Allan anderson the pentecostal gospel religion and culture

1. THE PENTECOSTAL GOSPEL RELIGION AND CULTURE
IN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE
Allan Anderson
Graduate Institute for Theology and Religion
University of Birmingham
Elmfield House, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29 6LQ, UK
Characteristics of the Pentecostal ‘Full Gospel’
In many parts of the world, Pentecostals are notorious for rather aggressive forms of
evangelism and proselytism, and Africa is no exception. From its beginning, the
Pentecostal movement was characterised by an emphasis on evangelistic outreach, and
Pentecostal mission strategy placed evangelism as its highest priority. Evangelism meant to
go out and reach the „lost‟ for Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Early Pentecostals
from North America and Europe preached the „full gospel‟ or the „foursquare‟ gospel, by
which Jesus Christ was roundly declared to be „Saviour, Healer, Baptiser in the Spirit and
Soon Coming King‟.1[1] The beginnings of North American Pentecostalism in 1906 in the
Azusa Street revival of Los Angeles resulted in a category of ordinary but „called‟ people
called „missionaries‟ fanning out to every corner of the globe within a remarkably short
space of time. „Mission‟ was mainly understood as „foreign mission‟ (mostly from „white‟
to „other‟ peoples), and these „missionaries‟ were mostly untrained and inexperienced.
Their only qualification was the baptism in the Spirit and a divine call, their motivation and
task was to evangelise the world before the imminent coming of Christ, and so evangelism
was more important than education or „civilisation‟.2[2] Pentecostal missiologist Grant
McClung says that the early Pentecostals‟ „last days mission theology‟ included
1[1] Donald W Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Metuchen,NJ & London:
Scarecrow Press, 1987), 21-22; D. William Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel: the
Significance of Eschatology in the development of Pentecostal Thought (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1996), 28.
2[2] Walter J. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals (London: SCM, 1972), 34.

2. „Premillenialism, dispensationalism, and the belief in the imminency of Christ‟s return‟
which „forged the evangelistic fervor of the movement in its infancy‟.3[3] Premillenialism
rose to prominence in the late 19th Century, and promoted the idea that the gospel must be
preached to all nations before the imminent return of Christ. This eschatological urgency
was fuelled by the Scofield Reference Bible and the writings of AB Simpson, both popular
among western Pentecostals at least until the seventies.4[4]
Gary McGee describes the first twenty years of Pentecostalism as mostly „chaotic in
operation‟. Reports filtering back to the West to garnish newsletters would be full of
optimistic and triumphalistic accounts of how many people were converted, healed and had
received Spirit baptism, seldom mentioning any difficulties encountered or the inevitable
cultural blunders made. These blunders, however, can be clearly discerned in early reports
published in Pentecostal periodicals. Early Pentecostal missionaries from North America and
Europe were often paternalistic, creating dependency, and sometimes they were blatantly
racist.5[5] There were notable exceptions to this general chaos, however. As Willem Saayman
has observed, most Pentecostal movements „came into being as missionary institutions‟ and
their mission work was „not the result of some clearly thought out theological decision, and so
policy and methods were formed mostly in the crucible of missionary praxis‟. It must be
acknowledged that despite the seeming naiveté of many early Pentecostals, their evangelistic
methods were flexible, pragmatic and astonishingly successful. They claimed that the rapid
growth of the Pentecostal movement vindicated the apostle Paul‟s statement that God uses the
weak and despised to confound the mighty. Pentecostal churches all over the world were
missionary by nature, and the dichotomy between „church‟ and „mission‟ that for so long
plagued other Christian churches did not exist. This „central missiological thrust‟ was clearly
3[3] L Grant McClung, Jr. (ed), Azusa Street and Beyond: Pentecostal Missions and Church
Growth in the Twentieth Century (South Plainfield, NJ: Logos, 1986), 51.
4[4] M.A. Dempster, B.D. Klaus & D. Petersen, Called and Empowered: Global Mission in
Pentecostal Perspective (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991), 207.
5[5] Gary McGee, ‘Pentecostal Missiology: Moving beyond triumphalism to face the issues’.
Pneuma: The Journal of the Society of Pentecostal Studies, 16:2 (1994), 208, 211.

3. a „strong point in Pentecostalism‟ and central to its existence.6[6]
This rapid spread was not without its serious difficulties, however. The parochialism
and rivalry of many Pentecostal missions made ecumenical co-operation difficult, even
between the different Pentecostal groups. The tendencies towards paternalism created a
reluctance to listen to voices from the Third World, and the need for a greater involvement in
the plight of the poor and in opposing socio-political oppression are some of the issues that
must still be addressed by Pentecostals. But in spite of these problems, there are many lessons
from Pentecostalism about the expansion of Christianity in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Gary McGee observes:
The history of Pentecostal missions demonstrates that the Pentecostals have rarely
retreated from challenges, affirming dependence on the Holy Spirit to guide their
responses. Their irrepressible advance from obscurity to center stage within ninety
years suggests that only the unwary will underestimate their fortitude.1[7]
Pentecostals believe that the coming of the Spirit brings the ability to perform „signs
and wonders‟ in the name of Jesus Christ to accompany and authenticate their evangelism.
Pentecostals all over the world, but especially in the Third World, see the role of healing as
good news for the poor and afflicted. Early 20th Century Pentecostal newsletters and
periodicals abounded with „thousands of testimonies to physical healings, exorcisms and
deliverances‟.7[8] McClung says that divine healing is an „evangelistic door-opener‟ for
Pentecostals, and that „signs and wonders‟ are the „evangelistic means whereby the
message of the kingdom is actualized in “person-centered” deliverance‟.8[9] The „signs and
wonders‟ promoted by independent Pentecostal evangelists led to the rapid growth of
Pentecostal churches in many parts of the world, although these evangelists have seldom
been without controversy.9[10] The Pentecostal understanding of the preaching of the
Word in evangelism was that „signs and wonders‟ should accompany it, and divine healing
6[6] Willem A. Saayman, ‘Some reflections on the development of the Pentecostal mission
model in South Africa’. Missionalia 21:1 (1993), 42, 51.
7[8] Dempster, Klaus & Petersen, 206.
8[9] McClung, 74.
9[10] Dempster, Klaus & Petersen, 215.

