From the time she was a teenager until 2002, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin attended a church affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal Christian denomination in the U.S. Pentecostalism emphasizes such practices as speaking in tongues, prophesying, divine healing and other miraculous signs of the Holy Spirit, which it believes are as valid today as they were in the early Christian church.

Prominent Democrats, including CEO of the Democratic National Convention Committee Leah Daughtry and Director of Religious Affairs for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign Joshua Dubois, also are associated with Pentecostal Christianity. The Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in the summer of 2007, makes it possible to examine the demographic, religious and political characteristics of Pentecostals in the United States.

As the Landscape Survey explains in detail, Protestantism can be broken down into three traditions: the evangelical, mainline and historically black church traditions. Pentecostals account for significant numbers within both evangelical and historically black Protestant churches. Taken together, Pentecostals make up 4.4% of the adult population.¹ But they account for 8.5% of all Protestants, including 13% of members of evangelical churches and 14% of members of historically black churches.

Pentecostals display very high levels of religious commitment on such questions as frequency of church attendance. For instance, evangelical Pentecostals are more likely than evangelicals overall — and much more likely than U.S. adults overall — to report attending worship services at least once a week or praying on a daily basis. Pentecostals within both evangelical and historically black churches also are more likely than others in their traditions to report holding a literal view of the Bible, or experiencing or witnessing divine healings.

Pentecostals are more likely than other members of evangelical and historically black churches to express conservative views on abortion and homosexuality. But evangelical Pentecostals are more likely than other evangelicals to prefer a bigger government providing more services over a smaller government providing fewer services. And among members of historically black churches, Pentecostals are noticeably less Democratic than others in this tradition.

Demographics

Pentecostal denominations are racially, socially and geographically diverse. Roughly two-thirds of Pentecostals in the evangelical tradition are white (67%), 19% are Latino and 7% are black. Evangelical Pentecostalism includes significantly fewer whites and many more Latinos compared with evangelical denominations as a whole (81% white and 7% Latino). Pentecostals within historically black churches also are more racially diverse compared with the historically black church tradition overall. Roughly two-thirds of those who belong to historically black Pentecostal denominations are black (68%), compared with 92% of members of these churches overall. Together, white (14%) and Latino (13%) Pentecostals account for more than one out of every four members of historically black churches.

Economically, evangelical Pentecostals tend to earn lower incomes and have less education compared with the public overall and with other evangelicals. Nearly half of evangelical Pentecostals (45%) report annual household incomes of less than $30,000, and 27% say they have attained less than a high school education. Among evangelicals overall, the comparable figures are 34% and 16%. Members of black Pentecostal churches also tend to earn lower incomes and to have less education compared with the public overall. But economic and educational differences between Pentecostals and other members of historically black churches tend to be smaller.

Geographically, Pentecostalism is centered in the southern United States; majorities of evangelical Pentecostals (52%) and members of black Pentecostal churches (52%) reside in the South, as do 50% of evangelicals overall and 60% of members of historically black churches overall.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

On a variety of measures, Pentecostals within evangelical and historically black churches evince very high levels of religious commitment. Nearly seven-in-ten evangelical Pentecostals report attending religious services at least once a week, significantly higher than evangelicals overall (58%) and the public overall (39%).

Among members of black Pentecostal churches, three-quarters say they attend church at least once a week, higher than the 59% of all members of historically black churches who attend religious services this regularly.

Overwhelming majorities of Pentecostals within both traditions also say that religion is very important to them (86% among evangelical Pentecostals, 85% among members of black Pentecostal churches). Large majorities also say they are absolutely certain that God exists (90 and 91%, respectively), and report praying on a daily basis (83% and 79%, respectively). Differences on these measures between Pentecostals and other members of the evangelical and historically black traditions tend to be relatively small.

Pentecostals within both traditions are more distinctive when it comes to views of the Bible and receiving answers to prayer, and especially when it comes to speaking in tongues and experiences with divine healings. Overall, more than two-thirds of evangelical Pentecostals (68%) say they believe the Bible to be the literal word of God, making this group more likely than evangelicals overall (59%) to take this point of view, and more than twice as likely as the public as a whole (33%) to express this belief. Three-quarters of members of black Pentecostal churches (74%) see the Bible as the literal word of God — even higher than the 62% of members of historically black churches overall who interpret the Bible literally.

