement reveal sharply distinct political outlooks.” While whites emphasized personal salvation, the civil rights struggle left African Americans “far more supportive of Great Society-style intervention on behalf of the needy and oppressed than were their white pentecostal kin” (112).
Building on tensions revealed during the 1960s, Robins traces the growth of pentecostal political activism in the last decades of the twentieth century. For most of their existence, pentecostals were not significant political players. How things have changed. In recent years, some pentecostals have become key members of the religious right while others have served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. Robins points out that political persua- sions were often tied to race. “Pentecostals are sharply divided by race, with a majority of black Pentecostals supporting the progressive goals of the Democratic Party, while white Pentecostals fall overwhelmingly on the conservative side of the fence.” Meanwhile, the dra- matic growth of the movement “has turned Pentecostalism into a coveted political prize” (118). He concludes this section by explaining that modern pentecostals have done “some- thing of a miracle” (to put it generously) in combining manifest destiny with faith in the imminent end of this age (119).
In this final section of the book Robins also focuses on the growth of megachurches, mass media, and ecumenical tendencies in the movement. Curiously, he spends only minimal time on the Word Faith movement, which has had a tremendous influence on modern pentecostalism.
Robins’ style makes this book an entertaining read. For example he notes that “Women like Alma White were full shooting members of God’s Rough Riders and they blasted the fortress of hell with heavy ammunition” (13); that healing evangelists “like the comic book superheroes of the day . . . seemed to possess some signal trait, some distinguishing mark to set him or her apart from the field” (81); and that Sarah Palin served as “a Rorschach test in updo” (117). Such phrases bring life to what could have been a dull rehearsal of a tremendous amount of information in a relatively short number of pages.
In sum, Pentecostalism in America is a succinct, excellent overview of the pentecostal movement that will be valuable to students, scholars and general readers for years to come.
Reviewed by Matthew Avery Sutton
Associate Professor of History
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington [email protected]
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