4. in particular was an indispensable part of Pentecostal evangelistic methodology.10[11]
Indeed, in many religions of the world, and especially in African religions, a major
attraction for Pentecostalism has been its emphasis on healing. In these cultures, the
religious specialist or „person of God‟ has power to heal the sick and ward off evil spirits
and sorcery. This holistic function, which does not separate the „physical‟ from the
„spiritual‟, is restored in Pentecostalism, and indigenous peoples see it as a „powerful‟
religion to meet human needs. For some Pentecostals, faith in God‟s power to heal directly
through prayer resulted in a rejection of other methods of healing. The numerous healings
reported by Pentecostal evangelists confirmed that God‟s Word was true, God‟s power was
evidently on their efforts, and the result was that many were persuaded to become
Christians. This emphasis on healing is so much part of Pentecostal evangelism that large
public campaigns and tent crusades preceded by great publicity are frequently used in order
to reach as many „unevangelised‟ people as possible. Hollenweger says that Pentecostals
are „efficient evangelists‟ because of „the power of their experience‟.11[12] Although we
may regard some manifestations of Pentecostalism with amusement, disdain or even alarm,
we cannot ignore this enormous factor in global Christianity.
Orality and the Pentecostal Gospel
The relationship between the gospel and culture, and by
implication, the relationship between the Christian faith and other
religions, is a much-debated topic. The expansion of Pentecostalism in
Africa in the 20th Century can be attributed, at least partially, to cultural
factors. Walter Hollenweger sees the ‘oral structures’ of Pentecostalism,
like Christianity itself, to be the reason for its initial growth, and not in
10[11] Saayman, 46.
11[12] Allan Anderson & Walter J. Hollenweger (eds), Pentecostals after a Century: Global
Perspectives on a Movement in Transition (JPT Sup. 15, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1999), 190.

5. any ‘particular Pentecostal doctrine’. Hollenweger lists the characteristics
of these structures as an oral liturgy, a narrative theology and witness,
a reconciliatory and participant community, the inclusion of visions and
dreams in worship, and understanding the relationship between body
and mind revealed in healing by prayer and liturgical dance. These are
also predominantly African cultural features, evident in the leadership of
the African American Azusa Street revival leader William Seymour,
whose ‘spirituality lay in his past’. His Pentecostal experience meant
more than the doctrine of speaking in tongues and included loving in the
face of hateful racism. For Hollenweger, Seymour represents the
‘reconciling Pentecostal experience’ and ‘a congregation where
everybody is a potential contributor to the liturgy’. Seymour’s
Pentecostalism is ‘the oral missionary movement, with spiritual power to
overcome racism and chauvinism’.12[13] Hollenweger elaborates on
these oral structures in Pentecostal music and liturgy, pointing out that
spontaneity and enthusiasm, rather than leading to an absence of
liturgy, produce flexible oral liturgies memorised by the Pentecostal
congregation. The most important element of these liturgies is the
active participation of every member in the congregation.13[14]
Pentecostal liturgy has social and revolutionary implications, in that it
empowers marginalised people. It takes as acceptable what ordinary
people have in the worship of God and thus overcomes ‘the real barriers
of race, social status, and education’.14[15]
12[13] Walter J Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide.
(Peabody: Hendrickson, 1997), 23.
13[14] Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 269-271.
14[15] Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 274-275.

6. Hollenweger demonstrates the pervading influence of the Azusa
Street revival, both upon early Pentecostalism and upon later forms of
the movement, especially in the Third World, where the majority of
Pentecostal adherents now live. Pentecostalism is not a predominantly
western movement, but both fundamentally and dominantly a Third
World phenomenon. In spite of its significant growth in North America,
probably less than a quarter of its members in the world today are
white, and this proportion continues to decrease.15[16] The Pentecostal
emphasis on ‘freedom in the Spirit’ has rendered the movement
inherently flexible in different cultural and social contexts. This has
made the transplanting of its central tenets in the Third World and
among marginalised minorities in the western world more easily
assimilated. In Africa, this has resulted in a plethora of indigenous
Christian movements that loosely may be termed ‘Pentecostal’. Juan
Sepúlveda, a Chilean Pentecostal, writes that the reason for the dynamic
expansion of Pentecostalism in his country is to be found in its ability ‘to
translate the Protestant message into the forms of expression of the
local popular culture’.16[17] Harvey Cox declares that the great
strength of what he terms the ‘Pentecostal impulse’ lies in ‘its power to
combine, its aptitude for the language, the music, the cultural artefacts,
the religious tropes... of the setting in which it lives’.17[18] This was
quite different from the prevailing mission ethos at the turn of the 20th
Century. Many older missionary churches arose in western contexts of
set liturgies, theologies, highly educated and professional clergy, and
15[16] David B Barrett, ‘Statistics, global’, Stanley M Burgess & Gary B McGee
(eds),Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1988), 810-30.
16[17] Anderson & Hollenweger, 128.
17[18] Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the
Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century (London: Cassell, 1996), 259.

