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Pentecostalism: The World their ParishEncouragement & warningPENTECOSTALISM: This book gives us an appraisal of the phenomenon of the growth of Pentecostalism in different world-regions. The author is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, and his book is essentially an academic study. However, the author writes with a real sympathy with the people he is describing, though without disclosing his own beliefs. Inevitably, he touches on theological issues. Just as inevitably readers will find themselves agreeing or disagreeing with him. The book explores the features of Pentecostal growth in North America and Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia and amongst indigenous peoples. In each case, while it ranges over major themes, it also gives a mass of fascinating detail. One of the focal points of the study is the fruits of their beliefs not only in the individuals but also in the communities they form. And it looks beyond that to the influence those communities are having on the societies within which they live. One of his themes is the ambiguities to be found in these communities, and the extreme social instability in which they live. Many of these ambiguities are the tensions with which all Christians live, in relating to the world around us. Some find extreme expression in the conditions of profound social change that Pentecostalism experiences in, e.g., Latin America. Why might you find this book useful, if you are neither a sociologist nor a Pentecostal?! In spite of the book's title, many of its observations apply more widely. So at times the author writes of 'Protestants', 'Evangelicals', etc. And, in fact, many would be repeated in any Christian group in similar circumstances. We can find both encouragement and warning here. It is encouraging to read of communities of people whose changed lifestyles commend the gospel to a watching world. They have in some cases begun to influence their wider societies. These people, many of them converted from godless backgrounds, are having to distinguish between wrong features of their past lives and those that are merely cultural. We, too, can easily isolate ourselves from the world we want to reach behind walls of irrelevant customs and traditions. As an academic work within a specific discipline, the book includes a fair amount of academic jargon, and the layman might make heavy weather of it. But this reviewer found enough that was both intelligible and fascinating to make him want to re-read it! Robin Wells© Evangelicals Now - April 2002 |