Nearly half of evangelicals (46%) say that they receive a direct answer to a specific prayer request at least once a month, as do 50% of members of historically black churches, setting these two traditions apart from the public overall (31%). But Pentecostals are even more likely than other evangelicals to report receiving answers to their prayers (57% do so at least monthly), while a majority of members of black Pentecostal churches also report having their prayers answered regularly (56%).

Large numbers of Pentecostals report having experienced or witnessed a divine healing of an illness or injury (74% among those in the evangelical tradition, 75% among those in the historically black tradition). Overall, members of evangelical and historically black churches are much less likely to have experienced a miraculous healing (50% and 54%, respectively); the comparable figure among the public overall is lower still (34%).

Speaking in tongues also is a relatively common practice among Pentecostals in both traditions. Nearly four-in-ten (38%) evangelical Pentecostals say they speak or pray in tongues at least once a month. Roughly comparable numbers of members of black Pentecostal churches also speak or pray in tongues monthly (35%). This is a much less common practice among other members of evangelical and historically black churches; overall, more than three-quarters of evangelicals (77%) and nearly seven-in-ten members of historically black churches (69%) say that they never speak or pray in tongues.

Religion and Politics

Pentecostals express socially conservative views on both abortion and homosexuality. More than seven-in-ten evangelical Pentecostals say that abortion should be illegal in all (35%) or most (38%) cases. They are joined in this view by two-thirds of members of black Pentecostal churches (38% say abortion should be illegal in all cases, 28% say it should be illegal in most cases). By comparison, evangelicals (61% of whom oppose abortion) and members of historically black churches (46% oppose) generally are somewhat less likely to oppose abortion.

Roughly seven-in-ten evangelical Pentecostals (71%) say that homosexuality is a way of life that should be discouraged by society, as do more than six-in-ten members of black Pentecostal churches (61%). The comparable numbers for all members of evangelical and historically black churches are 64% and 46%, respectively.

Pentecostals tend to be more liberal, however, when it comes to their views about government’s role in the economy. Half of evangelical Pentecostals (50%), for instance, say they would prefer a bigger government that provides more services, while only 37% express support for a smaller government providing fewer services.

This puts them at odds with evangelicals as a whole who tend to favor smaller government over larger government (48% vs. 41%). Two-thirds of members of black Pentecostal churches favor a bigger government providing more services, as do 72% of members of historically black churches overall.

Six-in-ten evangelical Pentecostals also say government should do more to help the needy, even if it means going deeper into debt, while fewer than three-in-ten (29%) say that government cannot afford to do more to help the needy. Among evangelicals as a whole, 57% say that government should do more for the needy. Support for increased aid to the poor is even higher within historically black churches; 76% of Pentecostals in these churches say that government should do more for the needy, as do 79% of members of these churches overall.

Just as they are supportive of an active role for government in the economy, Pentecostals are just as supportive as other religious groups of an active role for religion in politics and public life.

A 2006 survey by the Pew Forum found, for instance, that 79% of Pentecostals believe that religious groups should express their views on day-to-day social and political matters, and 87% agree that it is important for political leaders to have strong religious beliefs. The comparable figures for the general public are 61% and 63%, respectively. In the realm of foreign affairs, the same 2006 survey found strong support for Israel among American Pentecostals, with six-in-ten saying they sympathized more with Israel than with the Palestinians in the Middle East conflict, nearly 20 points higher than the public overall.

Despite the similarities in their views on social issues and the role of government, Pentecostal members of evangelical and historically black churches are very different in their partisan preferences.

Evangelical Pentecostals tend to favor the Republican Party; when surveyed in the summer of 2007, 45% described themselves as Republicans or said they lean toward the Republican Party, while 35% favored the Democratic Party.

Members of black Pentecostal churches, by contrast, overwhelmingly favored the Democratic over the Republican Party (60% vs. 23%). It is interesting to note, however, that members of black Pentecostal churches are noticeably less Democratic than members of historically black churches overall (60% vs. 77%).

While a plurality of members of black Pentecostal churches (41%) describe their political views as conservative, this group is less conservative than their Pentecostal counterparts in the evangelical tradition (57%). Relatively few Pentecostals in either tradition describe themselves as political liberals.

Read more about religion and the campaign at pewforum.org/religion08/.

Notes

¹ Although this analysis focuses exclusively on members of Pentecostal churches and denominations, the influence of Pentecostal beliefs and practices is actually much larger than these numbers suggest. Many “charismatic” members of non-Pentecostal denominations and traditions, including Catholicism, have adopted certain ideas, beliefs and forms of worship from Pentecostalism. The Pew Forum’s “Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals” report includes more information about the global reach of this movement.