7. patterns of church structures and leadership with strongly centralised
control. This often contributed to the feeling in the Third World that
these churches were ‘foreign’, and that people first had to become
westerners before becoming Christians. In contrast, the Pentecostal
emphasis on immediate personal experience of God’s power by his Spirit
was more intuitive and emotional, and it recognised charismatic
leadership and indigenous church patterns wherever they arose. In most
cases, leadership was not kept long in the hands of western
missionaries, and the proportion of missionaries to church members was
usually much lower than that of older missions.
In Africa, preaching a message that promised solutions for present
felt needs like sickness and the fear of evil spirits, Pentecostal
missionaries (who were most often local people) were heeded and their
‘full gospel’ readily accepted by ordinary people. Churches were rapidly
planted as a result. African Initiated Churches are mostly churches of a
Pentecostal type that have contextualised and indigenised Christianity in
Africa. They are an ‘African expression of the worldwide Pentecostal
movement’ because of both their Pentecostal style and their Pentecostal
origins.18[20] Robert Anderson points out that whereas classical
Pentecostals in North America usually define themselves in terms of the
doctrine of ‘initial evidence’, the Pentecostal movement is more correctly
understood in a much broader context as a movement concerned
primarily with the experience of the working of the Holy Spirit and the
practice of spiritual gifts.19[21] Chinese American Pentecostal Amos
Yong suggests that the Pentecostal experience is best described as ‘the
18[20] Cox, Fire from Heaven, 246; Hollenweger, Pentecostalism, 52.
19[21] Robert Mapes Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American
Pentecostalism (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1979), 4.

8. complex of encounters with the Spirit’, and that these pneumatological
encounters demonstrate ‘indubitable similarities across the religious
traditions of the world’.20[22] I have also argued elsewhere for the
inclusion of African ‘Pentecostal-type’ churches as ‘Pentecostal’
movements because of their emphasis and experience of the
Spirit,21[23] and the same could be argued for many Pentecostal
churches all over the Third World. In African Pentecostalism, experience
and practice are usually more important than the preciseness of dogma.
The Gospel, Indigenisation and Culture
Indigenisation is a principle that has been hotly debated and little
understood. Sometimes an attempt made by well-meaning foreign
missionaries to create a ‘supra cultural’ or ‘universal’ church in reality is
a glorification of the missionaries’ own culture. The ‘gospel’ is therefore
confused with ‘culture’, it has been colonialized, and a spurious
‘Christian culture’ is offered in place of a genuine and relevant Christian
message. One of the outstanding features of African Pentecostals is their
religious creativity and spontaneously indigenous character, a
characteristic held as an ideal by western missions for over a century.
The ‘three self’ formula for indigenisation (to create self-supporting,
self-governing and self-supporting churches) was automatically and
effortlessly achieved by many African Pentecostal movements long
before this goal was realised by older western mission churches.
20[22] Amos Yong, ‘”Not Knowing Where the Wind Blows...”: On Envisioning a PentecostalCharismatic Theology of Religions’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 14 (1999), 95, 99.
21[23] Allan Anderson, Bazalwane: African Pentecostals in South Africa (Pretoria:
University of South Africa, 1992), 2-6. See also Allan Anderson, Zion and Pentecost: The
Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in South Africa
(Pretoria: University of South Africa, 2000).

9. Pioneering Pentecostal missiologist Melvin Hodges, former US
Assemblies of God missionary in Central America, enthusiastically
embraced and enlarged Rufus Anderson and Henry Venn’s ‘three self’
policy of church planting, the main theme of his The Indigenous Church,
but also introduced an emphasis lacking in earlier works on the subject.
The foundation for indigenisation to happen was the Holy Spirit.
Declared Hodges:
There is no place on earth where, if the gospel seed be properly planted, it will not
produce an indigenous church. The Holy Spirit can work in one country as well as in
another. To proceed on the assumption that the infant church in any land must always
be cared for and provided for by the mother mission is an unconscious insult to the
people that we endeavour to serve, and is evidence of a lack of faith in God and in the
power of the gospel.22[24]
This was undoubtedly prophetic in 1953 and had a profound
impact on the growth of the Assemblies of God in many parts of the
world since. Hodges may have missed the fact that churches are not
guaranteed to become indigenous by attaining ‘three selfhood’ unless
the ‘three selfs’ are no longer patterned on foreign forms of being
church, and unless those churches are grounded in the thought patterns
and symbolism of popular religion and culture. But for Hodges, the
foundation for Pentecostal mission and the reason for its continued
expansion is the ‘personal filling of the Holy Spirit’ who gives gifts of
ministry to untold thousands of ‘common people’, creating active,
vibrantly expanding and indigenous churches all over the world.23[25]
In fact, thriving Pentecostal „indigenous churches‟ were established in many parts
22[24] Melvin L Hodges, The Indigenous Church (Springfield: Gospel Publishing House,
1953), 14.
23[25] Hodges, Indigenous Church, 132.

10. of Africa without the help of „foreign missionaries‟ at all. These churches were founded in
innovative evangelistic initiatives unprecedented in Christian history, motivated by a
compelling need to preach and even more significantly, to experience a new message of the
power of the Spirit. Harvey Cox suggests two vitally important and underlying factors, that
„for any religion to grow in today‟s world it must possess two capabilities‟. First, „it must
be able to include and transform at least certain elements of preexisting religions which still
retain a strong grip on the cultural subconscious‟. Secondly, „it must also equip people to
live in rapidly changing societies‟. He finds these two „key ingredients‟ in
Pentecostalism.24[26] The inevitable question to be asked in assessing Pentecostalism in
Africa is to what extent is this an inculturated Christianity that has adapted to and
transformed its cultural and religious environment. Most of Pentecostalism in Africa is
more obviously an inculturated adaptation than a foreign imposition, with inevitable
exceptions. African Pentecostalism is in constant interaction with the African spirit world,
and those who censure African churches for their alleged „syncretism‟ often fail to see that
parallels with ancient religions and cultures in their practices are also often continuous with
the Biblical revelation. Western Pentecostals do not have to look very far to see the same
cultural and religious influences in their own forms of Christianity — one example is the
capitalistic emphasis on prosperity and success, the „American dream‟, which pervades
many, perhaps most, Pentecostal activities in the western world. Furthermore, Pentecostals
in Africa usually define their practices by reference to the Bible and not to traditional
religions. They see their activities as creative adaptations to the local cultural context. At
the same time, some forms of African Pentecostalism (especially the most recent variety)
might need to have a greater appreciation for the rich diversity of their cultural and
religious past and not feel the need to bow to the cultural hegemony of North American
Pentecostalism. Demonising the cultural and religious past does not help explain the
present attraction of Pentecostalism to African peoples, even though it might help in the
religious competition that is a feature of pluralist societies all over the world.
Harvey Cox sees the largely unconscious interaction of Pentecostalism with socalled „primal‟ religions as helping people recover vital elements in their culture that are
24[26] Cox, Fire from Heaven, 219.

11. threatened by modernization.25[27] Pentecostals throughout Africa have found in their own
context, both culturally and Biblically acceptable alternatives to and adaptations from the
practices of their old religions and are seeking to provide answers to the needs inherent
there. Any religion that does not offer at least the same benefits as the old religion does will
probably be unattractive. Christianity, particularly in its Pentecostal emphasis on the
transforming power of the Holy Spirit, purports to offer more than the other religions did.
In Africa, Pentecostal-like movements manifested in thousands of indigenous churches
have so radically changed the face of Christianity there, simply because they have
proclaimed a holistic gospel that includes deliverance from all types of oppression like
sickness, sorcery, evil spirits and poverty. This has met the needs of Africans more
fundamentally than the rather spiritualised and intellectualised gospel that was mostly the
legacy of European and North American missionaries. The good news in Africa,
Pentecostal preachers declare, is that God meets all the needs of people, including their
spiritual salvation, physical healing, and other material necessities. The phenomenon of
mass urbanisation results in Pentecostal churches providing places of spiritual security and
personal communities for people unsettled by rapid social change. The more relevant the
church becomes to its cultural and social context, the more prepared it will be to serve the
wider society.
All the widely differing Pentecostal movements have important common features:
they proclaim and celebrate a salvation (or „healing‟) that encompasses all of life‟s
experiences and afflictions, and they offer an empowerment which provides a sense of
dignity and a coping mechanism for life, and all this drives their messengers forward into a
unique evangelistic mission. Their task was to share this all-embracing gospel with as many
people as possible, and to accomplish this, African Pentecostal missionaries travelled far
and wide. The astonishing journeys in 1914 of the famous Liberian prophet William Wade
Harris throughout the Ivory Coast to western Ghana, has been described as „the most
remarkable evangelical campaign Africa has ever witnessed‟, resulting in tens of thousands
25[27] Cox, Fire from Heaven, 228.

12. of conversions to Christianity.26[28] There were other such high profile preachers to
follow, but literally thousands of African preachers emphasised the manifestation of divine
power through healing, prophecy, speaking in tongues and other Pentecostal phenomena.
The message proclaimed by these charismatic preachers of receiving the power of the Holy
Spirit to meet human needs was welcome in societies where a lack of power was keenly felt
on a daily basis. The growth of Pentecostalism in Africa must be seen primarily as the
result of this proclamation rather than as a reaction to western missions, as some have
suggested.27[29] Nevertheless, because western cultural forms of Christianity were often
regarded as superficial and out of touch with many realities of existential life, it was
necessary for a new and culturally relevant Christianity to arise in each context.
Healing and protection from evil are among the most prominent features of the
Pentecostal gospel in Africa and are probably the most important part of Pentecostal
evangelism and church recruitment. The problems of disease and evil affect the whole
community in Africa, and are not simply relegated to individual pastoral care. As Cox
observes, African Pentecostals „provide a setting in which the African conviction that
spirituality and healing belong together is dramatically enacted.‟28[30] African
communities were, to a large extent, health-orientated communities and in their traditional
religions, rituals for healing and protection are prominent. Pentecostals responded to what
they experienced as a void left by a rationalistic western form of Christianity which had
unwittingly initiated what was tantamount to the destruction of their cherished spiritual
values by seeking to separate „healing‟ from „religion‟ and secularising it. Pentecostals
declared a message that reclaimed ancient Biblical traditions of healing and protection from
evil and demonstrated the practical effects of these traditions. This resonated well with the
popular beliefs of African people. Pentecostalism went a long way towards meeting their
26[28] Adrian Hastings, A History of African Christianity 1950-1975 (Cambridge University
Press, 1979), 67.
27[29] Hastings, A History, 69.
28[30] Cox, Fire from Heaven, 247.