Pope John Paul II travels through a shower of confetti in his popemobile during a 1980 visit to Brazil. Photo: RNS

When Pope Benedict XVI lands in São Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport on May 9, he will encounter a religious landscape very different from the one that confronted his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, on his first visit to Brazil nearly three decades ago, in 1980.

Brazil is still the world’s most Catholic country, at least in raw demographic terms, but it is also fast becoming one of the world’s most pentecostal countries – with a rapidly growing number of seculars as well. Not surprisingly, as the pope kicks off the fifth general conference of the Latin American bishops on May 13, near São Paolo at Aparecida, the influence of secular values and the dramatic growth of pentecostal ‘sects” will be high on the agenda.

Brazil is the most populous country in Latin America and the fifth most populous overall, with about 180 million people. Moreover, it boasts a Roman Catholic population of about 130 million, according to the latest national census in 2000, making Brazil the largest Catholic country in the world. However, a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that Catholic dominance is steadily eroding. Unlike in Europe, where the majority of former Catholics have simply become secular, in Brazil, many are turning to pentecostalism.

The national census paints a stark picture. As late as 1980, the same year that 1.5 million people greeted Pope John Paul II in São Paulo during his two-week visit to Brazil, the overwhelming number of Brazilians, 89%, still self-identified as Catholic. By the time of the 2000 census, however, the Catholic share of the population had dropped by more than 15 percentage points, to 74%. In Brazil’s rapidly growing urban areas, where three-quarters of Brazilians now live, the Forum’s recent survey found that the decline is even more precipitous. Less than 60% of the urban population now claims a Catholic affiliation, according to the survey, which was released in October 2006.

The Forum survey also shows that many of these former Catholics are becoming Protestants, more specifically, pentecostals. The 2000 Brazilian census puts the share of the Protestant population at slightly more than 15% – three times what it was when the first Latin American bishops conference convened in 1955, also in Brazil. Our survey reveals that the vast majority of these Protestants, roughly three-in-four, are in fact pentecostals. A majority (62%) of the respondents in the survey who said they are pentecostal also indicated they were converts, and of these, nearly three-in-four said they had once been Catholic. At the same time, a growing number of Brazilians seem to be abandoning formal religion altogether; the number of religiously nonaffiliated jumped from 1.6% in 1980 to 7.4% in 2000.

The impact of the pentecostal movement in Brazil extends beyond its burgeoning demographic numbers. In fact, it’s not far-fetched to say that Christianity in Brazil and other Latin American countries is well on its way to becoming “pentecostalized.” Pentecostal beliefs and practices also are changing the way many of Brazil’s remaining Catholics practice their faith. The Forum survey found, for example, that more than half of Brazilian Catholics have embraced important elements of spirit-filled or renewalist Christianity, including a highly animated worship style and such practices as speaking in tongues and divine healing. In short, pentecostalism no longer is something confined outside the Roman Catholic Church; it is now firmly within it in the form of various charismatic tendencies and movements.

The rapid growth of pentecostal and related renewalist movements has not been lost on the pope nor on the Latin American bishops. In a February address to the papal representatives to Latin America, for instance, the pope listed the problem of proselytism from sects as among the major challenges facing the Catholic Church in that region. The Latin American bishops also are placing a high priority on this issue. Accordingly, the director of the press office of the Latin American bishops, Father David Gutiérrez, explained in a Vatican interview in January that the re-evangelizing of Catholics is the overriding concern of the May 13–31 summit. “The conference will initiate an evangelizing dynamic of renewal of Catholics in Latin America,” according to Gutiérrez. “It is the novelty of this 5th conference.”

There appears to be a change in tone in the run-up to the Aparecida meeting with respect to the church’s approach to the challenge of the ‘sects.” In his opening address to the fourth general conference of Latin American bishops, which was held in the Dominican Republic in 1992, the normally ecumenical Pope John Paul II condemned pentecostal and other sects as “rapacious wolves” who are devouring Latin American Catholics and “causing division and discord in our communities.”

This time the official emphasis appears to have shifted to self-criticism and internal reform, with an eye to drawing former Catholics back into the fold. “[S]ects are not the problem – our believers are the problem,” Gutiérrez declared in January. “Why is there weakness? Why don’t they remain firm in the faith in the face of any proposal?” It remains to be seen whether this change in tone will result in a fundamental change in strategy. As Gutiérrez himself acknowledged, “It is not clear how this mission will unfold.”