13. physical, emotional and spiritual needs, offering solutions to life's problems and ways to
cope in a threatening and hostile world.29[31]
The New Factor in African Christianity
The role of a new and rapidly growing form of African Christianity,30[32] newer
Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, is increasingly being recognized.31[33] This
movement, which has only emerged since 1970, is fast becoming one of the most
significant expressions of Christianity on the continent, especially in Africa‟s cities. We
cannot understand African Christianity today without also understanding this latest
movement of revival and renewal. Ogbu Kalu calls it the „third response‟ to white cultural
domination and power in the church, the former two responses being Ethiopianism, which
emerged in the 1890s onwards, and the Aladura/ Zionist churches, which commenced after
1918.32[34] I would argue that this newer Pentecostal and Charismatic movement is not
fundamentally different from the earlier Holy Spirit movements and so-called „prophethealing‟ and „spiritual churches‟ in the African Initiated Churches (AICs), but it is a
continuation of them in a very different context. The older „prophet-healing‟ AICs, the
„classical‟ Pentecostals and the newer Pentecostal churches have all responded to the
existential needs of the African worldview. They have all offered a personal encounter with
God through the power of the Spirit, healing from sickness and deliverance from evil in all
its manifestations, spiritual, social and structural. This is not to say that there are no
29[31] Allan Anderson & Samuel Otwang, Tumelo: The Faith of African Pentecostals in
South Africa (Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 1993), 32.
30[32] See Chapter 8 of Allan Anderson, African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity
in the Twentieth Century (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000, forthcoming).
31[33] David Maxwell, ‘Witches, Prophets and Avenging Spirits: The Second Christian
Movement in North-East Zimbabwe’, Journal of Religion in Africa 25:3 (1995), 313; Paul
Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role (London: Hurst, 1998), 31; Anderson, Zion and
Pentecost, chapter 9.
32[34] Ogbu U. Kalu, ‘The Third Response: Pentecostalism and the Reconstruction of
Christian Experience in Africa, 1970-1995’, Journal of African Christian Thought, 1:2 (1998),
3.

14. tensions or differences between the „new‟ and the „old‟ AICs. In a study of Christian
movements in north-east Zimbabwe, David Maxwell points out that many Christian
movements in Africa (and, in fact, all over the world) have begun as movements of youth
and women. The new churches give opportunities not afforded them by patriarchal and
gerontocratic religions that have lost their charismatic power. As Maxwell points out, even
the older Pentecostal churches, whether AICs or those founded by western missions, „can
lose their pentecostal vigour‟ through a process of bureaucratization and „ageing‟.33[35]
In the 1970s, partly as a reaction to the bureaucratization process in established
churches, new independent Pentecostal and Charismatic churches began to emerge all over
Africa, but especially in West Africa. Many of these vigorous new churches were
influenced by the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements in Europe and North America
and by established Pentecostal mission churches in Africa. However, it must be
remembered that these churches were largely independent of foreign churches and had
African origins. Many arose in the context of interdenominational and evangelical campus
and school Christian organizations, from which young charismatic leaders emerged with
significant followings, and often the new churches eventually replaced the former
interdenominational movements.34[36] At first they were called „nondenominational‟
churches, but in recent years, as they have expanded, many of these churches have
developed denominational structures, several prominent leaders have been „episcopized‟
and some, like the Deeper Life Bible Church and the Winner‟s Chapel of Nigeria, are now
international churches. The entrance and pervading influence of these many different kinds
of new Pentecostal churches on the African scene now makes it even more difficult, if not
impossible, to put AICs into types and categories. It is also becoming increasingly difficult
to define „Pentecostal‟ precisely, and if we persist with narrow perceptions of the term, we
will escape reality.
In the West, a limited, rather stereotyped and dogmatic understanding of
33[35] Maxwell, ‘Witches’, 316-7.
34[36] Kwabena J. Asamoah-Gyadu, ‘Traditional missionary Christianity and new religious
movements in Ghana’ (MTh thesis, Accra: University of Ghana, 1996); Kalu, ‘Third
Response’, 7.

15. „Pentecostal‟ fails to recognize the great variety of different pentecostal movements in most
of the rest of the world, many of which arose quite independently of western
Pentecostalism and even of Azusa Street. In Africa the term would include the majority of
older AICs, those „classical‟ Pentecostals originating in western Pentecostal missions, and
the newer independent churches, „fellowships‟ and „ministries‟ in Africa. It is in this sense
that we refer to these various movements as „newer Pentecostals‟ and of course, the term
„Pentecostal‟ would also apply to a great number of other, older kinds of AICs that
emphasize the Holy Spirit in the church. The „classical‟ or „denominational‟ Pentecostals
(like the Assemblies of God and the Church of God) are also a very active and growing
phenomenon throughout Africa, and undoubtedly played a significant role in the emergence
of some of these new groups. But as these were founded by missionaries mostly from
Western Europe and North America— although with more African involvement in
leadership and financial independence than was the case in most of the older missionary
founded churches—these „classical‟ Pentecostals cannot be regarded primarily as African
initiated movements, even though most of their proliferation was due to the untiring efforts
of African preachers.
Pentecostal churches of western origins have operated in Africa for most of the 20th
Century. Most of these churches trace their historical origins to the impetus generated by
the Azusa Street Revival, which reportedly sent out missionaries to fifty nations within two
years.35[37] The connections between this „classical‟ Pentecostal movement and AICs
throughout Africa have been amply demonstrated.36[38] Some of these „classical‟
Pentecostal churches have become vibrant and rapidly expanding African churches
throughout the continent, in particular the Assemblies of God, which operates in most
35[37] Hollenweger, The Pentecostals, 22-4; Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal
Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids & Cambridge,
1997), 84-106.
36[38] Anderson, African Reformation, chapters 4-7; Allan Anderson & Gerald J. Pillay,
‘The Segregated Spirit: The Pentecostals’, Elphick, Richard & Davenport, Rodney (eds.),
Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social & Cultural History (Oxford: James Currey &
Cape Town: David Philip, 1997), 228-9; Anderson & Hollenweger, 88-92; Anderson,
Bazalwane, 22-4.

16. countries of the Sub-Sahara. It has become a significant, and at least in the case of Burkina
Faso, the largest non-Catholic denomination. But there has also been a predominance of
Pentecostal features and phenomena throughout the history of AICs. Harvey Cox is at least
partly correct to refer to the Apostolic/ Zionist, Lumpa and Kimbanguist churches as „the
African expression of the worldwide Pentecostal movement‟, but these churches do not
usually define themselves in this way. Nevertheless, not enough attention has been given to
this resonance, although Paul Gifford is right to question whether the older AICs can be
regarded as paradigmatic of the Pentecostal movement in Africa.37[39]
The process of „ageing‟ and the proliferation of these new movements now continue
as their founders die (in at least one case) or approach old age. The African Charismatic
churches or „ministries‟ initially tended to have a younger, more formally educated and
consequently more westernized leadership and membership, including young professionals
and middle class urban Africans. In leadership structures, theology and liturgy, these
churches differ quite markedly from both the older AICs and the western mission-founded
churches, Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal alike. Their services are usually emotional and
enthusiastic, and many new churches use accoutrements of modernity: they form bands
with electronic musical instruments, publish their own literature and run their own Bible
training centres for preachers, both men and women, to further propagate their message.
These movements encourage the planting of new independent churches and make use of
schoolrooms, cinemas, community halls and even hotel conference rooms for their revival
meetings. Church leaders sometimes travel the continent and inter-continentally, and some
produce glossy booklets and broadcast radio and television programmes. They are often
linked to wider international networks of independent Charismatic preachers, some of
which, but by no means all, are dominated by North Americans.
These pentecostal churches are, like the older AICs before them, an African
phenomenon, churches which for the most part have been instituted by Africans for
Africans. They are also self-governing, self-propagating and (in some cases to a lesser
extent) self-supporting, and usually they have no organizational links with any outside
37[39] Cox, Fire from Heaven, 246; Gifford, African Christianity, 33.

17. church or denomination. In fact, they may be regarded as „modern versions‟ of older AICs.
Although they differ from the classical AICs in that they do not try as much to offer
solutions for traditional problems, yet they do address the problems faced by AICs, but
offer a radical reorientation to a modern and industrial, global society. Kwabena AsamoahGyadu says that one of the basic differences between the older AICs and the new churches
lies in the fact that in the spiritual churches, „members are the clients of the prophets who
may be the custodians of powers to overcome the ills of life‟. In the new churches,
however, he says that „each believer is empowered through the baptism of the Holy Spirit
to overcome them.‟38[40] It may be argued that in the spiritual churches too, provision is
made for any person to become a prophet and therefore to be a custodian of spiritual power,
and that the difference might not be as great as imagined.
Some of the main methods employed by the new churches are very similar to those
used by most Pentecostals—including door-to-door evangelism, meetings held in homes of
interested inquirers, preaching in trains, buses, on street corners and at places of public
concourse, and „tent crusades‟ held all over the continent.39[41] Access to modern
communications has resulted in the popularizing of western (especially North American)
independent Pentecostal „televangelists‟, several of whom make regular visits to Africa and
broadcast their own television programmes there, public scandals notwithstanding. The
strategies employed by these evangelists have been subject to criticism,40[42] but have had
the effect of promoting a form of Christianity that has appealed especially to the urbanized
and significantly westernized new generation of Africans. Theologically, the new churches
are Christocentric and share an emphasis on the power of the Spirit with other Pentecostals.
38[40] Kwabena J. Asamoah-Gyadu, ‘The Church in the African State: The
Pentecostal/Charismatic Experience in Ghana’, Journal of African Christian Thought, 1:2
(1998), 56.
39[41] This latest expression of African Pentecostalism is to some extent the result of the
popular method of tent evangelism pioneered mainly by North Americans in the 1940s and
1950s (with roots in the nineteenth century revivals). This was continued with considerable
effect by popular South African black Pentecostals Nicholas Bhengu and Richard Ngidi, and
more recently by Nigerian Benson Idahosa and German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke.
40[42] For example, Paul Gifford, ‘Reinhard Bonnke’s mission to Africa, and his 1991
Nairobi crusade’, Gifford, Paul (ed.), New Dimensions in African Christianity (Nairobi: All
Africa Conference of Churches, 1992), 157.