The growth in pentecostal ranks is attracting high-level attention not only from Catholic officials but from politicians as well. In the last presidential election in Brazil, for example, left-of-center President Lula da Silva strongly courted the pentecostal vote. And in the last Brazilian Congress, some 10%of the 600 delegates were evangelicals, mostly pentecostals. This pattern of increased political participation is one that is being repeated throughout Latin America.

Politicians are paying attention not only because of the growth of pentecostalism across the region but also because of pentecostals’ growing political involvement. Indeed, one of the most significant findings of the Forum’s 10-country survey of pentecostals was the extent to which pentecostals had turned political in their orientation – which surprised those who still retain an older image of a largely apolitical movement. The survey found that in most countries, including Brazil, pentecostals are at least as likely as other Christians to support religious involvement in politics and public life.

Pentecostalism’s expansion and growing political influence have important implications for the religious and political dynamics of countries such as Brazil. One concern is the issue of interreligious tension. Despite holding many of the same conservative views on a wide variety of moral and social issues, there continues to be deep suspicion between Catholic and pentecostal communities, with each frequently criticizing the other.

This suspicion sometimes breaks out into open hostility, as in a 1995 incident in which a minister of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, the country’s largest indigenous pentecostal denomination, kicked a statue of Our Lady of Aparecida (considered among the most sacred icons by Brazilian Catholics) on a nationally broadcast television program. In addition to being the venue for the upcoming Latin American bishops conference, Aparecida is the site of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, which attracts some 8 million pilgrims a year.

Some called the storm of protest that followed a small “holy war,” with formal legal complaints filed against the minister in question for disrespecting religious freedom. Reflecting the tensions associated with this and other incidents, the Forum survey found that more than 60%of Brazilian pentecostals and Catholics describe conflict between religious groups as a very big problem in their country. A similar number said they can trust people from other religions only a little or not at all.

Some features of the pentecostal movement may help explain some of the friction with the established religious order. To put it simply, pentecostals are nothing if not aggressive when it comes to evangelism. The Forum survey shows, for example, that pentecostals are much more likely than other Christian groups to believe that they have a duty to convert others (the figure for pentecostals is 72%, compared with only 29% for Catholics). This sense of duty is reinforced by a strong confidence born of their belief that God intervenes supernaturally in the day-to-day lives of believers, including such powerful ways as through divine healings and direct revelations. They also believe very strongly in the second coming of Christ, which only reinforces their sense of urgency.

The Brazil that Pope John Paul II visited in 1980 presented the Catholic Church with a host of challenges, including an authoritarian military regime that the Catholic hierarchy had long opposed. Regardless of the challenges, however, the Catholic Church was assured that it confronted them from a secure position as the country’s dominant religious authority. Unquestionably, however, the political, religious and economic changes that have occurred in Brazil since 1980 have helped weaken the church’s once unquestioned dominance.

The challenge facing Pope Benedict XVI and the Latin American bishops as they gather in Aparecida will be to ensure that the Catholic Church remains a vital part of the Brazilian social and political scene, even in the midst of a more competitive and fractious religious environment. It may well be that coming to terms with the growth of ‘sects,” especially pentecostalism, will enable the Catholic Church to become a more effective religious competitor in the future.

Despite the rapid growth of the renewalist movement in the last few decades, relatively little is known about the religious, political and civic views of individuals involved in these groups. To address this shortcoming, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, with generous support from the Templeton Foundation, recently conducted surveys in 10 countries with sizeable renewalist populations: the United States; Brazil, Chile and Guatemala in Latin America; Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa in Africa; and India, the Philippines and South Korea in Asia. In each country, surveys were conducted among a random sample of the public at large, as well as among oversamples of pentecostals and charismatics.

The largest charismatic populations are in Brazil (34% of the population), Guatemala (40%) and the Philippines (40%). In several other countries, including the U.S., Chile, Kenya and South Africa, approximately one-in-five people are charis-matic. Taken together, these findings confirm that members of renewalist movements can be found in sizeable numbers throughout the world.

In six of the 10 countries (all except the U.S., South Africa, the regions of India surveyed and South Korea), the surveys find that renewalists account for a majority of the overall Protestant population. Indeed, in five nations (Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Kenya and the Philippines) more than two-thirds of Protestants are either pentecostal or charismatic. In Nigeria, renewalists account for six-in-ten Protestants.