18. A particular focus on personal encounter with Christ (being „born again‟), long periods of
individual and communal prayer, prayer for healing and problems like unemployment and
poverty, deliverance from demons and 'the occult‟ (this term often means traditional beliefs
and witchcraft), the use of spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues and (to a lesser extent)
prophecy—these features more or less characterize all new churches.
The Challenges of the Pentecostal Churches
One of the main criticisms levelled against the new Pentecostal churches is that they
propagate a „prosperity gospel‟, the „Faith‟ or „Word‟ movement originating in North
American independent Charismatic movements, particularly found in the preaching and
writings of Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland. This „health and wealth‟ gospel seems
to reproduce some of the worst forms of capitalism in Christian guise. Paul Gifford has
become a leading exponent on this subject. He suggests that the biggest single factor in the
emergence of these new churches is the collapse of African economies by the 1980s and the
subsequent increasing dependence of the new churches on the USA. He proposes that it is
„Americanization‟ rather than any „African quality‟ that is responsible for the growth of
these churches. He sees this new phenomenon as a type of neo-colonialism propagated by
American „prosperity preachers‟, a sort of „conspiracy theory‟. 41[43] But there is another
side to this scenario. Gifford‟s analysis, which he has modified more recently,42[44] has
been accepted in many church and academic circles. However, it seems to ignore some
fundamental features of Pentecostalism, now predominantly a Third World phenomenon,
where experience and practice are more important than formal ideology or even theology.
As Ogbu Kalu points out, the relationship between the African Pentecostal pastor and his or
her „western patron‟ is entirely eclectic, and the „dependency‟ in fact has been mutual. The
western supporter often needs the African pastor to bolster his own international image and
increase his own financial resources. Kalu observes that in the 1990s, since the public
41[43] Paul Gifford, Christianity and Politics in Doe’s Liberia (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993),196-9, 294, 314-5.
42[44] Gifford, African Christianity, 236-44.

19. disgracing of American „televangelists‟, the mood in Africa has changed, and the
Pentecostal churches are now „characterised by independence and an emphasis on the
Africanist roots of the ministries‟.43[45] Daneel points out that in traditional Africa,
„wealth and success are naturally signs of the blessing of God‟, so it is no wonder that such
a message should be uncritically accepted there—and this is as true for the newer AICs as it
is for the older ones.44[46] There are connections between some of the new churches and
the American „health and wealth‟ movement, and it is also true that many of the new
African churches reproduce and promote „health and wealth‟ teaching and literature. But
identifying these churches with the American „prosperity gospel‟ is a generalization which
particularly fails to appreciate the reconstructions and innovations made by the new African
movements in adapting to a radically different context, just as the older AICs did some
years before.
These churches form a new challenge to the Christian church in Africa. To the
European mission-founded churches, they are demonstrations of a form of Christianity that
appeals to a new generation of Africans, and from which older churches can learn. There
are indications that the new churches increase at the expense of all types of older churches,
including the prophet-healing AICs.45[47] To these older AICs, with whom they actually
have much in common, they are consequently often a source of tension. The new churches
preach against „tribalism‟ and parochial denominationalism. They are often sharply critical
of the older AICs, particularly in what they perceive as the African traditional religious
component of AIC practices, which are sometimes seen as manifestations of demons
needing „deliverance‟.46[48] As a result, older AICs feel hurt and threatened by them. In
addition, the newer churches have to some extent embraced and externalized western
notions of a „nuclear family‟ and individualized, urban lifestyles. This brings them into
43[45] Kalu, ‘Third Response’, 8.
44[46] Inus Daneel, Quest for Belonging (Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1987), 46;
Gifford, Christianity and Politics, 188.
45[47] Gerrie ter Haar, ‘Standing Up for Jesus: a survey of new developments in
Christianity in Ghana’, Exchange 23:3, 1994, 224; Gifford, African Christianity, 62-3, 95, 233.
46[48] Asamoah-Gyadu, ‘The church’, 56; Kalu, ‘Third Reponse’, 8.

20. further tension with African traditional culture and ethnic ties, thereby enabling members to
escape the onerous commitments to the extended family and to achieve success and
accumulate possessions independently.47[49] The new churches also sometimes castigate
„mainline‟ churches for their dead formalism and traditionalism, so the „mainline‟ churches
also feel threatened by them. Commenting on this, Ogbu Kalu makes the salient point:
The established churches usually react in three stages: hostility, apologetics and
adaptation. Institutionalisation breeds late adoption of innovations. We witnessed this
pattern in the response to the Aladura challenge. It is being repeated without any
lessons learnt from history.48[50]
Gifford himself is aware of the problems inherent in a simplistic interpretation of
the newer African Pentecostalism. After discussing Christian fundamentalism in the USA
and the „rapidly growing sector of African Christianity‟ closely related to it, he says that the
American groups operating in Africa „find themselves functioning in a context considerably
different from that in the United States‟.49[51] But perhaps Gifford has not taken this
„considerably different‟ context seriously enough in his substantial analyses of the newer
Pentecostals in Africa. The idea that „prosperity‟ churches in Africa are led by
unscrupulous manipulators greedy for wealth and power does not account for the increasing
popularity of these new churches with educated and responsible people, who continue to
give financial support and feel their needs are met there. Often, those who are „anticharismatic‟ and resent or are threatened by the growth and influence of the newer churches
are the source of these criticisms. Kalu says that in the decade after 1985, the new churches
„blossomed into complex varieties‟ and that in their development, „European influence
became more pronounced‟. But he points out that that in spite of this, „the originators
continued to be African, imitating foreigners, eclectically producing foreign theologies but
47[49] Maxwell, 354.
48[50] Kalu, ‘Third Response’, 3.
49[51] Gifford, African Christianity, 43.

21. transforming these for immediate contextual purposes‟.50[52]
With reference to what is now possibly the largest non-Catholic denomination in
Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa of Ezekiel Guti (ZAOGA), David
Maxwell says that this movement‟s „own dominant prosperity teachings have arisen from
predominantly southern African sources and are shaped by Zimbabwean concerns‟. He says
that the „prosperity gospel‟ is best explained „not in terms of false consciousness or right
wing conspiracy but as a means to enable pentecostals to make the best of rapid social
change‟. ZAOGA‟s teaching of the „Spirit of Poverty‟, for instance, „resonates with ideas of
self-reliance, indigenous business and black empowerment propounded by the ruling party
and state controlled media‟, while at the same time it „successfully explains and exploits
popular insecurities‟.51[53] Similarly, Matthews Ojo, who writes extensively on Nigerian
new Pentecostal churches, says that they „are increasingly responding to the needs and
aspirations of Nigerians amid the uncertainty of their political life and the pain of their
constant and unending economic adjustments‟.52[54] It is clear, then, that new churches are
not simply an „Americanization‟ of African Christianity.
Like the churches before them, the new churches have a sense of identity as a
separated and egalitarian community with democratic access to spiritual power, whose
primary purpose is to promote their cause to those outside. These churches see themselves
as the „born again‟ people of God, with a strong sense of belonging to the community of
God‟s people, those chosen from out of the world to witness to the new life they experience
in the power of the Spirit. The cornerstone of their message is this „born again‟ conversion
experience through repentance of sin and submission to Christ, and this is what identifies
them, even to outsiders. Unlike the older AICs, where there tends to be an emphasis on the
prophet figure or principal leader as the one dispensing God‟s gifts to his or her followers,
the new churches usually emphasize the availability and encourage the practice of gifts of
50[52] Kalu, ‘Third Response’, 7.
51[53] Maxwell, 351, 358-9.
52[54] Matthews A.Ojo, ‘The Church in the African State: The Charismatic/Pentecostal
Experience in Nigeria’, Journal of African Christian Thought, 1:2 (1998), 25.

22. the Holy Spirit by all of their members. The emergence of these churches at the end of the
20th Century indicates that there are many unresolved questions facing African Christianity,
such as the role of „success‟ and „prosperity‟ in God‟s economy, enjoying God and his
gifts, including healing and material provision, and the holistic dimension of „salvation‟
which is always meaningful in an African context. Asamoah-Gyadu believes that the
„greatest virtue‟ of the „health and wealth‟ gospel for the new churches lies in „the
indomitable spirit that believers develop in the face of life‟s odds.... In essence, misfortune
becomes only temporary‟.53[55] The „here-and-now‟ problems being addressed by new
churches in modern Africa are not unlike those faced by the older AICs decades before, and
these problems still challenge the church as a whole today. They remind us of the age-old
conviction of Africa that for any faith to be relevant and enduring, it must also be
experienced. These are some of the lessons from African Pentecostalism, of which the new
churches are their latest exponents.
Pentecostals in Africa proclaim a pragmatic gospel that seeks to
address practical needs like sickness, poverty, unemployment,
loneliness, evil spirits and sorcery. In varying degrees and in their many
and varied forms, and precisely because of their inherent flexibility,
these Pentecostals attain an authentically indigenous character which
enables them to offer answers to some of the fundamental questions
asked in their own context. A sympathetic approach to local culture and
the retention of certain cultural practices are undoubtedly major reasons
for their attraction, especially for those millions overwhelmed by
urbanisation with its transition from a personal rural society to an
impersonal urban one. At the same time, Pentecostals confront old
views by declaring what they are convinced is a more powerful
protection against sorcery and a more effective healing from sickness
than either the existing churches or the traditional rituals had offered.
Healing, guidance, protection from evil, and success and prosperity are
53[55] Asamoah-Gyadu, ‘The church’, 55.

23. some of the practical benefits offered to faithful members of Pentecostal
churches. Although Pentecostals do not have all the right answers or are
to be emulated in all respects, the enormous and unparalleled
contribution made by Pentecostals to alter the face of African
Christianity is to be recognised.
© 2000 Allan Anderson
References Cited
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25. ter Haar, Gerrie, ‘Standing Up for Jesus: a survey of new developments in Christianity in Ghana’,
Exchange 23:3, 1994
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54[7] Dempster, Klaus & Petersen, 219-20.
55[19] The older terms ‘African Independent Church’ and ‘African Indigenous Church’ have
been substituted more recently with ‘African Initiated Church’ or ‘African Instituted Church’,
all using the now familiar acronym ‘AIC’.
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