Renewalist Religion

The surveys find that certain religious experiences and practices differentiate pentecostals, and, to a lesser degree, charismatics, from other Christians. In seven of the 10 countries surveyed, for instance, at least half of pentecostals say that the church services they attend frequently include people practicing the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues, prophesying or praying for miraculous healing. These types of services are less common, but still relatively prevalent, among charismatics. By contrast, in most of the countries surveyed, only small numbers of non-renewalist Christians report attending religious services where these sorts of religious experiences occur.

While many renewalists say they attend religious services where speaking in tongues is a common practice, fewer say that they themselves regularly speak or pray in tongues. In fact, in six of the 10 countries surveyed, at least four-in-ten pentecostals say they never speak or pray in tongues.

In all 10 countries surveyed, large majorities of pentecostals (ranging from 56% in South Korea to 87% in Kenya) say that they have personally experienced or witnessed the divine healing of an illness or injury. In eight of the countries (India and South Korea are the exceptions) majorities of pentecostals say that they have received a direct revelation from God.

Pentecostals around the world also are quite familiar with exorcisms; majorities in seven of the 10 countries say that they personally have experienced or witnessed the devil or evil spirits being driven out of a person. Generally, fewer charismatics, and even fewer other Christians, report witnessing these types of experiences.

Intensity of Belief

Renewalists also stand out for the intensity of their belief in traditional Christian doctrines and practices. For instance, in eight of the 10 countries surveyed (all except the U.S. and Chile), majorities of non-renewalist Christians believe that the Bible is the word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word; but this view is even more common among pentecostals than among non-renewalist Christians. Similarly, large majorities of all Christians, renewalists and non-renewalists alike, believe that miracles still occur today as in ancient times. But this belief tends to be even more intense among pentecostals and, to a lesser extent, charismatics than among non-renewalist Christians.

Pentecostals also stand out, especially compared with non-renewalist Christians, for their views on eschatology, or “the end times.” In six countries, at least half of pentecostals believe that Jesus will return to earth during their lifetime. And the vast majority of pentecostals (more than 80% in each country) believe in “the rapture of the Church,” the teaching that before the world comes to an end the faithful will be rescued and taken up to heaven. This belief is less common (though still widely shared) among charismatics, who, in turn, tend to express higher levels of belief in the rapture than do other Christians.

Pentecostals also make a concerted effort to share their faith with non-believers. In eight of the 10 countries surveyed, majorities of pentecostals say they share their faith with non-believers at least once a week. Pentecostals’ frequent attempts to spread the faith are consistent with their widespread belief that faith in Jesus Christ represents the exclusive path to eternal salvation; in every country surveyed except South Korea, at least 70% of pentecostals completely agree that belief in Jesus is the only way to be saved from eternal damnation.

Although renewalists are focused on spiritual matters, many also say there is a role for religion in politics and public life. In nine of the 10 countries surveyed, for instance, at least half of pentecostals say that religious groups should express their views on day-to-day social and political questions; support for this position is equally widespread among charismatics. In every country surveyed, furthermore, renewalists are at least as likely as others to express this view. Majorities of renewalists in every country surveyed say that it is important to them that their political leaders have strong Christian beliefs. In six of the 10 countries, at least three-quarters of pentecostals share this view.

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.

Read a primer on Pentecostalism’s origins and tenets

This month marks the 100th anniversary of what is often viewed as the beginning of the modern pentecostal movement on America’s West Coast. From its origins in a previously abandoned African Methodist Episcopal Church on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, Calif., pentecostalism has emerged as the fastest-growing Christian movement in the world. The movement emphasizes the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including speaking in tongues, miraculous healing and spiritual renewal. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, adherents to pentecostalism and its related “spirit-filled” or renewalist faiths now number more than 500 million, comprising about a quarter of world Christianity, an exponential increase from 30 years ago when only 6 percent of the world’s Christians fit these classifications. Pentecostalism’s rapid growth in Latin America and Africa has led to tensions with other Christian and non-Christian communities.

To provide up-to-date insights on the many facets of this fast-growing religious movement, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life interviewed Dr. Donald Miller of the University of Southern California in conjunction with a roundtable on pentecostalism the Forum co-sponsored with the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. In this interview, Dr. Miller discusses the birth and evolution of pentecostalism and the implications of the movement for social change and international politics, especially in the developing world.